UAE Announces Introduction of Patrolling ‘Robocops’ by 2017

There has been a lot of talk over the past few of years about robotic and automatic forms of police patrolling. Most of those discussions have centered around the use of drone and surveillance technology by police departments. But now police in the United Arabic Emirates say they are about replace their “beat” cops with “robocops.”

Dubai has said that a new “army” of “intelligent police androids” will patrol their streets, malls and pretty much anywhere else you can think of.

The announcement sets the date of 2017 for when the “robocops” hit the streets of Dubai. But the UAE says it won’t be until the end of the decade until they are in widespread use.
“We are aiming to provide these kinds of services as the population is expanding. This way we can provide better services without hiring more people,” Colonel Khalid Nasser Alrazooqui, the head of Dubai’s smart unit said.

The Dubai police say that the androids will act in the capacity of guards and “public information terminals.”
“The robots will interact directly with people and tourists. They will include an interactive screen and microphone connected to the Dubai Police call centers. People will be able to ask questions and make complaints, but they will also have fun interacting with the robots,” Alrazooqui explained.
Alrazooqui added that the City of Dubai plans an “upgrade” of these robots within a mere “two to four years” that will allow full interaction with civilians “without any human intervention” on the part of police operating them remotely.

The closest approximation to what the UAE is working on are the K5 androids currently in testing by Knightscope at their San Francisco Bay Area headquarters.

Oddly, and perhaps ominously, the androids look bizarrely like the “Doctor Who” Daleks, standing 5 feet tall with a weight of 300 pounds. This first fleet are not being armed, but Alrazooqui says he has not ruled out arming future versions of artificially intelligent “robocops”.

(Article by M.A. Hussein and Jackson Maricana)

Source:  http://klou.tt/1bv1eko8k2u3y