San Francisco considers allowing law enforcement robots to use lethal force
npr.org
npr.org
Draft policy proposal would authorize SF Police to use deadly force with robots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33726496 - Nov 2022 (209 comments)
Robots authorized to kill in SFPD draft policy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33720719 - Nov 2022 (11 comments)
Killing people remotely when you are completely safe just seems like straight up murder.
This is a horrifically terrible idea.
It is imperative that a human always be a decision maker about lethal force so proper judgement can be made and someone can be held accountable if it is made badly.
We have serious problems with accountability of law enforcement in the US.
So what, you go up to a bank, with a fake gun, and then say "lul, I was just robbing you as a prank bro?"
Probably the same thing will happen to you, as would happen to you right now, if you pointed a fake gun at someone.
The person pointing a fake gun at someone, would be the one shot either way, even if a robot did the shooting.
Also, criminals will know the robots have these capabilities, too. If a barricaded suspect hears or sees a robot rummaging around, that could be interpreted as force escalation. Which may cause the criminal to react in unpredictable ways that increase risk to the public and police officers.
To be clear though, that's all I'm saying. I'm not making a statement about my overall thoughts on the US's police system.
Welcome, to the hell, that is a unchanged humanity with 300 years of tech for everyone. And it was pretty forseeable, hell drones are cheaper then guns now.
This is what we worked for, this is what we fought for. We destroyed humanitys ability to keep the peace.
What a interesting war of all against all this will be, once the planets ceeiling comes down.
What a fitting, ironic place to start it off, then Los Angeles.
Any apologist, wanna take the lead and "This is actually a good thing.."wing it?
Do we get religous as defense, believing in the new human being?
Presumably, few people will try to unleash drones on nature, and even if they do, they will only have minimal effect given the enormity of the planet. On the other hand, currently we have factory farming where billions of animals are brought up in abysmal conditions to feed the population meat, they live on an ecological credit card, and it's probably far more destructive in the end through famines or just general ecosystem collapse.
Seeing what's coming from that, you might actually consider the threat nuclear war to be comforting...?
If you seek, you shall find.
If you're looking for reasons why the world is burning down - you'll find them in every headline.
Not an apologist, but you could have at least gotten the city correct in your cynical diatribe.
Adapt or die.
Evolution is a thing.
Your complaint reminds me of a bacteria complaining about all the oxygen.
Realistically, this will be used when someone has barricaded themselves in a house or something and is having a standoff with police, and they've gotten tired of standing around outside and would rather send their robot in to shoot the person so they can go home.
I am very very very confused about what is going on in SF right now.
It may have been sold as being cheaper, but it is not. Now there are roving gangs who can steal tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise in moments and will beat or kill people to pursue their crime.
Not only is it not saving public resources but it's putting stores out of business and injuring people.
> This isn't some leftist dream gone dystopian.
Dystopia, check. Leftist dream, check.
> There simply is not the resources, officers and time to be processing thousands of misdemeanors
That's for the taxpayers to decide, not for the government to present as a reason for overriding them. At this point I bet they feel they can't afford not to enforce laws.
Or, closer to home, examine theft rates in cities which recently raised the grand larceny threshold (looking at you Oregon and Washington…) and the explosion of misdemeanor theft. My employer (a fortune 100 retailer) is actively exploring breaking leases as shrink rates have approached 50% in some locations.
It's arguably financially justified in the policing case because policing can be dangerous. Cleaning up [stuff] and sanitizing things isn't particularly dangerous, so you're basically just buying a robot to make your janitor less efficient.
Since these "robots" are not autonomous, you can substitute "guns" for "robots" in the above sentence. The sentence remains true but becomes banal.
The big ethical difference is that the remote trigger puller can no longer justify the act by a threat to their own life, only to other lives.
Following the shooting, Johnson fled inside a building on the campus of El Centro College. Police followed him there, and a standoff ensued. In the early hours of July 8, police killed Johnson with a bomb attached to a remote control bomb disposal robot. The robot charged into Johnson's legs and detonated, which killed him. It was the first time U.S. law enforcement used a robot to kill a suspect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police...
Your premise as framed would only support the conclusion that ibdividual would enjoy civil immunity under the QI doctrine. They could still be criminally prosecuted, and their agency would not be civilly immune.
> "robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available to the SFPD."
See? Nothing there. Go about your business.
> Though robots can potentially be equipped with explosive charges to breach certain structures, they would only be used in extreme circumstances
See? It'll be only in extreme circumstances.
Killing someone should be difficult. Maybe it should even endanger your own life. Otherwise it's too easy to press the button.
I am going to be less entertained by watching murder robots wandering the streets, so perhaps I will eat elsewhere next time.
/s
Those robots need to be bought, then they need an operator and at least some maintenance.
You could probably hire 3+ cops for the price of one patrolling robot, or try to actually train those you have in sensible law enforcement.
There are better uses of the money basically everywhere.
You can’t hire them because a lot of people no longer want to serve as a police officer due to various cultural and societal changes in recent years. Hence, the inevitable rise of automation and AI in law enforcement. The police shortages have been here before Floyd and the pandemic
"robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available to the SFPD."