File photo of a police drone in use [File] | Photo Credit: AP
A new warning system in New York City was supposed to alert residents to dangerous situations, but something went wrong with the drones’ language settings.
In particular, on Wednesday, during a storm warning, the drones used English and Spanish — the latter of which even native speakers could not understand, as one city resident wrote on Twitter.
It seemed that the robotic voice read like a person who saw a text in Spanish for the first time in his life. And the situation might seem funny if the drones were announcing, for example, an advertising message, but their main task is to notify people of danger and, in some cases, evacuation.
Zach Iskol, the commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management, admitted the mistake in a response to the post on X:
«Very proud of the work our team did to prepare for this storm, but this situation should not have happened and we will make sure it does not happen again,» Iskol wrote.
The New York Times first reported on the new unmanned alert system on Tuesday. They were launched in the city around 1 p.m. to give residents time to prepare for a severe storm. The idea of launching drones belonged to New York City Mayor Eric Adams — he also previously launched a security robot that patrolled the Times Square subway station and the controversial «Spot Robot», also known as «Digidog», for the New York Police Department.
Source: Engadget