Will an AI

The New York Police Department's K5 robot cop roams the mezzanine of the Times Square - 42nd St. subway station. A broken monitor with indecipherable subway arrival times hangs above the robot, which is being rented for $9 an hour.

Nina Raemont/ZDNET

I met New York's subway robot cop on a temperate November Monday at midnight. I found the robot known as K5 patrolling the mostly empty mezzanine of the Times Square-42nd St. subway station, pacing from one end of the corridor to the other, pausing, like a cautious Roomba, as riders passed by. 

In late September, the New York Police Department deployed a 5'2, 398-pound, hunk of metal in the city's busiest and most tourist-heavy subway station. Equipped with four HD wide angle cameras, one infrared thermal camera, 16 microphones, and wheels, the K5 security robot works the subway station, accompanied by an officer, between midnight and 6 a.m. 

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I needed to see it, but had to pull some teeth to find someone to accompany me. All three of my roommates left my text request on read, and a few friends initially acquiesced and later bailed. On a subway ride to Queens the day prior, I explained my K5 mission to another friend who luckily agreed to go with me. "It'd be funny to see a police officer replaced by a big cone," they said.  

As I approached K5, the robot's cameras came eye-level with my face. It rolled along the hallway as I walked behind it. The blue fluorescent lights flashing across K5's armor reflected on the dirty white subway wall tiles as it moved. As if suspicious of my stalking, it stopped and stared back at me. Its movements felt so uncanny that at that moment, and -- I know this sounds silly -- I was waiting for it to say something to me. 

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