Police Robot Proves Useless if It’s Not Online

In June 2019, the Huntington Police Department, California, introduced its first robotic police “officer,” also among the first in the US: K5 from Silicon Valley Robotics company Knightscope. They called it HP RoboCop and hailed it as the next big thing in deterring and, ultimately, fighting crime.

Knightscope is now setting the record straight on the actual capabilities of K5, stressing it’s not as smart or interconnected as previously advertised, and nothing like the RoboCop in the movies. The admission comes after someone in a local park reported a crime in progress to the robot in October and it failed to act.

When introducing the robot, the Huntington PD made it clear that it was a high-performance robot that would help officers in their patrolling work. It was fitted with an emergency alert button and 360-degree high-definition cameras that live-streamed directly to officers’ phones and could track cell phone use in the area. It also had a two-way intercom and the ability to read an estimated 1,200 car license plates a minute.

RoboCop would patrol on a pre-programmed route in the park, occasionally engage with tourists by means of pre-recorded messages and help those in need. To that end, it received a visible “police” decal on its body. As expected, citizens believed they could turn to it to report incidents requiring police assistance.

When a woman ran to it to press the emergency button because she had noticed a fight was underway, RoboCop urged her to “please step out of the way.” After a couple more attempts, the woman gave up, and the robot went on its route, playing its intergalactic tune. Citizens felt they were promised an autonomous robot that would use IoT to come to their assistance, and they got a rolling egg-shaped thing that did close to nothing.

It would be later revealed that RoboCop wasn’t online – nor would it be for some time, as it’s rented to the police on a trial basis for a sum roughly equal to the salary of a police officer. This means that the police don’t even have access to the footage it records, not to mention having it streamed live to cops’ phones, as it’s currently stored over at Knightscope.

The emergency alert button, which should have been a direct line to the police, also links to Knightscope and isn’t even enabled at this point in the trial. The intercom feature isn’t enabled, either. At this point, all HP RoboCop can do is act as a very expensive surveillance system, hum a tune and urge tourists to “keep the park clean” or wish them “a good day.”

It may be a high-performance autonomous outdoor robot with loads of features, including Internet connection, but with these features disabled it is a rather useless chunk of metal for the police; and its presence creates a false sense of safety.

Image credit: @HPRoboCop