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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Matt Katz, reporter in the WNYC Newsroom, and I'm filling in for Brian today. Big news out of the NYPD this week. Robots are joining the police force, three different kinds of crime-fighting robots, and they do not come cheap. We have a clip from the announcement. Let's play it.

Speaker 2: We get the best of both worlds. The fastest reflexes modern technology has to offer, onboard computer-assisted memory, and a lifetime of on-the-street law enforcement programming. It is my great pleasure to present to you RoboCop.

Matt Katz: Sorry. That was the trailer for the 1987 film RoboCop. As Brian would say, haha. For real this time, here's Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: We are scanning the globe on finding technology that would ensure this city is safe for New Yorkers, visitors, and whomever is here in this city. This is the beginning of a series of rollouts we are going to do to show how public safety has transformed itself.

Matt Katz: Joining me now to talk about the new robots who are joining the police force, is Samantha Max, my colleague on the WNYC and Gothamist Public Safety desk. Good morning, Sam. Thanks for doing this.

Samantha Max: Hi, Matt.

Matt Katz: Listeners, how do you feel about robots doing law enforcement functions on the streets of New York City, and how do you feel about paying for it? Give us a call, our number-- I should know our number since I'm guest-hosting, Samantha. Our number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also tweet us @BrianLehrer. Samantha, you were out there at the press conference this week where Mayor Adams unveiled these robots. Tell us about them. There are three of them. What do they do and how much do they cost?

Samantha Max: Yes. There are three different kinds. The first, which New Yorkers might already know, is called the Digidog. It is a robot that looks like a dog. It can walk around, it can trot. The police department had tried out this robot a couple of years ago, but then there was a video that went viral showing the Digidog running through a public housing complex and there was a huge public outcry. The police department canceled its contract and now it's back.

Eric Adams says Digidog is, "out of the pound." The police department spent $750,000 on two of these devices that's coming out of forfeiture money. That's money that's seized in the process of prosecuting a crime. That's going to be used for things like if there's a bomb threat or if there's a hostage situation, basically situations that are dangerous and they don't necessarily want to send police officers in right away. They can send in this robot that can walk around and navigate the situation first.

The second robot is called the K5. This robot, it looks like a tiny rocket ship. It is on wheels. If you could imagine a Roomba vacuum, it moves around like that, and it's tricked out with a bunch of cameras, sensors, microphones. It's been used in other parts of the country, especially in buildings that they want to have some sort of-- it's basically like a robot security guard. It can be on the lookout for strange things that are happening, and it is roaming around a confined space. That would be something like a subway station. Then the third--

Matt Katz: Can I ask you about that one?

Samantha Max: Yes.

Matt Katz: That robot would roam around a subway station to look for what? What would be--

Samantha Max: That's the question. I think it'll be hard to know until we actually see it in action, but we have a lot of concerns about safety in the subway system right now. The idea is that right now the subway systems are being flooded with cops. Maybe instead, you could have robots that would be extra eyes and ears in case there's someone who is causing a havoc or fare evasion. I don't even know. We'll really have to see it play out. The police department for that robot, they spent $12,250. It's just a temporary lease while they're piloting the program.

Then the third device, it's called the StarChase. This is something that-- it looks like a gun, and it's used to shoot a GPS-tracking device onto a car. If officers want to keep track of maybe a stolen car, they might see it as they're driving down the road and instead of speeding after it in some high-speed pursuit, they could use this projectile to send the GPS device onto the car and be able to watch it remotely. That is costing the police department $19,550. Again, that is a lease for a temporary trial period.

Matt Katz: They would shoot a projectile at the car. I have so many questions about this. Couldn't it go through a window and cause an accident and bodily injury? Could it hit a individual on the street if the projectile didn't go the right way? Could the device just be removed from the car by the person who's, theoretically, stealing the car? Did these questions come up? Were they answered satisfactorily?

Samantha Max: These questions didn't really come up. It was a pretty quick press conference to show off the robots and then move on, but these are all great questions. If you think about all kinds of police technology, on the one hand, there's the task that it's supposed to accomplish, then on the other hand, there are the ways that it can actually be used or misused.

If you think about tasers, for instance, that's something that is, again, a projectile that police are supposed to be able to shoot in order to stop someone from moving, but we know that a lot of times tasers don't work either because you're at the wrong angle. It doesn't connect to someone's skin in the way that it's supposed to. Again, this is the kind of thing where you would really need the right set of circumstances for officers to be able to aim properly and for everything to work out.

Matt Katz: The Digidog, I want to go back. Is that how you say Digidog? Is that how you say it?

Samantha Max: Digidog, yes. Also known as Spot.

Matt Katz: Spot. Spot, as you mentioned, Mayor de Blasio had tried to bring Spot into the force two years ago, and then they cut him loose. I was reading last night a old clip, and his spokesman said at the time that Spot is creepy, alienating, and sends the wrong message to New Yorkers. Did Adams address the previous backlash and say why Spot is needed now?

Samantha Max: Yes, he said that he's more of a computer geek than de Blasio, and he pretty much criticized people who had caused the uproar that led the police department to stop using this technology. He feels pretty strongly that he thinks it's a good idea. Also, the fire department has been using Digidog more recently, and apparently, they've had some success. I think that also played a role in convincing the NYPD to try out this technology again.

Matt Katz: How is the fire department using Spot?

Samantha Max: I actually don't know. I've reached out to the fire department, and they did not respond to my request.

Matt Katz: I know one advantage of Spot, compared to the robots that dismantle potential bombs, which I think we're all familiar with, is that Spot can go upstairs, which seems like a relative-- it seems like something that could be useful in New York City, but I'm still having trouble picturing exactly what scenarios Spot could be used in, as opposed to having an actual human being approach in a crime scene.

Samantha Max: One example that I read about was there were hostages that had been taken, and the Digidog actually delivered them food. It's the kind of situation where if it's dangerous for police to go in, then you could send in this robot instead. Something else that I'm wondering about is, I spent the last three years reporting on things in Tennessee where we had a lot of guns around and a lot of situations where police were nervous about interacting with folks with guns.

I am curious to see if there are situations like we actually saw with the NYPD just this week, a few situations where someone is armed and they're trying to de-escalate a situation, if maybe you could send in the Digidog. I'm curious to see logistically how these kinds of things would work out, but there are potentially situations where something like this could be used to de-escalate a situation, but on the flip side, some advocates that I spoke to were wondering if the robot could actually escalate situations. Something that the police department had mentioned was sending it into situations with someone who might be in the midst of a mental health crisis, and would a robot put them at ease or would it just scare them and-

Matt Katz: Freak them out.

Samantha Max: -confuse them more?

Matt Katz: For sure. Would the Digidog actually make physical contact with a suspect? That's not really what it does. It can't physically disarm somebody as far as we know.

Samantha Max: I am not aware of those capabilities, but I'll be curious to find out more.

Matt Katz: Let's go to the phone lines, people have some questions and concerns. Edward in the Catskills. Hi, Edward.

Edward: Hi, how's it going?

Matt Katz: Going good, thanks for calling.

Edward: I see this as an extension of something that I think is painfully kept out of the conversation around defund the police, where in terms of funding, the American law enforcement amounts to the third largest military in the world, and I think this is just more of that, no different from our tax dollars going to drone strikes in the Middle East. The only difference is that it's domestic.

Matt Katz: You're talking about the use of new tools and toys and the militarization of police forces, although, as far as we know, these robots would not have the capacity to harm an individual.

Edward: Yes, but I think that that's just a cover for-- because originally, we weren't even going to have these dogs, these robot dogs. I remember it being in the news and then the NYPD got so much backlash that they backed off on that, and then it's back in the conversation again. Why couldn't we think that it could become a more violent thing?

Matt Katz: Thank you very much, Edward, appreciate the call. Samantha, there was some immediate criticism, a handful of liberal council members released a statement after the announcement this week. They said Mayor Adams is choosing to invest in a militarized police force, not evidence-based public safety strategies, they call the robot dogs dystopian, and said money should be spent instead on schools and community spaces. Do the critics have sway here? Do they have power here? It seems that the NYPD will be spared from budget cuts unlike just about every other city agency this year. Once they have the funding, they largely can spend money as they please, they have to answer questions from City Council. Is there any avenue here for this being blocked politically at this point?

Samantha Max: That is a good question. At the end of the day, you are right that it is their budget, and they can spend it as they choose. There are certain protections that are supposed to be in place to at least have more information shared about the technology that the police department uses, and also to sway the policies surrounding how that technology can be used. There is a law that was passed several years ago called The Post Act that requires the police department to create policies for every piece of surveillance technology that it uses, and the public is supposed to have an opportunity to weigh in on those policies.

What has been found, the Office of the Inspector General released a report last fall that found that the police department is technically following the law, but finding ways to scan around it by essentially instead of making a policy for every single individual tool that it uses, it creates these bundled policies where you've got one maybe for audio recording devices. That might cover 5 or 10 different kinds of audio recording devices that they use and they're not individually listing out each one and explaining how each one is used. Since this announcement about the robots came out, a bunch of advocates for more transparency around surveillance are calling for changes to the law to make the requirements stricter for the NYPD.

Matt Katz: Got it, and that's the stop law that they're concerned about, oh, I'm sorry, the post, I mixed up the letters, public oversight of surveillance technology law, right?

Samantha Max: Yes.

Matt Katz: Let's go back to the phone lines [unintelligible 00:14:56] in Flatbush, hi there, are you there?

Speaker 6: Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Matt Katz: Yes, sir. Thank you for calling.

Speaker 6: Hi. I work for the Brooklyn Library and we were just told, I believe last week, about some major cuts. I just think it's insane that the mayor is willing to put so much money on something like this which sounds so ridiculous in a city that is so over policed, with jails that are so overcrowded, with libraries that are closing down all over the city. If you know, if you live in Brooklyn, you might have a library that just close down near you, and meanwhile, this is where the money is going, to some robot dogs because of how cowardly the police are to handle their own situations in person.

Matt Katz: Thank you very much. Appreciate that [unintelligible 00:15:55] Samantha, the robot dog thing really does seem to fit within Mayor Adams' political ideology, which is law enforcement. The key to making sure New York City is on the right track is to make sure the streets are safe, and the way to make sure the streets are safe, is by giving law enforcement all the tools and funding necessary, that he thinks is necessary, even if it means other things like libraries might get forsaken It does seem very Adams like, this robot dog push.

Samantha Max: Yes, Adams is a very staunch supporter of the police. He's a former police officer himself, the first mayor to have that history. The other thing is that this press conference was held in Times Square, it is the tourist hub. As this was happening, there was a crowd of tourists gathering around and ogling at what's happening, and both the mayor and Governor Kathy Hochul have been very outspoken about the need for also tourists to feel safe in New York City.

One of these robots, the K5, is likely going to be deployed to Times Square or to the subway station there. It's also about making tourists feel safe, or this idea that the mayor and governor have talked about, about the perception of safety. Last year, when the governor announced that every single subway car was getting two cameras on it, she was saying, "If it feels like big brother is watching, that's because he is," and this idea that if you have cameras around, maybe people will feel safer." The big question is whether spending all that money on this perception of safety is worth the cost.

Matt Katz: Jane in the Bronx. Hi, Jane.

Jane: Hey, good morning, glad you're covering this. Listen, I was really surprised, Matt, that you started using the terminology from the NYPD and calling this robot thing Spot. That's obviously a term that the NYPD PR people have made up to make us feel like this as a warm and fuzzy creature and not what it actually is, a robot or whatever more neutral terms you want to use. It seemed to me, Samantha, Max, like you did not pick up on that, so I appreciate that. I just want to put out a caution that often, the press just takes police reports, and this is more than just in New York City, and just takes them almost as if they are absolutely true and lets law enforcement completely carry the narrative.

I really, really think and I urge you as journalists to make sure that you push back and you don't just adopt their terminology or their story, if we didn't have video cameras and other mechanisms for people to understand what's really going on with law enforcement. The journalism has not been great on this. We've allowed, we the public, have allowed you the journalists to let the NYPD in New York City often carry the narrative. The journalists, you guys are our backstop against that, so please try to use better terminology and not just accept what's in their press release, it's often not true. The journalists are the ones that finally uncover it.

Matt Katz: Fair enough, Jane.

Jane: No, This thing's a robot, let's call it what it is and see what you guys can dig up about how these are used both maybe in ways that the public would appreciate and in ways that the public will not appreciate.

Matt Katz: Fair enough, Jane, thank you very much. I will say that Samantha's article about this, Gothamist had the dystopian

concerns, the concerns related to surveillance, the concerns related to cost. Maybe, Samantha, this might be helpful actually if you could just talk about how difficult it is to know what police are doing in general and how hard it is for us as reporters to find information about police activity, and therefore, to find information about what these robots might be doing. It's not like we can say, "Hey, by tomorrow, NYPD, give me a list of all the places where you deployed this robot dog yesterday." It's a tough beat to uncover information.

Samantha Max: It is. I will just first say Spot is actually the copyrighted name of this robot that is made by Boston Dynamics. I'm looking at their website right now. That being said, it's a really good point that trying to humanize something that's very much not human is something that we should all be aware of. The thing I will be looking out for is evidence-based research on how this technology works and what the cost-benefit analysis is.

If we think about the technology ShotSpotter, which Mayor Eric Adams is also a big fan of, which is used by police departments across the country, that's a system that can supposedly detect when there are gunshots happening and a lot of times when there are shots fired, people don't call police, so the idea is that this technology can hear it on its own and send police there. There have been several reports that have called into question just how effective that technology is.

I think it is our job as journalists to be asking these tough questions. The difficult thing about reporting on policing and reporting on a massive police department like the NYPD is that it can be very, very difficult to get information. There was actually just a lawsuit filed a couple of weeks ago suing the NYPD for its practices regarding sharing information. They have an incredibly low rate of returning public requests for records that are technically available to the people of New York, but that are not always easy to track down. I definitely have submitted a lot of records requests that have been denied or delayed for very long periods of time.

Matt Katz: I know you have. You are listening to The Brian Lehrer Show. I'm Matt Katz, filling in for Brian today. If you're just joining us, my guest is my colleague Samantha Max, reporter on the public safety desk here at WNYC and Gothamist. We're talking about the NYPD's new robots. We're going to take another one of your calls in just a moment. Samantha, I want to go back to the phone lines. There are a lot of questions and concerns. Let's see, how about Oliver in Ridgewood? Hi, Oliver. Are you there?

Oliver: Basically, I think every example that we've heard about these robots' use, like delivering food to hostages, could all be done by other means. I don't see how that is even close to being worth the amount of money being spent on these. Nobody likes to see them. They're scary. I think it taps into a deep fear that everybody has about accountability, like what if one of these things pushes somebody and they get hurt or die, or once these things do end up becoming weaponized, what happens when one of these things kills somebody, who's accountable? The NYPD already, I think, has made it clear that human rights are not their top concern. I just don't want to see another barrier being put between holding the NYPD accountable and the communities that these tools are going to be used to terrorize.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Oliver. I appreciate it. Samantha, he made two points. First of all, what if they commit some harm and they actually harm an individual? You can't really file a CCRB complaint against the robot, so that's one issue he brought up. The other is the creepiness of them. If people haven't seen videos of the dog, the robot dog, the way it walks, can you describe it? Are you able to describe it at all? It's a little weird.

Samantha Max: Yes, it can move back and forth. It has mobility, but it is a robot, so it is definitely--

Matt Katz: Robot-like.

Samantha Max: Yes, it is robot-like. The other device, the K5, I haven't seen any examples at this point of it harming anyone, but I have seen examples of people harming the robot. There were some reports of one of these robots that was in San Francisco being slathered in barbecue sauce. Another one of these robots being pushed into a pool of water outside of an office building. Since I started tweeting about this robot, I have seen a lot of people talking about how they are looking forward to trying to throw this onto the subway tracks. You also think about, if you get enough New Yorkers together who are not happy about police technology, are they going to be trying to disable or cause damage to these really costly devices?

Matt Katz: Although these things can record, so they can video record, and theoretically, if you were to attack it, that video would be on the cloud somewhere, and they could come and find you.

Samantha Max: That's a good point.

Matt Katz: Samantha Max is my colleague on the WNYC Public Safety Desk. Sam, thanks very much for coming on the show and talking about these robots. I really appreciate it.

Samantha Max: Thanks for having me.

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