I think the word "robot" is really overloaded in this case.<p>They're machines, but beyond that they're basically sophisticated remote control cars. Outside of perhaps autonomous drone avionic controls, and maybe software and systems that allow some of the machines to climb stairs, they're basically stupid sensor platforms.<p>The military has been using "robots" in combat for 50 years. Any guided missile can be considered a robot, though I'd argue that those with seeker heads vs the crude mechanics of the V2 are more "robot" than not as they have built in "decision making" capability.<p>The Navy's "Phalanx" CWIS is, indeed, a very sophisticated robot. It can be turned on, weapons free, to follow through with its "if it flies, it dies" motto. As far as I know, it's never actually been deployed that way. It's always been used with a man in the middle with their finger on the button. But, left to it own devices, it will happily (can robots be happy?) sweep the nearby sky of anything that flies. This includes things like friendly helicopters, which is one of the reasons its kept on a short leash.<p>There have certainly been tragic mistakes, notably Iran Air Flight 655. A dot on a screen taken out by an autonomous tracking system released by a human hand.<p>What the police are talking about is none of these.<p>It's an RC car, with a camera. It's as much a robot as a sharpshooter using a night vision site. It's not an ED-209, by any stretch. It's not even a step toward an ED-209, save for one thing.<p>That word "robot" again. Robot is too broad. I'd prefer something more specific, "manually remote controlled platform" or something. I don't want the the slippery slope of what is now a fancy RC car sliding down into an ED-209. "It's just a robot, and the legislation says robots are ok!".<p>And I appreciate the distinction between military and police matters. A remote detonated land mine should fall under this policy, something the military uses all the time. But it's hardly a "robot".<p>Because what we're talking about is remote controlled lethal force, especially problematic if the authorities don't have clear line of site.<p>What you really want to avoid is sending in some machine, that has limited scope of the environment, giving the human operators a limited view of the situation. Hard to safely deploy lethal force if they can't see everything in the room.<p>As long as the machine is under complete human control (outside of things like drones that use software to maintain stability and such), I don't have a problem with these.<p>We also don't want a repeat of Philadelphia 1985, which is honestly about as close as we have to a Worst Case Scenario of how these might be deployed.