Where's RoboCop?

- by Ninja Ross, 17 July 2017

On the 17th of July 1987, RoboCop was released in cinemas across America. For over thirty years, Alex Murphy, A.K.A RoboCop, has been haunting the dreams of bad guys and inspiring good people to follow the law. Thirty whole years. Three decades and still no real life RoboCop.
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The closest thing we have to a real RoboCop is a tourist information machine on wheels, designed  by the Spanish firm PAL Robotics, recently put to work in Dubai. I'm sure a lot of hard work went into this, but there's no “shoot rapist in balls” option in the settings menu.

I know RoboCop isn't exactly the most mobile of heroes, but I really can't see this thing taking down an ED-209, can you?
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We've had thirty years to perfect this technology, so why are we only now getting this? Before that it was dustbins that rolled around shopping centres. That's exactly like a sci-fi Kevin James movie.

​It can't be because we lack the technology. Scientists recently used a robot to perform delicate eye surgery that even skilled surgeons have difficulty doing. As impressive as that is, in a trial the robot completed the surgery with considerably less haemorrhaging than its human counterpart.

​And it's not like RoboCop even needs to be that delicate. He's not going to be performing eye surgery, he's going to be smashing walls in! RoboCop logs onto a computer with a knife! He doesn't even bother with a mouse and keyboard, they just slow him down! RoboCop has no need for a delicate touch. RoboCop gets things done fast and hard.

And eye surgery brings us nicely to human augmentation.
 
Filmmaker Rob Spence lost his eye as a child, but has decided to put a camera in the socket and make movies (image, website). Which means he consciously decided to become a cyborg instead of a pirate, so I think we should applaud him for that just to start with.

As amazing as this is, it's only one of many examples of people using robotics to improve their lives. There's a man in Colorado who controlled Terminator arms with his mind.

And of course there's war veterans in New Hampshire controlling their robot arms with sensors in their feet. So don't tell me we don't have the technology to create a RoboCop. Robotics has been advancing a whole lot over the last few years, despite how none awesome some of it looks.

Plenty of people are dying after getting blown up or shot to death by vicious gangs lead by a bald guy with glasses. It really shouldn't be taking this long for corporations to try welding metal arms to them and selling them to police forces across the globe.
 
But this is assuming we really NEED a human element. AI has made some serious advances over the last few years. Experts are even worried that AI will be better than us at everything by 2060. That's not that far away! And experts, including Elon Musk, believe that's optimistic. Some researchers believe it'll be closer to 2030 when we see such advanced AI. 

But just like we don't need him to be able to perform surgery, we also don't need him to be a rocket scientist. Why would RoboCop need to be a chess expert? At most he needs to be able to solve crimes and he's got loads of software for that. MS Paint would be more useful to him than a lot of things we expect from top notch AI.
 
They're on the right track with the previously mentioned Tourist guide. You just need something that can do more than shuffle and call for back up.
 
But this would take some seriously strict programming, obviously. Even in RoboCop, that human element is needed. ED turned out terribly, killing people it shouldn't kill. And that's before you start looking at examples in other areas. 
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Imagine Skynet from the Terminator movies or HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey with a physical body. Able to walk around, with robot hands designed to kill, carrying one of the greatest guns ever: The Auto 9. No human being could stop a bullet fired from an Auto 9.
 
I think if we only make one of them, we should be alright. Just keep an eye on it. The police policing the police, so to speak. Seems redundant, though. It'd cost too much to just monitor the thing, not including the cost of actually creating this shell of a RoboCop. Need I mention ED -209 again? What good did that thing do?!?

If DARPA needs to be looking for ways to make AI more trustworthy, I think maybe we shouldn't be messing with that sort of thing. If we can't even look after ourselves properly, we shouldn't expect to be able to make a sentient being out of wires and code and expect it to turn out ok.

But we shouldn't need AI! Put a dude's head on a robot and we're good to go! Very little of RoboCop is physically or even mentally Alex Murphy. He carries his face, his memories to some degree, and probably his genitals, but RoboCop is something new. Something better. Something pure.
 
I address all scientists in this conclusion: Where's RoboCop? Why haven't you made RoboCop yet? Do you not want people to survive crimes? Do you want people to die? Do you want BABIES and PUPPIES to get mugged and stabbed because you wanted to make a phone? I didn't think so.
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Is the 30th Anniversary of RoboCop the right time to start demanding a real life version? How mad are you at the shocking lack of RoboCop on our streets? Protest in the comments!

Tagged: movies & TV, science.

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