R2-D2: Mall Cop

theodp writes "'The night watchman of the future,' explains the NY Times' John Markoff, 'is 5 feet tall, weighs 300 pounds and looks a lot like R2-D2 – without the whimsy. And will work for $6.25 an hour.' California-based Knightscope has developed a mobile robot known as the K5 Autonomous Data Machine as a safety and security tool for corporations, as well as for schools and neighborhoods. 'But what is for some a technology-laden route to safer communities and schools,' writes Markoff, 'is to others an entry point to a post-Orwellian, post-privacy world.'"

Comments

Don't get to cocky about your options ...

[Qbertino]

I'm sure its nothing that a can of spray-paint and some bubble-gum can't deal with.

Don't get to cocky about your options in an orwellian/cyberpunk future.

The corps in turn are sure your spray-paint and bubble-gum tactic is nothing 99.999% reliability facial-recognition + cell-phone tracking + behavioural-and-movement-pattern-recognition + god-knows-what can't deal with by tracking you down, sueing you into next wednesday, locking your creditcards/bankaccounts for that specific mall (all all others connected to the same megacorp and data-exchange conglumerate), putting you on a special surveillance & potential terrorist threat list, ban you from accessing gated communities of type X,Y and Z until further notice and upping your rent for being a threat to society all for spraying and gumming up their new survelliance & minion control bot toy.

Just saying.

So then...

[Chris Mattern]

'The night watchman of the future,' explains the NY Times' John Markoff, 'is 5 feet tall, weighs 300 pounds and looks a lot like R2-D2 â" without the whimsy. And will work for $6.25 an hour.'

So, no changes from the present, then.