Motorola Solutions Sets Up AI Software ‘Hub’ in Boston - govtech.com

Motorola Solutions has opened an 'AI and resilience software hub' in Boston, which is a bit like McDonald's opening a 'nutrition and wellness R&D centre' — technically possible, but the track record suggests otherwise. The hub is to focus on 'applied AI and mission-critical cloud-based solutions for public safety,' a breathtakingly vague mission statement that will inevitably produce either a revolutionary crime-prediction algorithm or a chatbot that tells officers to 'please hold' during an emergency. Given Motorola's forte is radios, one hopes they at least let the AI use good grammar.

The hub's location in Boston is no accident: the city is home to MIT and Harvard, but also to a police department that once used a robot dog. Imagine the synergy: the AI hub will train models on dashcam footage, then promptly hallucinate a suspect in every child with a Slurpee. The term 'resilience' is a masterstroke — it implies the software will bounce back after a crash, but says nothing about the officer's confidence after the AI confidently identifies a mailbox as a person. Still, Motorola's stock jumped 2% on the news, because investors love mashing the words 'AI' and 'public safety' together.

Perhaps the most telling detail is that this hub is for 'applied' AI, as opposed to 'theoretical' AI — i.e., the kind that actually gets deployed, with all its biases and bugs, directly into the hands of law enforcement. Motorola Solutions boasts that its technology 'protects the protectors,' but the hub might just end up protecting the profit margin. After all, when has adding a layer of software complexity ever made a mission-critical system more reliable? The answer, much like the AI's accuracy on a foggy day, is unclear.