The Role of Police Robots in the Future of Law Enforcement

We’re diving in this week on a topic that just might be the most ominous (at least for fans of a certain post-apocalyptic movie genre): robotic law enforcement.

It’s true— we’re starting to see police robots show up as a complement to the police force in certain locales.

Now, before you run for the hills, we’re not talking about anything anywhere near Terminator levels. No one’s giving the robots guns! But innovation is happening in the law enforcement space, and police robots look to be a part of the next generation of the urban police force.

NYPD Tests Two Types of Police Robots

The big news recently comes from New York. The New York Police Department (NYPD) has resumed testing robotic assistants, including the so-called robodog made by Boston Dynamics. (As a fan of automation you’ve probably seen videos of these dog-like robots performing impressive feats like climbing stairs, walking on ice, or staying upright when forcefully kicked.)

Let’s start with the robodog.

Meet Spot

Spot, or Digidog, is a Boston Dynamics robot that looks an awful lot like a headless canine. It can patrol, monitor, surveil, follow a person, ascend and descend steps, carry payloads up to 14kg, and more.

Spot is designed to patrol a designated area and provide intelligence back to the human police force.

Spot isn’t very fast: this model tops out at a whopping 3 MPH. It wouldn’t win in a footrace with a bad guy, nor would it fight back: a bad guy with a sledgehammer is going to win this one pretty easily.

Meet Knightscope K5

Knightscope K5 is an active patrol police robot that weighs in at 400 pounds. Designed for flat and gently sloped surfaces, the K5 can operate in any ADA-compliant space. Imagine a cross between a giant egg and a giant R2-D2, and you’ve just about got it.

We’re not exactly sure what the NYPD means by “active patrolling” here: the robot can’t pursue or fight back or engage in any physical way. It’s packed full of sensors and cameras, though. It can detect license plates and (if enabled) faces.

There’s a lot here for the naysayers to poke at: the cringe-worthy name and the weird pointy-headed design are just the start.

The Elephant in the Room

These two police robots can do some interesting things, but they leave us with some pretty big questions. The biggest is probably this:

What’s the point of a police robot that can’t, well, police?

Don’t get us wrong— we don’t want the robots to be capable of arresting people. That’s terrifying, even for us! But if they can’t engage, what purpose do they serve, exactly? Mobile surveillance cameras, perhaps?

Ethical Considerations

There are other ethical considerations as well.

• Do roving surveillance cameras constitute an invasion of privacy?

• What happens the first time a municipality turns on the facial recognition feature, which falsely flags someone who ends up getting shot by police?

• And what ethical boundaries should be established for deadly use of force by police robots (whether human-controlled, as was recently considered in San Francisco, or someday autonomous)?

These are questions society will need to grapple with in the coming years or decades. There’s little doubt that robots and “AI police” will play an increasing role in law enforcement. But the right path forward is far from clear today.