A bipartisan pair of US lawmakers tell WIRED they plan to introduce legislation today that would strip federal funding from states that fail to restrict the use of Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers. The devices, which help police track the location of vehicles tied to crimes, have become the subject of nationwide backlash in recent months over more nefarious uses by officers.
The No FLOCK Act—for Federal License-Plate Observation and Camera Keeping—directs the US secretary of transportation to withhold 10 percent of annual financial support due to states for highways, roads, and bridges if it fails to ban Flock and similar devices for all but five use cases. Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat representing Chicago suburbs, and Michael Cloud, a Republican whose Texas district includes Corpus Christi, are cosponsoring the bill.
The legislation says that Flock cameras could be used only for “enforcing toll systems, identifying stolen vehicles, missing or endangered persons, vehicles registered to persons with a warrant for a felony offense, or investigating a vehicle involved in a felony offense.” Notably absent are uses like conducting traffic studies, investigating minor drug crimes, and enforcing parking and speeding rules.
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Meta is testing robots that can plug in cables, reset servers, and handle other tasks inside its data centers, according to several current and former workers familiar with the projects. The ongoing effort, which has not been previously reported, may eventually allow Meta to operate its rapidly expanding data center footprint with fewer humans, keeping labor costs in check as its spending on AI infrastructure soars.
Meta is using robots and related hardware from several different vendors, including Watney Robotics, Kinova, and ABB, according to the same workers, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. Kinova and ABB declined to comment. Watney didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In one experiment, Meta is evaluating whether a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm could be used for power cycling or cutting off electricity to servers. The company is also testing a different robot to swap networking cables. One Meta data center worker estimates that if it’s successful, the bot could replace up to 80 percent of some people’s workloads. “We thought those of us performing the physical tasks were safe for a while, but not anymore,” says the worker. “It’s coming for us all, unfortunately.”
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