A California County Just Made Counting the Jobs a Robot Takes a Condition of Its Permit
About This Episode
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on August 11 to direct staff to draft the first local ordinance in the United States requiring a business to obtain a permit before putting a humanoid robot to work. The named requirements include emergency kill switches, lithium-ion battery fire gear for first responders, trained on-site human supervision, and systematic tracking of job displacement. No state or federal framework for commercial humanoid deployment exists.
Our Take
San Mateo County is inventing the first American license for a working robot, and the hardest condition in it is not the kill switch but the requirement to count the jobs the robot takes — which tests whether accountability can be manufactured locally, or whether the robots simply go work somewhere nobody asks.
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