Controversial Use of AI-powered Robot by SPCA in San Francisco: A Question of Harm Prevention and Responsible AI Governance
November 15, 2017
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) deployed a Knightscope robot, designed to patrol public areas autonomously. Its purpose was to deter homeless individuals outside its office. However, this move faced criticism as an intimidation tactic and was ordered by San Francisco city authorities to cease operation on a public right-of-way. This AI incident maps to the Govern function in HISPI Project Cerebellum Trusted AI Model (TAIM).JOIN US
- Alleged deployer
- society-for-the-prevention-of-cruelty-to-animals
- Alleged developer
- knightscope
- Alleged harmed parties
- san-francisco-homeless-people
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/261
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.