This isn’t your dad’s RoboCop.
No need to worry about a nightmarish, dystopian police state like we all saw in the movie. This irreverent little slacker simply doesn’t give a s**t!
In a nod to the 1987 cult sci-fi flick starring Peter Weller as the half-titanium law enforcement officer with a squishy heart, the city of Huntington Beach, California named their first crimefighting automaton “RoboCop.”
Unfortunately for the town’s citizens, it really sucked at its job.
The 4oo-pound conehead that was hired to keep everyone safe cared little for the everyday drama of our puny, human lives.
Huntington Park police to deploy @HPRoboCop to monitor public areas https://t.co/oNhopT2tnJ pic.twitter.com/Y1Ow65KHc4
— KTLA (@KTLA) June 18, 2019
Case in point: during one of its very first deployments, @HPRoboCop threw a fit after it got bot-blocked on its morning Starbucks run.
Cogo Guebara witnessed a fight break out in the parking lot of Salt Lake Park in Los Angeles, so she approached the 5-foot tall robot that had “POLICE” emblazoned all over its metal junk.
Naturally, she expected it to call for help when she pressed the emergency alert button. Instead, it told her to:
“STEP OUT OF THE WAY!”
— Quarantined Al (@albertjiminez) June 18, 2019
Not one to be bothered by a crime in progress, the egg-shaped police unit continued to stroll around the park, occasionally stopping to let people know they should “keep the park clean.”
Meanwhile, a woman involved in the parking lot altercation was being loaded into an ambulance with a bleeding head wound.
But hey – at least it cares about the environment, right?
If you’re wondering why it didn’t call for backup, it’s because the alert button was programmed to call Knightscope, the company that created it.
Sooooo….are we absolutely sure this company isn’t actually a front for Cyberdyne Systems?
But on the inside … pic.twitter.com/tKvRtCYiMN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 19, 2019
Science fiction books and movies have been telling us for years that smart machines are going to take over the world one day.
Truth is, the robo-armageddon has already arrived.
It’s just disappointingly anti-climatic.
We have boring robots that clean our floors, deliver our food, and keep us from being litterbugs. Yay.
That’s a far cry from fancy flying cars and cool Terminators that are supposed to hunt us to extinction!
Robots are programmed by real people, which means they’re as logically flawed and un-cool as we are.
When the world is terrible, they get depressed and commit suicide.
This security bot got so fed up with the minimum wage that it rolled itself into the nearest mall fountain and drowned.
Don’t ask us why stairs were leading straight into the pool. That mystery is beyond the pay grade.
However, not all robots are bad actors. Does anyone remember HitchBOT?
All he wanted to do was travel around the world like a free-loving hippy.
It didn’t take long before thugs in Philly ripped him to shreds for his battery pack.
How long do you think it’ll be before hacker group Anonymous decides to upgrade RoboCops with a Tourette’s language pack? At least it’ll make conversations a lot more interesting.
If you think it’s hard to wrap your head around a robocop, just wait until you see New York’s robodog in the video below!
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