the K5 robot, intended to help police officers in the New York subway, put on the shelf

The police spent a lot of time watching over the Knightscope K5 robot, which was unreliable and not very suitable for patrolling the metro.

The mayor of New York inaugurated with great fanfare the Knightscope K5, a robot which patrolled the subway. But despite a fanfare start to its career, this idea was a flop since only six months after its entry into service, Knightscope K5 found itself in early retirement, as the story goes. New York Times, Monday February 5.

Yet he had it all. From a height of 1.50 meters and 130 kilos, he looks like R2D2 in star Wars. Thanks to him, New Yorkers would no longer have to worry about their safety since the K5 robot would patrol from midnight to six in the morning without stopping. Thanks to it, anyone could immediately connect to emergency services via a simple button. For the batteries? No problem, the robot should be able to go to a charging station on its own when they are empty. According to the mayor of New York, this robot had to be more durable than a human being (with him no bathroom break), cheaper to rent than a police officer’s salary, only nine dollars an hour. Except that K5 turned out to be more dangerous than useful.

Warning signs

The mayor of New York could have suspected it. Because in 2017, this Rolls-Royce of robots had already made headlines by attempting suicide. In any case by diving into water, which we know can be lethal for a robot. A dip in a fountain in the Washington mall Unable to get out of there on his own, it took several people to get him out of this predicament. And then there was also this little incident in 2016 when he literally ran over the feet of a 16-month-old baby, not to mention the day when a drunk man smashed his face, if anything. that we can speak of figure.

The inevitable happened. The robot did not shine any better in the New York subway. He was unable to walk down the stairs without falling. The police ultimately spent more time monitoring him than the thugs that K5 had to help neutralize. The good news is that now that he’s in the closet, he won’t do any more damage. And the other rather rejoicing news in this whole story is that the time of “the great replacement”, this moment when robots will be able to choose and decide everything in place of humans, does not seem to have come at all. Moreover, the humanization of robots will undoubtedly take much longer than the robotization of humans. And yet, how hard it is to live like a robot.