Machine Age

Knightscope plans to trot out K5 at a news event on Thursday — a debut that is certain to touch off a new round of debate, not just about the impact of automation, but also about how a new generation of mobile robots affects privacy.The co-founders have chosen to position their robot not as a job killer, but as a system that will upgrade the role of security guard, even if fewer humans are employed."We want to give the humans the ability to do the strategic work," said Li in a recent telephone interview, describing a highly skilled analyst who might control a herd of security robots.The robot, which can be seen in a promotional video, is still very much a work in progress. The system will have a video camera, thermal imaging sensors, a laser range finder, radar , air quality sensors and a microphone . It will also have a limited amount of autonomy, such as the ability to follow a preplanned route.

It will not, at least for now, include advanced features like facial recognition, which is still being perfected.Knightscope settled in Silicon Valley because it was hoping for a warm reception from technology companies that employ large security forces to protect their sprawling campuses.Over all, there are about 1.3 million private security guards in the United States, and they are low paid for the most part, averaging about $23,000 a year, according to the Service Employees International Union. Most are not unionized, so they are vulnerable to low-cost automation alternatives. Form and function have always fascinated me. I thoroughly enjoy being in grand spaces; I like feeling the magnitude of a dam looming over me, or the crackling of electricity everywhere about me. For 40 years I have tried to capture these forms, to convert them into images that bespeak their power and strength.

In the last century, America ruled almost every area of industry — steel, aviation, shipbuilding. Now our world is technology. I have been shooting machines like one the size of a 737 that zaps cancerous tumors, and an unmanned drone that collects images that help find people in disasters. Ironically, some of these gigantic new machines — like the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and the Scripps cyclotron — are focused on very small particles, but their scale and significance are revealed in these images.