I don’t know how seriously to take this, but Dubai is developing Robo-cops to roam public areas like malls:

“‘The robots will interact directly with people and tourists,’ said. ‘They will include an interactive screen and microphone connected to the Dubai Police call centres. People will be able to ask questions and make complaints, but they will also have fun interacting with the robots.’

In four or five years, however, Alrazooqi said that Dubai Police will be able to field autonomous robots that require no input from human controllers.

“These will be fully intelligent robots that can interact with people, with no human intervention at all,” he said. “This is still under research and development, but we are planning on it.””

I don’t know what he means by ‘fully intelligent’ robots, but I would be surprised if anything fitting my conception of it were around in five years.

Interestingly, this sounds similar to the Knightscope K5 already in beta in the United States – a rolling, autonomous robot whose sensors try to detect suspicious activity or recognize faces and license plates of wanted criminals, and then alert authorities.

While the Knightscope version focuses on mass surveillance and data collection, Dubai is proposing that their robo-cops be able to interact with the public.

I would expect people to be more comfortable with that – especially if there’s a smooth transition from being controlled and voiced by humans to being fully autonomous.