Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Will Robots Replace Rent-a-Cops?

Posted by timothy on from the gradual-and-inexorable dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Now, an EU-funded, £7.2 million ($11 million USD) collaborative project, called Strands, is underway in England to develop 4D, artificial intelligence for security and care applications. It aims to produce intelligent robo-sentinels that can patrol areas, and learn to detect abnormalities in human behavior. Could their project eventually replace security guards with robots? It looks possible. Strands, as Nick Hawes of the University of Birmingham said, will 'develop novel approaches to extract spatio-temporal structure from sensor data gathered during months of autonomous operation,' to develop intelligence that can then 'exploit [those] structures to yield adaptive behavior in highly demanding, real-world security and care scenarios.'"

5 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. This sounds familiar... by rwyoder · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Please put down your weapon! You have 20 seconds to comply!"

    1. Re:This sounds familiar... by khasim · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Damn! You beat me to it. Anyway, from TFA:

      Strands, as Nick Hawes of the University of Birmingham said, will "develop novel approaches to extract spatio-temporal structure from sensor data gathered during months of autonomous operation," to develop intelligence that can then "exploit [those] structures to yield adaptive behavior in highly demanding, real-world security and care scenarios."

      The key problem with that is that the subjects the robot is studying will know that they are being studied and will be able to alter their behaviour to change what the robot "learns".

  2. Only if you can pay less Insurance by tuppe666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The reality of a security guard is your main job is...to lower insurance costs. The reasons if you need to be a serious criminal to want to go through a human, these robots don't have deterrent...but I suspect nothing like the costs. The fact is accountants will decide this one.

    In case your confused about what a security guard really does this is a clip from mike leighs Naked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N90sl94g7PE

  3. NYPD BlueBot by Jessified · · Score: 4, Funny

    "It aims to produce intelligent robo-sentinels that can patrol areas, and learn to detect abnormalities in human behavior."

    Forget "abnormalities," if they just programmed the robots to detect and harass black people, you could replace the entire NYPD!

  4. Re:hm.... by rwyoder · · Score: 4, Funny

    gimme a roomba, a broom stick and a pivoting webcam.

    Pervert.