Robot vs Human Cage Fights Are Here. RoboCop Is Next.

REK staged a robot vs human cage fight in San Francisco: creator Frankie LaPenna against a six-foot humanoid robot steered by a human pilot. Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop explain how Robot Entertainment Kombat splits the work between machine and person. AI keeps the EngineAI T800 upright; a human throws punches with a VR headset or a gamepad, after winning an online simulation. From there it's a short walk through Ender's Game, the Robin Williams movie Toys, BattleBots, military drone pilots and the Terminator to RoboCop. The pitch for robot police is that they're non-lethal, never return fi