The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you.
I should probably take a second to point out that though this article calls them “police robots”, these are and have only been used as site security. These are not equipped in any way to do police work and just serve as a mobile camera and alarm system. These also, predominately, only patrol high-income properties. In the US you’re most likely to find these in industrial parks in the Silicon Valley protecting office space of major tech firms, and in practicality are only useful for that. In every possible way, they’re less useful than employing a human security guard and the only benefits of using one of these are costs of operation (humans need minimum wage, bots don’t) and the aesthetic of having a machine constantly patrolling your site.
These have been a thing for nearly a decade, the first time I learned about them was on an article by SourceFed (rip) about one driving into a fountain in perhaps 2013 (don’t wanna look that up rn). And In that nearly a decade lifespan, they’ve changed extremely little. This is nothing more than an attempt to find the cheapest possible long time solution to paying workers wages, and as long as they work well enough on flat and smooth pavement, they’re not going to receive any real improvements. Perhaps the company that makes these, Knightscope, will come out with one that’s better at going off path, but seeing as they’ve kept the exact same design language and dimensions for all this time, i highly doubt they’d just do it.
so TTYL: These aren’t cops, they’re piss poor excuses for security guards that the company has advertised as being “police bots”.
I should probably take a second to point out that though this article calls them “police robots”, these are and have only been used as site security. These are not equipped in any way to do police work and just serve as a mobile camera and alarm system. These also, predominately, only patrol high-income properties. In the US you’re most likely to find these in industrial parks in the Silicon Valley protecting office space of major tech firms, and in practicality are only useful for that. In every possible way, they’re less useful than employing a human security guard and the only benefits of using one of these are costs of operation (humans need minimum wage, bots don’t) and the aesthetic of having a machine constantly patrolling your site.
These have been a thing for nearly a decade, the first time I learned about them was on an article by SourceFed (rip) about one driving into a fountain in perhaps 2013 (don’t wanna look that up rn). And In that nearly a decade lifespan, they’ve changed extremely little. This is nothing more than an attempt to find the cheapest possible long time solution to paying workers wages, and as long as they work well enough on flat and smooth pavement, they’re not going to receive any real improvements. Perhaps the company that makes these, Knightscope, will come out with one that’s better at going off path, but seeing as they’ve kept the exact same design language and dimensions for all this time, i highly doubt they’d just do it.
so TTYL: These aren’t cops, they’re piss poor excuses for security guards that the company has advertised as being “police bots”.