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[Tormy]

http://news.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029672,49298541,00.htm

Robocop will become a reality within the next 75 years according to a top UK robotics expert.

Abusive drunks or knife-wielding thugs can expect to feel a metallic hand of the law on their shoulder in 2084, according to robotics expert professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield.

Sharkey said he expects robots with "human-like features and expressions" to patrol the streets of the UK to cut crime, detect weapons, carry out drink and drugs tests and free-up police officers' time.

Chips in the brains of these tin guardians would give them instant access to bank accounts, tax, motoring, shopping and criminal records, allowing them to instantly identify and determine who people were, according to Sharkey.

But he warned they would have to be constrained to prevent them from inadvertently using excessive force due to their "super strength" and "inability to feel pain".

His research also predicts that autonomous police cars will appear by 2070, able to recognise speeding cars, identify number plates and automatically deduct fines from bank accounts, at the same time as adding points on driving licences.

Sharkey said in a statement: "These robot developments could be extremely beneficial in the protection of citizens and police in the hands of benevolent governments."

The study was commissioned by Warner Home Video to mark the release of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

"But in the wrong hands, as warned in the movie, robot law enforcement could be a major blow to individual privacy and basic human rights," he added.

[penguinofhonor]

"But in the wrong hands, as warned in the movie, robot law enforcement could be a major blow to individual privacy and basic human rights," he added.

Hasn't regular law enforcement already become a major blow to individual privacy and basic human rights? Or is that just in the US?

[Nilocy]

"But in the wrong hands, as warned in the movie, robot law enforcement could be a major blow to individual privacy and basic human rights," he added.

Hasn't regular law enforcement already become a major blow to individual privacy and basic human rights? Or is that just in the US?

Nah. Don't worry its getting worse, Britains slowly becoming a police state, ID cards with EVERYTHING you are on them, and like 1 CCTV camera to ever 14 people.

[Torak]

Chips in the brains of these tin guardians would give them instant access to bank accounts, tax, motoring, shopping and criminal records, allowing them to instantly identify and determine who people were, according to Sharkey.

But he warned they would have to be constrained to prevent them from inadvertently using excessive force due to their "super strength" and "inability to feel pain".

So it's a dwarf in tin plate?

[Boksi]

No, they obviously increased their size and added the [NOPAIN] tag.

[Cthulhu]

inadvertently using excessive force

Yeah, dwarves for sure.  Just like sparring.

[Nonanonymous]

The first thing that came to my mind was that these would be cyborgs, like in the movies.  When I read they were ordinary robots with human-like features, I thought of THX 1138.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kWgcIlWn0

[Lord Dullard]

Have you ever seen those corny old black and white movies made in the 50's where they 'predicted' that by the year 2000 we'd have household robots doing all our chores, magical gizmos producing pill-food for us, et cetera?

Those are the reason I never take 'predictions' like these seriously. Science is fluid and unpredictable - the types of revelations it provides are not 'linear' by any means. There's no way of telling what kind of new innovations science will have brought us 80 years in the future.

[Cthulhu]

Or if we'll even exist in 80 years.

[A_Fey_Dwarf]

Uh-oh

[Wooty]

I have this book checked out from a library in something like 1960 - it predicted that by 2000, we would have a lunar base and moving sidewalks and disposable clothing.

Predicting anything in science more than 10 or 20 years away is just guessing. You never know what will happen.

[blakyoshi7]

http://news.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029672,49298541,00.htm

Abusive drunks or knife-wielding thugs can expect to feel a metallic hand of the law on their shoulder in 2084, according to robotics expert professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield.

...

But he warned they would have to be constrained to prevent them from inadvertently using excessive force due to their "super strength" and "inability to feel pain".

We are all going to die.

[Cthulhu]

Uh-oh

Wow, that brings back memories.  The first truly violent game I ever played.  I  still remember the fat guy in the first level whose head flies off and melts when you kill him.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

There isn't really a reason to make the robot policeman a humanoid. You might as well make it a tin can too heavy to tip over. They'd have other human policemen around to take care of anyone who climbed a set of stairs.

But why not just install more cameras? If you can take the police off the traffic beat completely, you suddenly more than double your police resources.

And then of course we would have to make destroying a robot policeman a harsher crime than destroying a police car. Kind of like how police dogs work right now.