Animal shelter's homeless-shooing robot gets the boot

The nonprofit faces $1,000 per-day fines imposed by the city if the roving 5-foot-tall Autonomous Data Machine dubbed "K-9" is caught making the rounds without a proper permit. This shouldn't be an issue, however, as the SPCA has presumably returned the $6-per-hour rental robot with a "commanding presence" to its maker, Silicon Valley startup Knightscope, following significant public uproar and threats of retribution. The backlash began in earnest after the San Francisco Business Times published an interview with SF SPCA President Jennifer Scarlett in which she implied that the robot, adorned with stickers of cute-as-a-button kittens and at least one life-sized Chihuahua, was enlisted with the purpose of shooing away homeless San Franciscans living in encampments on the fringes of the SPCA campus, which encompasses an entire city block in the rapidly gentrifying Mission District. San Francisco, which is in the throes of a seemingly never-ending affordable housing crisis, has the sixth highest largest homeless population in the United States. Just under 7,000 people are living on San Francisco's streets per estimates from the Department of Housing and Urban Development although local authorities and homeless advocacy groups believe the number to be much higher.