Yahoo News A real-life RoboCop is roaming the streets of Dubai
What would you call a police officer that was also a robot? An automocop? Chrome constable? We're damned if we know.
Regardless of what you call it, Dubai has just deployed one such robotic policeman on its streets.
The Dubai Police Robot will be delivering swift justice, bullet by bullet, won't be chasing crims down the street any time soon. For starters it doesn't have legs.
Informing, rather than enforcing, is the task of the Police Robot, which is designed to help citizens report crimes, provide information about the city, and allow the payment of fines.
The five foot six, 220lb robot, which can communicate in English and Arabic and contains facial recognition software, is a modified version of the Reem humanoid robot produced by Spanish company PAL Robotics.
Dubai Police has said that by 2030, it wants 25% of its police force to be robotic – a figure that should be taken with a pinch of salt. According to Brig Khalid Al Razooqi, director of the Smart Services Department at Dubai Police, the plans don't involve firing human protectors of the peace.
"We are not going to replace our police officers with this tool," he told BBC News.
"But with the number of people in Dubai increasing, we want to relocate police officers so they work in the right areas and can concentrate on providing a safe city."
Al Razooqi, and the company that makes the Reem models, have both ruled out versions of the robot which can use a gun.
This also implies that cyborg experiments where human officers are surgically merged with automated machines, as in a certain popular science fiction film, are probably well beyond the pale.
The Dubai Police Robot was unveiled at the Gulf Information and Security Expo and Conference last week, and is now wheeling its way around shopping malls. If funding permits, it could be joined by a second robot next year.
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