The late 1980s sci-fi flick RoboCop featured a half-man,
half-robotic creature that was deployed to the mean, decaying streets of
Detroit in a bid to replace human police officers (and save money).
In
an early scene, a full robot was being demonstrated by its corporate
developers, but wound up short-circuiting and blowing away one of the
executives when it malfunctioned. The fix? Just tweak some software
programming and that would do it.
The thought of robotic police officers patrolling the streets of America did not vanish with the fading popularity of the RoboCop movie series, however. In fact, that concept is alive and well today, and its development is moving forward.
Meet
"TeleBot," created by researchers from Florida International University
(FIU) "to help disabled officers and veterans return to the field," the
Miami New Times (MNT) reported.
Built by FIU's Discovery
Lab, the university claims that TeleBot will be the first "functional,
mobile... and interactive" robot that could be patrolling the streets of
Miami in less than two years.
"Incredibly fast and very low-budget"
But rather than resemble RoboCop, its developers say TeleBot is more like the characters in the movie Avatar.
"In
Avatar, the disabled veteran got injured in the back, so he can't walk,
and he rebounds by connecting to a system," Janghoon Kim, director of
Discovery Lab and chief designer of TeleBot, told MNT. "We want to build
that kind of system."
Kim's team has been successful in a number
of realms. First, the prototype TeleBot was up and walking within 18
months, a huge feat in and of itself. But the team also developed the
cop aide with a budget of just $20,000.
As MNT further reported, the project was truly a team effort:
Besides
Kim, the project has been undertaken by Dr. Nagarajan Prabakar and Dr.
S.S. Iyengar, as well as 11 volunteer undergrad students and one intern
from MAST Academy High School. External support has come from U.S. Navy
Lt. Cmdr. Jeremy Robins and 3D designer and lab manager Mangai Prabakar.
"It is incredibly fast and also very, very low-budget," said Kim.
TeleBot
is about six feet tall, weighs 80 pounds and is equipped with cameras
that collect and transmit data, so it can provide its "TeleOperator" a
360-degree view.
And the goal is admirable -- providing a tool for helping disabled police officers and veterans who want to be police officers.
Robots
are also being developed by the military to perform all sorts of
functions, from sniffing out and disabling roadside bombs to replacing
troops on the battlefield.
The Pentagon's ultra-secret Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency has thus far spent decades researching
and developing battlefield-type drones and robots, but with limited success. As noted by RoboHub,
DARPA has funded several projects along these lines, "but they lack the
portable power source and intelligence that would allow them to act
beyond very limited non-combat roles."
They will assume moral agency at some point
One
approach has been the "cyborgazation" of soldiers -- that is, combine
humans with robotic features that allow them to become super-strong and
much more durable. And, some experts believe, similar technology could
eventually be utilized by police (if budgets permit).
"This
concept offers the best of both worlds: the quick reaction times,
precision, and strength of robotic systems and the control and superior
cognitive abilities of humans," reported RoboHub.
In
particular, the Army has been working on a concept known as "Land
Warrior," an integrated battlefield system that links individual
soldiers to a network "designed to cut through the fog of war," Popular Mechanics reported.
The
system includes eyepieces containing digital maps, advanced encrypted
radio communications with a 1-kilometer range and a specially designed
infantry rifle. But, as PopMech reported, it's much ado about nothing;
the soldiers who have tested the system don't care much for it.
"It's
just a bunch of stuff we don't use, taking the place of useful stuff
like guns," Sgt. James Young, who was leading a team of four M-240
machine-gunners during a recent field-testing exercise at Fort Lewis,
Wash. "It makes you a slower, heavier target."
But it's not the
gear itself that is problematic. There is an ethical consideration that
needs to be addressed as well, and soon.
As noted by The Economist,
robots are already so much a part of everyday life, it only follows
that someday they "are bound to end up making life-or-death decisions in
unpredictable situations, thus assuming--or at least appearing to
assume--moral agency."
Sources:
http://www.blacklistednews.com
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com
http://robohub.org
http://www.popularmechanics.com
http://www.economist.com
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