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Comment by POiNTx | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this just a remotely controlled gun? If we'd be talking about AI making its own decisions that's a different thing.

In addition to this I feel better decisions would be made when the person holding the gun isn't threatened by his or her life.

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Cops in america already shoot way too many people. Do you think giving them the ability to do that from a remote location is going to help?

I'm not pro gun or even American, but to me it seems a lot of those shootings happen in high stress situations, not in a remotely controlled environment.

A lot of the stress is manifested by the police themselves (which is an issue specifically called out by the "defund the police" movement, e.g., mental health crises when the better path is deescalation by trained mental health workers)

Have you followed up on those "trained mental health workers"?

Yeah they stopped going on calls unless cops were present because they kept getting injured or used as hostages.

This isn't even remotely true. My city, Portland, etc. Have had great success with these programs. The vast majority of calls they respond to don't require police.

Please cite your sources (or any evidence at all) if you're going to make statements like that.

Genuinely curious, do you have a source handy for that?

I did a search on this to see if I could find some source of what you’re referring to. Came up with nothing. Most of the information out there on this topic is in stark contrast to what you’re saying here.

Yes, there's a model program in Eugene, OR that's being adopted elsewhere because of its success: https://www.vera.org/behavioral-health-crisis-alternatives/c...

It seems you're proposing that the only sensible option is always more cops.

Usually the high stress situation is manufactured entirely or significantly heightened by the officers involved

Which is why I think I might be on board with this. The “police are professionals trained to keep their cool even in life threatening situations” boat sailed ages ago. So making it so police aren’t in the life threatening situation at all might be a win.

> So making it so police aren’t in the life threatening situation at all might be a win.

Cops routinely kill people even when there's no reasonable way to claim they were in a "life threatening situation".

All this will do is make it easier for cops to kill people and evade accountability.

Not being in life threatening situations hasn't stopped cops from killing people before.

Robots are not going to solve the problem of people abusing the power they're given because they can. I'd argue that it would exacerbate it.

I don't see anything good coming from turning shooting real people into a video game for cops.

Police being in life threatening situations is a bullshit excuse. None of these killings have the police been in a life threatening situation. They’re just murderous thugs, we should stop buying them expensive toys and start locking them up when they commit crimes

Not an American either. I'd wager it's hard to come up with actual numbers on how many of those happen in high stress situations and how many are triggered by the police themselves.

The main issue to my understanding is that you can't trust police reports as they have no incentive to write their motives plainly, and no peer pressure to expose bad reporting.

So you think sending in humans is the better option?

- REPLYING TO BELOW -

> Why does anyone or anything need to “go in”? There are plenty of other ways to deal with these situations instead of pretending to be Seal Team Six.

Such as? Like a large magnet to pull the guns out of their hand?

Sometimes these situations will only result in shootouts, like busting a drug operation of a gang.

Then you have to go in to protect other citizens. Sending in a robot would then be safer. And it's been done before.

> Working on having less guns would be a start. In terms of "less lethal" pepper spray is usually pretty good

Sure, but that's not today, gangs currently have guns. Drug busts currently have dangers.

(note I don't agree that guns are the problem, if anything everyone should be armed)

Why does anyone or anything need to “go in”? There are plenty of other ways to deal with these situations instead of pretending to be Seal Team Six.

Dead bystanders is usually considered poor form.

Tell that to the Uvalde police department.

Police are concerned with their own lives. They have no duty to protect anybody else’s lives

That's a fixable problem. Police could have a legally mandated ethics code similar to lawyers and fiduciary duty.

I do believe, ethically speaking, Uvalde officers should be criminally charged. There's no legal basis of course.

You're correct, there is no legal basis. In fact, the police have a supreme court ruling which affirms that the police has no legal duty or responsibility to protect anyone. Even when they're given roles that would imply the responsibility (such as serving in a school).

Could we hold police more accountable? Potentially. Will we? Based on historical evidence, no.

And without that accountability, this is just another deadly weapon, one they can and will (again, based on historical evidence) use with impunity.

There's always not "fighting fire with fire"

Working on having less guns would be a start. In terms of "less lethal" pepper spray is usually pretty good

Have you been pepper sprayed?

It's disorienting but you can still be a very lethal threat under it's effects.

That also assumes the pepper spray works, it's not too windy, you can get within 15ft, suspect isn't running...

I think these two things are orthogonal. Less gun violence is always good, of course, but it’s not clear to me that introducing a robot would necessarily increase shooting incidents in law enforcement scenarios.

Perhaps military use of drones is a good analogy - although not perfect, since there the goal is often inflicting violence rather than avoiding it. Would be interested to hear from anyone with knowledge.

Cops shoot people because they fear for their lives. Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

If you can remotely control a gun, aren't there plenty of less lethal things you can also remotely control to try to diffuse the situation or disarm the person?

Sure if nobody else is around. Unfortunately criminals don't usually do crime in deserted areas.

I think that's a great point.

It seems like in debates about officer involved shootings, frequently people justify police action with, "but the officer feels so much danger to their life in that situation". But if we're talking about robots, there is no danger to an officer -- so why do they need a gun?

Step by step, that's where we could end up.

Step 1: Remote controlled guns

Step 2: Built in AR sighting and suspect identification

Step 3: ML powered accuracy enhancement

Step 4: AI powered everything, human controller just has to click "Approve Killing"

Step 5: AI kill-decision making

I'm probably being a bit paranoid, but it's also easy to imagine that kind of scenario.

ML driven killing that much more surgically and precisely targets black and brown people, rather than having the cops trying to guess

Paranoid? ... I think you're bring overly optimistic over the medium to long term.

Sure, it is a remotely controlled gun.

The question is: do we want to allow this? Without going all slippery slope on this debate, I don't think we've had time to think through the consequences of a precision remote-controlled gun. Of course, they didn't give us a say on selling military weaponry to police departments, so I don't think we'll have much to say in this either.

On the other hand, the decision to shoot is going to be based on a lower fidelity information than available if the officer has a gun.

And I think the US should really be going in the direction of fewer guns, i.e. gun control. The US has way more guns per person, gun deaths per 100,000, proportion of homicide/suicide by gun than any other country. Pick one of those "dangerous countries" you are advised not to visit ... they have way less than the US on all these stats.

The police could lead the way by using force that doesn't maime or kill to control situations. That is where the innovation should happen. A robot could be ideal here - send in a robot to disarm, control, resolve, but not to kill.

Yeah, while reflexively I would like to see less of both guns, and robots with guns, I can also see that sending a (human-controlled) robot into a dangerous situation could (not necessarily “would”) lessen the risk of fatal accidents.

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