Who wins and who loses after US bans foreign robots

Humanoid robots and four-legged robots made in China fall squarely under a new ban imposed by the US Federal Communications Commission on foreign-made robots.

What happened

Humanoid robots and four-legged robots made in China fall squarely under a new ban imposed by the US Federal Communications Commission on foreign-made robots. But the sweeping prohibition covers a wide variety of robots manufactured anywhere abroad, including the newest robot vacuum cleaners.

Practical impact for readers

The Trump administration’s FCC justified the ban on foreign-made robots by referencing cybersecurity vulnerabilities previously discovered in robots specifically made by Chinese companies. On July 28, the federal agency added “foreign-produced advanced robotic devices” to its Covered List of technologies “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the US or the safety and security of US persons. should be explained through that lens before any broad claim is made.

Details worth verifying

However, the FCC cannot update the Covered List on its own initiative and is required by law to follow the direction of a “qualifying national security authority. ” The agency describes the White House as having “convened an executive branch interagency body” that “included appropriate national security agencies,” which determined foreign-made robots as presenting a national security risk.

Who should act or wait

So what foreign-made robots are prohibited? The ban defines “advanced robotic devices” as being “a mechanical mobile device, including autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, and quadrupeds” that can move around on the ground and operate either autonomously on their own or remotely under the control of a human.

What is still unclear

The definition also describes covered robots as having sensors capable of perceiving the robot’s environment, network connectivity such as Bluetooth or satellite connections with speeds surpassing 200 kbps in either direction, and software or AI models running onboard the robot or remotely from cloud computing servers.

Source notes

Ars Technica