Will robots stand up to protect law and order in the future? Dubai is trying to find out.
One of the seven emirates of the UAE took a technological leap of faith this week with the unveiling of the first Dubai police robot. The REEM robot, developed by the Spanish company PAL Robotics, reaches 1.7 meters in height and looks like a knight in shiny white plastic armor, although it does not sit on a horse, but rides on wheels.
This is just the first step for the Dubai Police. By 2030, the ranks of local police officers should be 25 percent robots. Brigadier Khalid Nasser Al-Razuki, head of the Dubai Police Smart Services Development Department, told Gulf News: “We are trying to make everything in the Dubai Police“smart”. By 2030, we will have the first smart police station where people will not work.”
What can a robot police do? The prototype of the robot, presented at the last information technology exhibition GITEX, which takes place annually in Dubai, was essentially a hyped booth with a touch screen. With the help of a tablet built into the middle of the robot, people can report a crime, submit documents for verification and pay fines for traffic violations. It is unclear if the robot has acquired new functions, but Dubai police have partnered with developers of the artificial intelligence-equipped supercomputer Watson from IBM to create a voice command recognition system. In the future, the Dubai police plans to use the robot as a full-fledged police officer.
But does the presence of the word “smart”, which is used by the Dubai police to refer to the robot police project, indicate that the situation is going to change for the better? It is unclear how citizens will react to the robot policeman. Will people put more trust in a robot policeman who does not have the prejudices of ordinary policemen? Perhaps citizens will find it inconvenient to report crimes to a robot, and the police will receive less data on crimes.
The Dubai Police initiative to recruit robots raises many questions, but it's safe to say that other countries will closely monitor the experiment and weigh the pros and cons before creating their own robotic police.
Anton Komarov