As long as Bum Bot follows the Three Laws, then what's the big deal?

If that thing attacked or harrassed me, it'd be lying on it's side, wires yanked, wheels stripped.

Not really a practical deterrent without legal force behind i.

There are many situations in which a robot like this could be very very useful. Take the grape crop during harvest season. Birds are very much a problem, and a robot which could target birds would be very helpful indeed.

I think the professor may be overemphasizing the negative here. While I don't have any statistical data showing how many positive robot models vs negative robot models exist in fiction. I can think of a large number of good robots/droids (let's be honest, in the general world people think they are the same thing)

Off the top of my head there is R2 D2, C 3PO, Rosie from the Jetsons, Tweekie on Buck Rogers, even in the world of the terminator we have more examples of Arnold playing a good terminator (T2 and T3) than a bad one not to mention Summer Glau from Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The first big Robot star, Robbie from Forbidden Planet, was fairly benevolent. Gort in Day the Earth stood still was only protecting his "human" master.

Even the Cylons have undergone a conversion from simple evil killing machines to complex characters.

In last years transformers, we barely had any involvement with the decepticons and the primary characters were Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.

In the Iron Giant the robot saves the town from being nuked.

And pretty soon Pixar's Wal-E will have the entire planet ready to embrace our robot overlords with loving hands.

And by the way - has anyone else noticed how much Wal-E looks like Johnny 5?

How American.

I recall an episode of MST3K where Gypsy, Crow and Tom Servo reverently recite Asimov's Three Laws - and then burst out laughing uncontrollably.

Still miss that show.

Right there with you.

Bet it burns nice.

BumBot is not a robot. It's a waldo, a remotely operated vehicle. And as such, the operator makes all decisions and pulls any triggers... from the safety of his hideout. Therefore, it can only give its operator a bad name. Do B-1 bombers give jet airplanes a bad name?

And on a related peeve, the dumbing down of the term "robot" is following the dilution of terms like "virtual reality" and "artificial intelligence." These terms all used to mean something else -- but the desire to associate any nascently-related technology with the ultimate potential state of the art has lead to calling molehills "mountains."

The fault, I hate to say, is with the city's lawmakers, and to a smaller extent, the police for ignoring the often chronic problem of aggressive panhandler and vagrants.

Its much easier for the lawmaker not to deal with this kind of problem. Usually the citizens and business owners who are being hurt by vagrants and aggressive panhandlers (part time muggers) are not a large enough voting block to hurt a local politicians and as a result the politicians take the easy rout and do nothing. So as a result we get the powerless bar owner doing batshit crazy stuff like building a robot to attack people.

Don't get me wrong, the first person a robot like that attacks that bar owner should be thrown in jail and the victim sue him for all he's worth... you can't just attack people on the public streets just because they piss you off, rightfully or not. ... could you imagine.

Would we have a robot arms race? In 20 years the streets might finally look like one of those Japanese cartoons where everyone fights in giant robot suits.

Autobots attack!

Robots against Humans, the way God intended. To be accurate, as another letter writer pointed out, the Bum Bot is a waldo, not a robot, but it wouldn't be too hard to make it a robot with some extra programming. I really don't think it will be long until there is a robot on human fatality; some descendent of the bum bot mixed with the Roomba is going to knock someone down some stairs, run over them, etc. Not just an accident, but an active, programming induced murder. Then we really get into legal/moral/existential trouble. Hell, add some Roomba programming and a gun to this one, and you get lots of dead bodies.

It's a lot like the T-1 from Terminator 3.

If it's remote controlled by a man, sends back video to the man, and acts as a transmitter for the man speaking...this is not a robot, it's a remote-controlled tank.

Vlad the impaler once invited all the poor, the destitute and the starving to a vast banquet. Once they were inside he had the doors sealed shut, stuffed the interiour with straw and then burned them all alive.

Within a few years he had just as many poor people as he started with.

If only he had had a robot.

This bar owner is a bully and a criminal. His demented energies would be better directed at social change.

Where are they supposed to go anyway?

...what in the hell would stop the vagrants from smashing the shite outta this 'lil friggin' feeb R2D2? It's got one water cannon...and if I felt genrally missionless...I'd sacrifice this friggin antagonizing Tweegy to the God of my misfortune...and then make it a point to f^%@ (moreso?) w/ the prick who thrust it on me.

Will get high and protest your Bum Bot furiously.

And it makes for a nice fluff piece on Entertainment Tonight. Give me thirty seconds with a baseball bat and it's back to the drawing board.

I read this story on a less biased and more accurate site. It seems that drug users were leaving needles and paraphenalia in the yard of the day care across the street, and he'd had three break ins where armed thugs threatened him. It's not just for moving homeless around.

I do believe it has more weapons on it than just water. The big thing is actually the video. The police had used the video before.

Bottom line is that it wouldn't be justified if the police were patrolling, if there were enough slots for drug rehab and enough mental health services. I remember when we did NOT have homeless in the street, when the mentally ill had services. WIthout those things, the man and the neighbors have a right to self-defense.

I can not hate on the man. If it makes him feel safer, go for it. If it drives the dealers away (and the video seems to do that, although differing reports say an additional bat or pipe on it), more power to him.

Personally, I'd think that a .357 or a .45 would take it out. You usual dealer does not have .357s. They use cheaper guns. Guess inflation has hit those asshats, too.