The Roboguard Revolution is Short-Circuiting

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Three Knightscope K5 robots and a K1 in a Mountain View, California, parking lot. Votpuske, CC BY-SA 4.0. via Wikimedia Commons.

Robotics companies promise that video-camera-toting security robots can deter and detect crime. But many companies are rethinking the approach after a trail of canceled contracts and questions about whether the artificial intelligence-powered bots are meeting the needs of businesses and local governments.<br>Proof News found evidence of at least 21 security robot deployments since 2015. We contacted contract holders and combed news articles and determined that at least 13 of those programs have ended. Silicon Valley-based Knightscope secured the most security robot contracts, according to Proof’s analysis, and also suffered the bulk of cancellations.<br>For example, New York City’s then-Mayor Eric Adams installed a Knightscope robot on the overnight shift at the Times Square subway station, but the program was scrapped when the pilot expired in 2024. City leaders did not respond to Proof News’ questions about why the robot wasn’t renewed. By the end of its assignment, it was reportedly gathering dust in an empty storefront.<br>Outside Columbus, Ohio, the city of Dublin pulled the plug on a Knightscope robot in May, ending its two-year pilot program after less than 10 months. The city enlisted the robot, dubbed DubBot, to patrol a downtown park, but city spokeswoman Robyn Gray said it “did not fully meet our operational needs,” and failed to identify any criminal incidents or lead to any tickets or arrests.<br>Sheila Sparks isn’t surprised. Her family has operated Sparks Protection Services near Columbus for more than a decade and said a human touch is essential to de-escalating sticky situations.<br>“A robot can’t do that,” Sparks said.<br>Seeking a new path forward in the security industry, Knightscope CEO William Santana Li said the company is forging a new model, combining its robots and AI-powered software with another key ingredient: human security guards. Knightscope announced it purchased Event Risk LLC, a national security guard firm, earlier this year.<br>Knightscope has incurred net losses since inception in 2013, according to its most recent quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and had an accumulated deficit of $237 million. Knightscope hopes its pivot to incorporate people will give it a greater share of the physical security market — which the company believes is worth an estimated $230 billion annually.<br>Li did not respond directly to questions about the disbanded programs, but said in an email, but said in an email, “Technology cannot do everything — and neither can people — but the combination can be very powerful.”<br>ROBOTS VS WORLD<br>Knightscope and other American-made robotics companies could get a boost from the recent US Federal Communications Commission ban on foreign-made mobile robot imports. Officials cast the move as a national security imperative given the machines’ surveillance capabilities.<br>But American roboticists are facing more than foreign competition. Robots have long struggled to navigate environments constantly in flux. AI can’t handle the ambiguous situations that security guards and police face daily, said Missy Cummings, a robotics professor at George Mason University and a director at Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center. While AI decision systems perform well in narrow circumstances, she said, they can perform “miserably” as soon as algorithms are outside their training dataset.<br>“AI and robots for security have had a long, problematic history,” Cummings said in an email, speaking generally. “I do not see this changing anytime soon.”<br>In 2016, a Knightscope robot deployed at a shopping center in Silicon Valley rolled over a 16-month-old boy's foot. The company apologized for the “freakish accident” at the time, saying in a statement that the robot veered to avoid the child, who ran backwards and directly into the machine. The next year, one flopped into a Washington, D.C. fountain. The company responded with humor, tweeting: “BREAKING NEWS: “I heard humans can take a dip in the water in this heat, but robots cannot. I am sorry.” Li, meanwhile, told the New York Times that the incident was under investigation and a new robot would be delivered free.<br>When asked about whether contracts remained active, representatives from neither property responded.<br>Then there was a trial at the San Antonio International Airport in 2024. Spokesperson Ana Flores said its Knightscope robot struggled with badge scanning, communication, and finding its way around. A door alarm would sound, she said, but the robot wouldn’t respond efficiently. Airport leadership opted to not move forward with a one-year, $21,000 Knightscope lease following a one-month test.<br>Meanwhile, private security is booming. Security officers have proliferated in recent years as cities embrace private guards, who...