Knightscope is a leading developer of autonomous security robots and blue light emergency phones, towers and call boxes made in the USA - innovations designed to protect the places people live, work, study and visit.

Knightscope Autonomous Security Robots & Emergency Communication ...

Knightscope was launched in April 2013 by William Santana Li and Stacy Dean Stephens. The Company was formed in response to the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook, the Boston bombings, and the attacks of 9/11. Knightscope is an advanced security technology company based in Silicon Valley that builds ...

About Knightscope Security Robots & Emergency Communication Services

Knightscope builds Autonomous Security Robots (ASRs) that are patrolling across the country 24/7/365 helping secure the places you live, work, study, and visit.

Knightscope shipped their first robot in 2015. The company has four models of robots, designed for indoor, outdoor, and all terrain uses, as well as a model for stationary use. After several years of operation and several rounds of fundraising, primarily through equity crowdfunding, the company ...

Knightscope - Wikipedia

Knightscope, Inc. is now a publicly traded company on NASDAQ and trades under the ticker symbol &quot;KSCP&quot;. You can trade shares with any typical broker (e.g., Robinhood, E-TRADE, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, etc.). We no longer are accepting private individual investments.

Knightscope | StartEngine

Knightscope specializes in developing autonomous security robots.

Knightscope - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding

✅ Knightscope Caps Off Year with ... 🦾 A #Detroit, #Michigan casino is the 9th property to procure Knightscope’s ASRs under a larger master agreement announced in September with an entertainment company and operator of integrated entertainment, sports content, and ...

Knightscope | LinkedIn

The latest tweets from Knightscope (@iKnightscope)

Knightscope (@iKnightscope) · X

Knightscope, a security startup that deploys 400-pound autonomous robots in office campuses, sports venues, and more, is expanding nationwide. It&#x27;s inking de...

Knightscope Security Robots - First Look - YouTube

Knightscope&#x27;s Autonomous Security Robots (ASRs) help humans better secure the place you work, study and visit. Presently operating across the country 24/736...

Knightscope - Present and Future - YouTube

Other police departments have been successfully using Knightscope’s technologies for years, with one Los Angeles County, California, agency praising the Company for reducing crime in a popular public park. Knightscope offers public safety officials an effective way to augment their agencies, ...

NYPD Launches Knightscope Security Robot Service in Manhattan Subway ...

See the company profile for Knightscope, Inc. (KSCP) including business summary, industry/sector information, number of employees, business summary, corporate governance, key executives and their compensation.

Knightscope, Inc. (KSCP) Company Profile & Facts - Yahoo Finance

Knightscope, Inc. [Nasdaq: KSCP] (&quot;Knightscope&quot; or the &quot;Company&quot;), a leading developer of autonomous security robots and blue light emergency communication systems, today announced that it received a $1.2 million inventory replenishment order for its K1 Call Boxes.

CORRECTING and REPLACING Knightscope Receives Inventory Replenishment ...

Knightscope has 4 employees at their 1 location and $5.63 m in annual revenue in FY 2022. See insights on Knightscope including office locations, competitors, revenue, financials, executives, subsidiaries and more at Craft.

Knightscope Company Profile - Office Locations, Competitors, Revenue, ...

Information on stock, financials, earnings, subsidiaries, investors, and executives for Knightscope. Use the PitchBook Platform to explore the full profile.

Knightscope Company Profile: Stock Performance & Earnings | PitchBook

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Knightscope, Inc. Company Profile | Mountain View, CA

In all, Knightscope uses 6 work email formats. ... Instantly check any Microsoft email. Get free lookups per month. ... HealthPocket, Inc. ... Noosh, Inc. ... Get a Free Account Sign up for a free account. No credit card required. Up to 5 free lookups / month. Search Search over 700 million verified professionals across 35 million companies...

Knightscope Email Format | knightscope.com Emails

Knightscope (NASDAQ: KSCP) is a security technology company. Use the CB Insights Platform to explore Knightscope&#x27;s full profile.

Knightscope - Products, Competitors, Financials, Employees, ...

Knightscope is an advanced security technology company based in Silicon Valley that builds fully autonomous security robots that deter, detect and report. Our long-term ambition is to make the United States of America the safest country in the world. Learn more about us at www.knightscope.com.

Automated with Velodyne | Knightscope | Velodyne Lidar

Knightscope’s long-term ambition is to make the United States of America the safest country in the world

Knightscope

Crowdfunding allows retail investors who are not accredited to invest in early stage companies and get equity in return. This is different than the Kickstarter’s of the world. In Kickstarter campaigns, the backers do not get equity in the company, and often there isn’t even an actual company behind the campaign. Crowdfunding was made possible because of the Jobs Act passed during the Obama administration. A slew of platforms like , & emerged to facilitate crowdfunding. The pros of crowdfunding are that startups had another way to raise funding, if you are a non-accredited investor looking to invest in startups you had a way to do it. The cons included even if the startup you have invested in a successful startup, you might not be able to reap the benefit of making a successful bet because of a lack of investor protection in crowdfunding deals. Republic Start Engine Seed Invest The Didactic Effect: As the crowdfunding platforms increased, the number of companies using crowdfunding for their first or second funding rounds increased over time. Some of the companies like , and successfully raised crowdfunding to million dollars. Move and Knightscope came back to raise multiple rounds as well. Move Knightscope Hacker Noon But for the most part, crowdfunding eluded most angel investors, because of the yet to be found exits. The hottest deals were not happening in crowdfunding platforms but were still facilitated by the traditional angel investing communities. All that is now changed! Recently a new startup “Didactic” founded by Gagan Biyani (co-founder Udemy) & Wes Kao (Co-Founder AltMBA) that they will allow retail investors to invest in their company via crowdfunding. So technically one can invest along sides with Naval Ravikant, Li Jin, Sahil Lavingia, & Austen Allred at a minimum amount of $100. announced It can't get more egalitarian than this. A deal that would be usually limited to high-profile angel investors is now accessible to everyone at a minimum of $100. The Persistence of Didactic Effect: The argument against crowdfunding growth is, this is a one-off phenomenon, but it sets a precedent for the long term change that can be expected. There are very many reasons why more high profile deals will happen using crowdfunding. But the main reason why this will continue to happen is the . negative customer acquisition cost Not all crowdfunding campaigns are successful, meaning not all companies that set out to raise $1M will be able to raise the whole amount. The success depends on the company’s ability to gather a community of small investors around the crowdfunding objective. So naturally, all the companies which have successfully built a community of users are ripe for using crowdfunding as their source of funding. A great example of this is Hacker Noon, a company with 12,000+ freelance writers, that was able to successfully raise $1M from their community and a range of investors. This leads to the approach of how company’s with high signal capacity can look at crowdfunding especially the early-stage consumer-facing ones. For this, look at the company Move. It is a YC company that successfully raised funding through crowdfunding. And part of their success in crowdfunding comes from the fact that they have given huge discounts for their memberships for those who decide to invest in them. The structure of incentives to the investors made it a no brainer deal to invest in. From Move’s perspective, they have acquired customers for their service at negative customer acquisition cost. That means instead of paying to get customers, they got paid for being a customer. A reversal in the direction in which the cash flowed. In any fundraise, there is smart money & dumb money. Now there is a third category “CAC Money”. If you have a compelling service these customers will continue using your product/service. The same logic will work for Didactic as well as it is going to be a cohort-based education company. Irrespective of the details that have not been published, having 5000 retail investors who can be your beta testers and product evangelists helps in taking the company to the next level. These retail investors in the company are potential future customers and evangelists. To summarize: for any company that is looking to build a consumer-facing company or has an existing community behind it structurally will be effectively using crowdfunding not only to raise funds but also to create a core evangelist network for the product. The Didactic Effect is here to stay. P.S: I would like to be known as the person who coined “The Didactic Effect”. This post is originally published here on The Startup Project

How Didactic's Move to Crowdfunding Signals Opportunity for All 

Technology has made its way into different areas of our everyday life, from work and transports to sports and our home. In this thread, the HN team discussed their favorite smart home gadgets and what developments they wish to see available on the market. This thread by Mónica Freitas, Limarc Ambalina, Ellen Stevens, Jack Boreham, Amy Shah and Rohan Dominic occurred in slogging's official #technology channel, and has been edited for readability. Slogging Mónica Freitas Oct 13, 2021, 11:18 AM There are dozens of smart home gadgets nowadays, some more useful than others, but the demand keeps growing. What do you think will be the next mainstream home gadget that'll drive every "adult" excited? Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 2:16 PM So I just got a Roomba and believe the hype… is worth it. I can control it with my Alexa device so I can just say “Alexa tell [name of roomba] to start cleaning” or “Alexa tell Roomba to go home”. It’s so awesome 😂 2 Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 2:16 PM you don’t know the amount of dust that collects on your floor until you have a Roomba to pick it all up 😄 😯 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 14, 2021, 3:12 PM That one I get! It saves you tons of time, and you have your own little bot to command! Every kid's dream 😂 Which invention do you think we'll have next? A gadget that gives us our clothes cleaned, dried, and ready to wear? An outfit picker as we'd see in the 90s movies? A self-cleaning garbage can? Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 3:52 PM I think an important one that I’d like to see is a security bot. There’s already a company gaining traction called Knightscope and I’d like to see similar bots or at least AI smart security cameras I could outside my homes Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 3:52 PM But to be honest a bot would be better Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 3:53 PM Criminals are used to seeing cameras but a little guard bot at your front and back door is a stronger deterrent Mónica Freitas Oct 15, 2021, 10:37 AM Limarc Ambalina, I looked Knightscope up, and I can see how it can be a great bot for surveillance, though I'm not sure it can have a more protective role in a household. How does it deter criminals? If it had a taser function, it could be beneficial for many people, even businesses, but it could also be considered a liability in case of malfunction. Jack Boreham what do you think? What will be the next big home gadget? Limarc Ambalina Oct 15, 2021, 4:56 PM Even just the presence itself Mónica. A camera is one thing, a bot that moves around and can react to your presence is a much bigger deterrent than a camera. Limarc Ambalina Oct 15, 2021, 4:57 PM But I think the main uses of these bots are to guard the area and alert the police or security guards immediately when they see intruders Mónica Freitas Oct 18, 2021, 9:53 AM I can see how having a bot that automatically detects intruders and alerts authorities can be beneficial. I'd be interesting to see a study on how criminality levels are affected by the presence of bots in high crime areas.  I've found this article measuring the pros and cons of home security bots and a few of the options available on the market: It appears that this is a growing market as there's already quite the offer available on home security bots: https://www.covesmart.com/blog/home-security-robot-can-robots-protect-your-home/ https://top-10-drones.com/5-top-home-security-robots/ Mónica Freitas Oct 25, 2021, 2:01 PM Jack Boreham Ellen Stevens Amy Shah How about you? What do you think will be the next big thing on smart home gadgets? Ellen Stevens Oct 25, 2021, 8:43 PM Delivery drones for all. Probably personal humanoid robots as previously mentioned, but that's still a ways away. A system like Alexa that is further incorporated with home systems. But I'm way too paranoid to ever get anything like that. Jack Boreham Oct 26, 2021, 7:39 AM Mónica Freitas, yeah, all of the above. Ideally, something where you can use your phone to control your house, such as the lights, heating etc., all from a click of a button. I know there is some stuff like that on the market, but not an all-encompassing app. Obviously. I want humanoid robots, oh and holographic stuff, similar to the Star Wars Jedi Council. 😂 Mónica Freitas Oct 26, 2021, 1:14 PM Ellen Stevens DELIVERY DRONES! YES! That'd be amazing! No longer having to wait on the mailman or lost packages because of address mix-ups. Still, some would discuss hacking to discourage this - stolen property could scare some people off. 🔥 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 26, 2021, 1:15 PM Ellen Stevens, to be honest, humanoid bots kinda scare me, but I'd love to have an Alexa. It'd be a huge time saver. And it's your personal butler ahah 💯 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 26, 2021, 1:19 PM Jack Boreham You got me on holographic. Image a room where you could enter, choose the "world" you wish to enter and have it brought to you through holograms? It'd be similar to VR but without needing to have anything attached to yourself. It's probably a bit far-fetched for today's reality, but I wish it to be true. 🔥 1 Limarc Ambalina Oct 26, 2021, 1:51 PM I don't know if you could call it a home gadget, but I'm sure drones will be here in the next 10 years. Amazon will be using them for sure as soon as legislation allows it. 💯 1 Limarc Ambalina Oct 26, 2021, 1:51 PM Jack Boreham Amazon Alexa is almost that all-encompassing app but it's kinda scary to let one company control your entire house lol Mónica Freitas Oct 27, 2021, 9:36 AM Limarc Ambalina, I'm sure Amazon is on top of that, but it will be years until we have a considerable number of countries giving a green flag to that. Which countries do you see it get implemented first? Limarc Ambalina Oct 27, 2021, 10:05 AM Most likely the United States! They’ve had decently loose laws around AI and self-driving cars. I assume that looseness will follow drone regulations Mónica Freitas Oct 27, 2021, 10:29 AM Limarc Ambalina Agree! If not in every state, some are going to accept it in a heartbeat. Ellen Stevens Nov 4, 2021, 11:10 PM I cringe at the idea of a robot having universal control of my house. I'd only consider stuff like that if I became a master hacker and could code war with various viruses etc. But until then various elements of my home control will remain 'analog.' I have a surveillance system but I make sure it can't see inside my house if I'm in there haha. Amy Shah Nov 5, 2021, 12:02 AM Ellen Stevens That gives new meaning to the term "haunted house" for sure! 💯 1 Ellen Stevens Nov 5, 2021, 12:03 AM LOL beautiful response haha Rohan Dominic Nov 14, 2021, 7:33 AM We need to use more drones. For instance, the police departments can use drones to pull over folks over petty issues. That way, even the case of police brutality could be reduced. The Fire Department can use drones to put off the fire. Also, they could use some heavy-duty drones to rescue people from inaccessible areas. 💚 1 🔥 1 Mónica Freitas Nov 15, 2021, 3:43 PM Rohan Dominic I never thought of that, but you're right. Those strategies could reduce costs and help with the shortage in numbers of professionals. 🔥 1

Home Gadgets that Drive Adults Crazy

From the "Alexa" spree to mops that self-clean your home, lights that sync up with music, and smart security, the offer for smart home gadgets has been growing steadily. Not only do they make our daily lives easier, but they also look cool. Who wouldn't want a bot that answers our every command? In this slogging thread, the HN team discusses the next big thing in smart home gadgets and what new technology they'd like to see available for purchase. This g thread by Mónica Freitas, Limarc Ambalina, Ellen Stevens and Jack Boreham occurred in slogging's official #technology channel, and has been edited for readability. Sloggin Mónica Freitas Oct 13, 2021, 11:18 AM There are dozens of smart home gadgets nowadays, some more useful than others, but the demand keeps growing. What do you think will be the next mainstream home gadget that'll drive every "adult" excited? Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 2:16 PM So I just got a Roomba and believe the hype… it is worth it. I can control it with my Alexa device so I can just say “Alexa tell [name of roomba] to start cleaning” or “Alexa tell Roomba to go home”. It’s so awesome 😂 2 Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 2:16 PM You don’t know the amount of dust that collects on your floor until you have a Roomba to pick it all up 😄 Mónica Freitas Oct 14, 2021, 3:12 PM That one I get! It saves you tons of time, and you have your own little bot to command! Every kid's dream 😂 Which invention do you think we'll have next? A gadget that gives us our clothes cleaned, dried, and ready to wear? An outfit picker as we'd see in the 90s movies? A self-cleaning garbage can? Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 3:52 PM I think an important one that I’d like to see is a security bot. There’s already a company gaining traction called Knightscope and I’d like to see similar bots or at least AI smart security cameras I could put outside my homes. Limarc Ambalina Oct 14, 2021, 3:52 PM But to be honest a bot would be better. Criminals are used to seeing cameras but a little guard bot at your front and back door is a stronger deterrent. Mónica Freitas Oct 15, 2021, 10:37 AM Limarc Ambalina I looked Knightscope up, and I can see how it can be a great bot for surveillance, though I'm not sure it can have a more protective role in a household. How does it deter criminals? If it had a taser function, it could be beneficial for many people, even businesses, but it could also be considered a liability in case of malfunction. Jack Boreham what do you think? What will be the next big home gadget? Limarc Ambalina Oct 15, 2021, 4:56 PM Even just the presence itself Mónica. A camera is one thing, a bot that moves around and can react to your presence is a much bigger deterrent than a camera. Limarc Ambalina Oct 15, 2021, 4:57 PM But I think the main uses of these bots are to guard the area and alert the police or security guards immediately when they see intruders. Mónica Freitas Oct 18, 2021, 9:53 AM I can see how having a bot that automatically detects intruders and alerts authorities can be beneficial. I'd be interesting to see a study on how criminality levels are affected by the presence of bots in high crime areas.  I've found this article measuring the pros and cons of home security bots and a few of the options available on the market: It appears that this is a growing market as there's already quite the offer available on home security bots: https://www.covesmart.com/blog/home-security-robot-can-robots-protect-your-home/ https://top-10-drones.com/5-top-home-security-robots/ Mónica Freitas Oct 25, 2021, 2:01 PM Jack Boreham, Ellen Stevens, Amy Shah. How about you? What do you think will be the next big thing on smart home gadgets? Ellen Stevens Oct 25, 2021, 8:43 PM Delivery drones for all. 💚 1 Ellen Stevens Oct 25, 2021, 8:44 PM Probably personal humanoid robots as previously mentioned, but that's still a ways away. Ellen Stevens Oct 25, 2021, 8:45 PM A system like Alexa that is further incorporated with home systems. But I'm way too paranoid to ever get anything like that. Jack Boreham Oct 26, 2021, 7:39 AM Mónica Freitas, yeah, all of the above. Ideally, something where you can use your phone to control your house, such as the lights, heating, etc., all from a click of a button. I know there is some stuff like that on the market, but not an all-encompassing app. Obviously. I want humanoid robots, oh and holographic stuff, similar to the Star Wars Jedi Council. 😂 Mónica Freitas Oct 26, 2021, 1:14 PM Ellen Stevens DELIVERY DRONES! YES! That'd be amazing! No longer having to wait on the mailman or lost packages because of address mix-ups. Still, some would discuss hacking to discourage this - stolen property could scare some people off. Mónica Freitas Oct 26, 2021, 1:15 PM Ellen Stevens, To be honest, humanoid bots kinda scare me, but I'd love to have an Alexa. It'd be a huge time saver. And it's your personal butler, ahah! Mónica Freitas Oct 26, 2021, 1:19 PM Jack Boreham You got me on holographic. Image a room where you could enter, choose the "world" you wish to enter and have it brought to you through holograms? It'd be similar to VR but without needing to have anything attached to yourself. It's probably a bit far-fetched for today's reality, but I wish it to be true. Limarc Ambalina Oct 26, 2021, 1:51 PM I don't know if you could call it a home gadget, but I'm sure drones will be here in the next 10 years. Amazon will be using them for sure as soon as legislation allows it. Limarc Ambalina Oct 26, 2021, 1:51 PM Jack Boreham Amazon Alexa is almost that all-encompassing app but it's kinda scary to let one company control your entire house, lol. Mónica Freitas Oct 27, 2021, 9:36 AM Limarc Ambalina I'm sure Amazon is on top of that, but it will be years until we have a considerable number of countries giving a green flag to that. Which countries do you see it get implemented first? Limarc Ambalina Oct 27, 2021, 10:05 AM Most likely the United States! They’ve had decently loose laws around AI and self-driving cars. I assume that looseness will follow drone regulations. Mónica Freitas Oct 27, 2021, 10:29 AM Limarc Ambalina Agree! If not in every state, some are going to accept it in a heartbeat.

What Will be the Next Home Gadget to Drive Every Adult Insane?

Did you ever daydream about fighting crime like Batman? You know, using the Bat computer to get intel on a certain criminal or track their whereabouts, to be alerted when a crime is in progress, or even remotely deploy robotic measures to stall or detain a villain. Now your fantasies are closer to reality with all sorts of great AI-powered tech that fights crime. AI is used to predict all sorts of things like conversational responses, the weather, business markets, and a slew of other probabilities. Why not apply AI to predicting crime? They already did with systems such as PredPol, which was developed by the LAPD and UCLA, and launched in 2008. The crime prediction software adapts existing AI models with historical crime data, using epidemiological (spread of disease) and geological (earthquakes) models that are already proficient in making predictions. Another tool in the arsenal is mass surveillance systems, which AI can use for facial recognition, license plate reading, and listening for gunshots, hastily informing police the location of known criminals and crimes in progress. When law enforcement can’t be there, autonomous AI can step in the ring. Ford has recently developed a self-driving police car. It can detect traffic violations, pursue violators identifying vehicle and driver, and even give a warning or ticket. On the beat, in Huntington Park, CA we have Knightscope K5, an autonomous robot patrolling the streets. It uses license plates, mobile device identifiers, and facial recognition to detect blacklisted individuals. While the 500 pound robot does not have physical measures to stop crime, it has been invaluable in obtaining evidence for convictions and generally deterring crime. Where should you avoid acting like a hoodlum? Well, everywhere, but already over 50 police departments in the U.S. use PredPol, as well as some college campuses. One of the flaws of facial recognition tends to be the misidentification of minorities like Asians, African Americans and Native Americans. Additionally, AI crime prediction is capable of harboring existing biases or can become self-fulfilling, when police increase enforcement, the program interprets the area as bad. While crime-fighting AI is not a futuristic cure-all being limited, like most computer applications, by user input and interpretation, it does have great potential for making our cities safer. Learn more about how here: AI is stopping crime

Hacking Crime With AI [Infographic]

Written together with Tiffine Wang of Singtel Innov8, Ryan Morgan of DFJ Growth, and Frederick Dopfel of Samsung Ventures. The short version of this post was featured in VentureBeat Many have dreamed of robots taking over monotonous functions of our daily lives, freeing us humans to work on highly-skilled or creative tasks. Today, robots are increasingly making their way into our homes, offices, and public spaces, but this integration is not occurring in the way that most futurists and popular science fiction writers have anticipated. Here’s our top picks for tasks that were surprisingly easy to automate, and tasks that remain surprisingly hard. Tasks Surprisingly Easy to Automate: Art Prevailing wisdom claimed that computer systems would be incapable of creating art or music, because they lack the natural creativity of humans. However, automated systems have been surprisingly successful at generating works of art. Since the early 2000s, the University of London’s The Painting Fool program has been generating artwork, much of which has been featured in prominent galleries alongside human-created art. Google’s DeepDream software uses a recursive convolutional neural network to iteratively adjust images to morph them into objects in its database (usually dogs, buildings, and eyeballs). Other neural networks such as DeepStyle or Prisma use convolutional neural networks to stylize photos after the work of a specific artist. Google is now experimenting with automated curation of art exhibits through machine understanding of the style and topic of artists’ work. Logo generation systems like Withoomph, Tailor Brands, and Logojoy, use partially- or fully-automated systems to generate logos for a business based on keywords. Researchers have also demonstrated systems that can generate music: Stephen Wolfram has made an automated music generator available to the public since 2005, the University of Malaga has created Melomics, a system that autonomously composes and plays music to match your lifestyle and activities, and IBM has partnered with artists to help compose music with Watson by combining massive musical datasets and their lyrics with sentiment analysis. Although these automated art and music systems are arguably derivative on the work of others, they are undeniably interesting and beautiful in their own right. Many scholars may argue that, like artificial art, all human art is derivative, although that is a discussion best left to philosophers. It appears that natural human creativity is not, in fact, necessary to create beauty. Science/Research Historically, scientific research has been conducted by highly educated researchers and lab assistants, and as such was not an obvious place for a blossoming of applications. However, a core basis of science is reproducibility, and many aspects of science and research are extremely repetitive, requiring neither continuous thought nor the high level of education attained by the individuals who perform those tasks today. robotics Companies such as OpenTrons are working to save scientists both time and money by helping them automate pipetting, a precise but monotonous and labor intensive task used in many biological and chemical laboratories. Startups Arcturus and BioRealize enable scientists to remotely run many genetic engineering experiments in parallel, greatly reducing mistakes and lab time. Other startups, such as Emerald Therapeutics and Transcriptic, are hoping to move research to the cloud, using remote robotic systems to perform the experiment itself. In addition to vastly increased lab efficiency, these systems could greatly improve reproducibility, as researchers need only share their experiment’s source code. Not content with automating manual lab work, machines are now automating scientific discovery and understanding. Scientists at Cornell’s AI lab created a program called Eureqa, that uses an evolutionary approach to model creation and is able to create models on data without being given any prior assumptions. The team has since commercialized the technology through a spinout, Nutonian. Researchers at Cambridge and Aberystwyth have created a similar autonomous science algorithm called Adam, which they claim was the first machine to independently discover new scientific knowledge. That same team moved on to the University of Manchester, where they created Eve, which is a robot designed to make the drug discovery process faster and cheaper. As the pace of scientific research increases, scientists may rely more and more on automated systems. Legal The practice of law requires many years of studying and understanding laws, cases, and other legal precedence. Law firms often employ large teams of paralegals and interns to perform the majority of initial research; current AI technologies can augment and eventually automate the bulk of that research, leaving the more difficult aspects of practicing law such as synthesizing the information and advising to trained legal professionals. To date, case law, contract law, and advocacy law have seen the most automation. Startup DoNotPay helps users appeal traffic tickets; the bot started in the UK and has expanded to cover several US cities. Over a quarter million tickets have been successfully challenged, and several cities have banned the bot. ROSS Intelligence augments legal research by using AI to surface relevant legal passages and cases to increase the efficiency and quality of legal research. eBrevia uses AI to extract data from contracts to accelerate diligence, contract analysis, and other related applications. Legalist automates the qualification process for litigation financing and backs cases they identify as having a high success rate. There is a ceiling, imposed by liability concerns, to how much law can be automated; a startup might expose itself if it advised a client on legal matters, so most companies likely can only research and synthesize information. Because much of the legal industry charges by the hour, it will be interesting to see to what degree lawyers will accept automation and other tools to increase the efficiency of their practice. Policing and Security Unlike warfighting robots, which have clearance to hurt or even kill humans, robots that work as a police force or physical premises security, particularly in areas far from any war zone, are expected to more closely follow Asimov’s three laws of robotics: avoiding injury to humans while still keeping an area secure. For this reason, many would expect criminals to ignore robotic security guards, knowing full well that the robots could not harm them. However, the primary function of human physical security teams is to observe and report security incidents; due to the risk of liability to their employers, many human guards are not allowed to interfere, making their work surprisingly easy to automate. Security automation to date has focused on augmenting existing security forces, inexpensively amplifying the eyes and ears of security guards without increasing their numbers. Traditionally, fixed camera systems could perform this task, but constantly monitoring a large campus by camera is difficult. Knightscope and Gamma 2 Robotics build ground-based security robots that act as “force multipliers” to provide deterrence through physical presence; these robots are being deployed at an increasing number of corporate campuses and shopping malls. Another startup, Nightingale Security, is using flying drone robots to help their customers carry out continuous surveillance. In time, robots may replace substantial portions of police and security forces, requiring humans only for resolving violent incidents. security Tasks Shockingly Hard to Automate Cleaning Cleaning is perhaps one of the most obvious and logical applications for robots, yet with the exception of the occasional household Roomba, robotic cleaning is not widespread. Not only is cleaning an extremely repetitive task that requires very little technical skill, but it is also a task that almost everyone has to do in their personal lives and despises. What makes the dearth of cleaning robots more perplexing is that the cleaning robot Roomba was one of the first commercially available robots to everyday consumers in 2002. Almost fifteen years later, there has not been any real innovation in terms of cleaning robots that has seen commercial success. While Roomba, which is made by iRobot is the best known of these robots, competing products are made by a healthy list of competitors, including Dyson and LG. On the commercial side of the market, work on an automated janitor / cleaner has gone back at least as far as the 1980s, when Electrolux’s subsidiary, The Kent Company was working on a solution. Yet somehow, to this day, cleaning on a commercial scale is still done by hand. Several employees of Kent went on to create a company called Intellibot that creates a large scale automated floor cleaner called TASKI. Another large scale floor cleaner, the RS26, comes from a collaboration of Brain Corp and International Cleaning Equipment. With that said, there are some very interesting applications on the horizon outside of floor cleaning robots. The startup Ecoppia is using robots to clean solar panels, and Kurion has a division that makes robots that are used to clean up nuclear facilities, including Fukushima. Clothing and Textiles It is surprising that textile manufacturing, one of the first industries to flourish in the industrial revolution through automation remains an incredibly hard to automate completely. Robots work best when manipulating solid objects. Textiles, however, shear, stretch, and compress, making them difficult for robots to manipulate, even though such manipulation comes naturally to humans. Machines today can dye and cut fabrics into the right shape for assembly and embroider intricate designs in an instant, but nimble human fingers are still required for assembling that fabric, sewing on buttons, pockets, and adding on delicate finishing touches such as lace and pleats. Even today, few companies have made any headway in sewing. Softwear Automation is one such company, which uses high speed cameras to instantaneously map the position and orientation of a textile as it flexes and bends, allowing the robot to make micro-adjustments as it sews pieces of fabric together. Nike is using automation to circumvent the traditional shoe assembly process altogether with its FLYKNIT line of shoes, which uses robotics to custom-knit the top portion of a shoe out of one continuous thread, doing away with the need to assemble the shoe from multiple separate pieces of material. Alternative textile and clothing manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing are been heralded as poised to revolutionize the fashion industry, but the items created by these processes and new materials remain niche outside of the athletic wear market. Automation has struggled with clothing care almost as much as it has with sewing. Although machines can wash and dry clothing (sometimes in the same machine), the process of loading, unloading, and folding remains repetitive and laborious with few reasonable automated alternatives. Startups Laundroid and Foldimate have developed laundry folding robots, although their solutions are large desktop or closet-sized machines with limited capacity. Robotic clothes care systems similar to those imagined in science fiction are likely many years away. Farming Automating the harvesting of crops that are today picked by hand has so far been hard because many of these crops can be damaged easily and computers have had trouble with visual recognition of the fruit or produce they are trying to pick. Despite these challenges, there are many companies working towards fully automating a variety of agricultural tasks. Harvest Automation has created a robot called the HV-100 that can do a series of tasks in nurseries and greenhouses. According to one of their customers at McCorkle Nurseries, “We have many plants in the field that have been growing for as many as 24-months; they’ve been spaced, collected and spaced again and they haven’t been touched by a person since the day they were potted.” In the fruit picking space, companies such as FFRobotics, Abundant Robotics, and Vision Robotics have worked on solutions for fruit picking. While none of their products are widespread yet, their efforts are helping pave the way towards a more automated world. Abundant Robotics, for instance, is avoiding many of the difficulties of robotic grippers and instead using a suction device to pick fruit. There are also a series of startups working on weeding and thinning robots. Among these are Naio Technologies, which has created a robot called Oz for small scale weeding. It is also working on a robot called Dino for larger scale weeding, and a robot named Ted for vineyard weeding. It should also be noted that many of the the traditional agricultural players are also working towards automating the farm. John Deere has offered some form of kit for autonomy for years, the current version being AutoTrac. While not in farming, Deere also offers a robot called the Tango E5, which is essentially a Roomba for mowing a lawn. Other competitors in the autonomous tractor space include AGCO and Kinze. AGCO, through its subsidiary Kendt, is working on a project they call MARS, or Mobile Agricultural Robot Swarms. These swarms of small farming robots will be dragged into fields in logistics units (which also hold seed supply as well as batteries for the robots), and then split up to do their work. Looking ahead Several themes emerge from this overview that enable us to predict what’s next for the robotics industry. Today, robotics have made significant headway into automating repetitive tasks requiring little finesse and tolerant of blunt solutions, like washing laundry and dishes or creating large quantities of textiles. Tasks that require processing large amounts of data and information can also be augmented by automation. On the other hand, tasks that require complicated manipulation of materials are still difficult to automate and need more skilled assistance, as does the deeper decision making and synthesis of information that robotics help us surface. As much as robotics have transformed many major industries, the need for humans to complete the last finishing steps, as diminishing as they may be, makes it abundantly clear that total robotic world domination remains out of reach.

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