Report to mods? That would work, until the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that… Damn fake news is gonna get us all killed (literally, as in climate change), but at least then after everyone dies perhaps we’ll learn something from the ordeal. Wait… I might have detected a small problem with this plan (to do nothing at all, and just let it happen).
“very better”? Anyway…
It won’t last. Right now it’s new, but ultimately it will become an actual initiation ritual to knock it down, or perhaps a harder version to steal something out from under its nose. It doesn’t know who you are if you wear a mask (or stay out of its line or sight) and don’t carry something broadcasting your IP.
This looks like just security theater.
Meanwhile, aren’t cameras cheap? If let’s say hundreds of those were sprinkled around, maybe behind an opaque substance so you could also put up 10-100x more of them but 9/10ths being fake, and you swap them around occasionally, that might not be perfect either but could work better than a robot offering a nice, easy, fun target to play with, just like in video games. (Nobody ever enjoys video games these days though, do they?)
It could also just have been a hot August, leading people to feel lethargic and steal less than they did earlier in the year? (How reliable do we think this data actually is btw?)