No, Robocop is not coming to New York City. The Big Apple should be so lucky. Instead, the subway station at Times Square will be patrolled by a large, somewhat egg-shaped robot known as K5. Engadget said that it looks like a massive R2-D2. This might be true if R2D2 was a weightlifter who was also abusing steroids.
The piece quoted Albert Fox Cahn, who is the executive director of privacy rights group Surveillance Technology, as saying K5 looks like a trashcan on wheels. It’s not something that will strike terror into the hearts of criminals, but then again, K5’s job is to “observe” and eventually “report.” At 420 pounds, with four cameras and no audio capability, it can’t do much else.
Once activated, K5 will spend two weeks mapping out the main areas of the station from midnight to 6 a.m. If there is an incident, the video footage can be reviewed later, and I am sure that the news has Gotham’s strap-hangers issuing a collective sigh of relief. Finally, help is on the way! As soon as it is done recalculating.
For the time being, K5 will not have facial recognition technology and will only take video. It does, however, feature a button that a citizen can push to talk to a live person. They can report an incident and get information, that is of course, provided they have not been knocked unconscious, are lying across the tracks, or have had something worse befall them.
Right now, the NYPD is leasing K5 from Knightscope for the low, low price of $9 per hour. But the article quotes a piece in the New York Times about Eric Adams mandating a 15% spending decrease for some city agencies. Hizzoner also seems to have an interest in electronic law enforcement. He announced earlier in the year that the police department would pick up two Digidog robots. Those run approximately $750,000 apiece.
One company has experimented with food delivery robots in L.A. The interaction between the public and the robots was about what one would expect:
If the video above is any indication, K5 may be in for a rough time of it. Navigational difficulties aside, If it isn’t vandalized or destroyed, it may be the victim of unwanted sexual advances. Honestly, one miscreant with a can of spray paint will pretty much render K5 useless in a matter of seconds, although I suppose the NYPD could pay someone to keep an eye on it — like a police officer. On the plus side, it will make it easier for people who want to defund the police to make their case. Now, we’ll just be hearing “Unplug the police.”
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