Real-Life RoboCop Guards Shopping Centers In California (metro.co.uk)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Metro: While machines from the likes of RoboCop and Chappie might just be the reserve of films for now, this new type of robot is already fighting crime. This particular example can be found guarding a shopping center in California but there are other machines in operation all over the state. Equipped with self-navigation, infra-red cameras and microphones that can detect breaking glass, the robots, designed by Knightscope, are intended to support security services. Stacy Dean Stephens, who came up with the idea, told The Guardian the problem that needed solving was one of intelligence. "And the only way to gain accurate intelligence is through eyes and ears," he said. "So, we started looking at different ways to deploy eyes and ears into situations like that." The robot costs about $7 an hour to rent and was inspired by the Sandy Hook school shooting after which it was claimed 12 lives could have been saved if officers arrived a minute earlier.

Comments

Inspired by Sandy Hook?

[blindseer]

The robot costs about $7 an hour to rent and was inspired by the Sandy Hook school shooting after which it was claimed 12 lives could have been saved if officers arrived a minute earlier.

What would have saved them all was to have an armed presence on site. This fiction that we can create a "gun free zone" around anything is what got a lot of people killed. Insane people with guns are attracted to these "gun free zones" because they know they will not be met with armed resistance when they arrive. This gives them plenty of time to kill before an armed resistance does arrive. Given the tendency for these people to commit suicide when they do meet resistance shows they had no intention of coming out alive.

Putting cameras on site to alert the people with guns to come will no doubt reduce the effectiveness of these suicidal murderers but we should be aiming for the means to reduce the threat they pose as much as possible. Cameras can certainly assist in this but what we need are people with the ability to act to be there before the threat arrives. That means arming as many good people as possible so that any armed bad people that arrive will be seriously outnumbered.

It's taken time and many people killed but lawmakers are seeing how "gun free zones" have failed. Sandy Hook is just one example of many. We are seeing the slow repeal of laws that restrict the law abiding from arming themselves against suicidal murderers. The largest hurdle will no doubt be the federal laws that create "gun free zones" because the people that live in DC don't live under the laws they create. Their children go to schools where armed guards protect their children, no gun free zones for them.

This "robocop" is cute but I expect it to be near worthless. If a person is assaulted then they are likely to be heard by other people regardless, people that tend to have cell phones. Gunshots will certainly be heard for quite some distance and alert people to notify police. I don't want the robot to be armed since I can find many problems that can pose. What I want is a public free to defend itself. Cellphones, stationary cameras, and other technologies are certainly helpful in alerting police to come. A robot like this in an already built up area seems pointless to me, put that money towards a security infrastructure instead.

Where I do see something like this robot helpful is in things like festivals and such where an empty field is turned into a crowd of tents and people for a short period. The robots can provide video coverage for a security team and/or police. However in such places the robot might have to deal with uneven ground, steps, etc. requiring more than just the shopping cart wheels like in the pictures. These "robocops" will then have to be much larger, more powerful, and therefore more expensive to remain mobile. Alternatively and perhaps just as effective is to have stationary "robots" with eyes and ears on the crowd for security.

I see that people are recognizing the problem but it seems to me that political correctness is preventing them from forming effective solutions.