Police robot fired after failing to catch a single criminal during nearly a year on patrol
After months of quietly patrolling the streets, the Dubbot police robot has officially been taken out of service. The autonomous machine was introduced to help improve public safety, but officials say it never lived up to expectations.
Its record was difficult to ignore. During almost a year of operation, the robot did not help arrest a single suspect. It also failed to issue a single citation or respond to any incident that required police officers to step in.
The decision to retire the police robot was confirmed by authorities in Dublin, California. According to a department spokesperson, the experiment simply did not deliver the results officers had hoped for.
Known locally as Dubbot, the machine is a Knightscope K5 robot built by California technology company Knightscope. Standing just over five feet tall and weighing about 180 kilograms, the robot was impossible to miss as it rolled through public areas.
Its design looked more like a giant traffic cone than a traditional robot. It had no arms or tools for interacting with people. Instead, it relied on cameras that recorded a full 360-degree view of its surroundings. An emergency button also allowed members of the public to contact authorities if they needed help.
City officials invested about $67,500 in the project, hoping the robot would become an extra set of electronic eyes for local police. Beginning in July 2025, Dubbot was assigned to patrol a municipal parking area where officers wanted additional surveillance.
The idea sounded promising. A robot never gets tired, never takes breaks and can patrol around the clock. Supporters believed that simply seeing an autonomous security robot might discourage crime before it happened.
According to police, the robot never encountered a situation that required officers to intervene. It recorded video and monitored its surroundings, but it did not directly contribute to solving crimes or catching offenders.
The case has once again sparked debate about the growing use of AI security robots in public spaces. While supporters argue they can improve surveillance and collect valuable information, critics say they are often expensive and offer little practical benefit without human officers nearby.
Despite Dubbot’s disappointing performance, experts believe robotic patrol systems are unlikely to disappear. Companies continue developing new generations of security robots equipped with artificial intelligence, thermal cameras, license plate recognition and advanced sensors. Future models may be able to detect suspicious behavior more accurately and provide faster alerts to police.
For now, however, Dubbot’s career has come to an unremarkable end. After nearly a year on duty, the robot leaves behind one statistic that is difficult to overlook: not a single arrest, not a single ticket and no major incidents where its presence changed the outcome.
Source: WOSU / NPR Knightscope K5
