We obviously need the right to have personal lethal combat robots if the state intends to use them against the people.<p>Let's just not go down this road and not give the police the right to use lethal combat robots
<i>Ryan Calo is a law and information science professor at the University of Washington and also studies robotics. He says he's long been concerned about the increasing militarization of police forces, but that police units across the country might be attracted to utilizing robots because "it permits officers to incapacitate a dangerous individual without putting themselves in harm's way."</i><p><i>Robots could also keep suspects safe too, Calo points out. When officers use lethal force at their own discretion, often the justification is that the officer felt unsafe and perceived a threat. But he notes, "you send robots into a situation and there just isn't any reason to use lethal force because no one is actually endangered."</i><p>Case closed. Incapacitation should be the only usecase in a situation that removes all endangerment to officers and bystanders.
That scene from robocop where the robot kills all the scientists in a demo:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZq7fW6ftlU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZq7fW6ftlU</a><p>Anyone who approves lethal force proxy robots should have to run away from the robot and surrender to make sure they really know when a suspect is compliant.
Why <i>lethal force</i>, and not a less-than-lethal thing, like...possibly an incapacitating gas or something?<p>I am not fan of law enforcement (in its current form in the US), but charitably, I figure law enforcement uses lethal force because they want/need to "win the race" of who gets shot first. But in a battle of human vs robot, the operator of the robot is afforded a bit more time & flexibility because they're, frankly, just a robot. You don't necessarily need to escalate to lethality.<p>Why do we have to resort to the default human impulsive tactic of "we have to kill" and not actually use the benefit that putting a non-human device in the field could bring?
I'm not writing this as an argument for or against lethal-force robots, but I think there is some important context here. When people hear 'police robot' they tend to imagine ED-209 type robots blasting people, but this isn't really the case.<p>Usually police want these robots for 'barricaded suspect' type situations. We have SWAT to deal with this, but entering an area held by armed suspects is still extremely dangerous. Also, because officers might need to shoot in order to save their own lives, they have to make decisions extremely quickly, which can lead to bad shootings or unnecessary use of lethal force. Since robots can take bigger risks than humans can, there are situations where they may allow officers to resolve a situation nonlethally where they otherwise couldn't<p>That said, there are serious problems with police robots. The first is their ability to vastly expand police surveillance. Nonlethal robots face much less public scrutiny, but their potential to automate surveillance is terrifying to me. They also present a problematic revenue source for police departments, who might use them to ding people for parking violations, set up speed traps, etc, i.e., enforcement of minor crimes without actually improving public safety.<p>A final criticism (relevant to lethal robots) is that, while they may improve officer safety, this doesn't always improve public safety. There are times when officers need to prioritize response speed -- Uvalde Tx being the prime example. They can create a 'it's too dangerous -- SOP is to wait for the robot' mentality -- police departments / officers need to have the courage to avoid this.
Personally, I’d love to see robot drones remotely apply lethal force to people breaking into vehicles, but it’ll be a long time before enough red tape will be cut to make that happen.