Robot Guard Thyself

The Asian Forum of Corrections in South Korea has developed this 5′ tall robot for patrolling prisons.But rather than restraints and weapons, this prison guard carries a suite of technology:- 3-D Cameras for monitoring safety and security

– Recording devices for capturing activity

– 2-way wireless communications between corrections officials and prisoners

– Pattern recognition and anomaly detection software for differentiating normal behavior from problems

While this sparks the imagination for where this might go in the future, I’m not quite sold on this.

Firstly, how well can these robots really recognize and interpret human behavior, especially from those who may be fairly adroit at hiding or masking their activities, day-in and day-out.

And maybe more importantly, without some serious defensive and offensive tricks up its robot sleeve, I have a feeling that many a prisoner with a two by four, would put this million dollar robot in the junk yard pretty fast, indeed.

I’d rate this as not there yet! 😉