Robocop has officially crossed over from the realm of science fiction into the realm of reality.
At least one police robot in Dubai could ??? ??be roaming the city's streets as early as 2017, according to the Dubai Media Office.
SEE ALSO: Police use facial recognition much more than you realizeThe robot -- complete with a set of arms, two eyes and a blue police cap -- is part of a larger effort in Dubai to have a squad of robo police around town by 2020, and was shown off at this year's GITEX Tech week.
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"Robots could do the work of a police officer on ground at certain situations," Khalid Razooqi, the general director of Smart Department Dubai Police, said at a separate technology conference in June. "The project we are working on will involve robots interacting with people and performing some responsibilities that of a police officer."
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The specific responsibilities these robots will take on are unclear, but they are likely to be service-oriented, as opposed to Terminator-like machines running around fighting crime.
Though that doesn't mean they won't be watching citizens.
The robots may be equipped with video and facial recognition technology, and could have the ability to ask newcomers what they're up to, according to the outlet 7days.
Dubai police have been geared toward tech-centric surveillance for some time, a pattern that mirrors police departments across the United States.
Back when Google Glass was a thing, the Dubai force had officers wear the glasses to snap photos of cars whose drivers had committed traffic violations.
If the officer got a photo of the vehicle's license plate, police could issue a ticket for the violation as well as run the plate number through a database of information about wanted drivers and vehicles.
Police also released an app in 2014 that allows residents to pay traffic fines and take videos of traffic violations and send them to the department for review.
The app records the location from which the user sent in the video, so police can quickly get to the area.
For now, those police are humans in uniform. Maybe soon, they'll be robots.