Should police be able to use robots that can kill?

Question

In San Francisco, the City council is debating whether or not to allow police to use robots that can kill. They would require authorization from a police chief, and they would not be autonomous. Still, history tells us that when the police have a tool that works, they tend to use it more and more, and often inappropriately.  For that reason, I am not in favor of this.   What do you think?

ObscuredBeyond · Accepted Answer

This is literally the opening to Robocop 2014.

I don't believe police should have it, and I have two works in progress that would address this. The Pilltar (Robotic Pillbug-Man Avatar) trilogy suggests that remote-piloted droids could be good for use in neighborhood watch settings, since it would prevent another George Zimmerman - Trayvon Martin incident if the watch could use Pilltar to get closer to the action. "Munchkin Iron Man" could, if things really get out of hand, be powerful enough to subdue the especially unruly, and hold them for the police. In essence, a citizen's arrest.

The problem with Pilltar, however, begins with the fact that especially with inflation, most neighborhood watches have been priced right out of the market for one. It only works in-story, because Lambrelli Labs is on par with Brinks Security, and becomes a powerful tech firm on the verge of becoming a scary monopoly. Barring that, the experiment would probably fail.

But worse: the deranged, possessed Scott Morrisson in-story by Pilltar 3 steals enough from Lambrelli Labs that he is able to make a homicidal knockoff in the form of Stagtar.

In Swappernetters, the diabolical quasi-communistic Chrome Kite regime, working as puppets for the Icy Finger, uses Stagtars to hunt down political dissidents, treating them as being worse than ordinary criminals. They don't often hesitate to shoot to kill, even children! And with Tug tech, they ensure that the Sodality won't be rescuing anyone.

In Robocop 2014, the fact that the military eventually decides that autonomous robots should be in the field, in spite robots often lacking human capacity to make nuanced moral judgments, leads to a ban on their use. Hence why OCP makes Alex Murphy a cyborg. His human brain controlling a robot body means he's still at least 4% human, creating a loophole in the law.

Meanwhile, Sam Jackson plays an OCP propagandist, telling us to stop being so "robophobic." He catches heat for the bad analogy.

San Fran forgot that Robocop 2014 was an exercise in what NOT to do. And given the extent of their foam at the mouth dedication to the path of Sodom and Gomorrah folly, turning back to God isn't an option they're willing to consider.

So instead, their message appears to be "all hail Robocop!" But I believe they'll find that the movies were too optimistic about the outcome.

lightbulb27 · Accepted Answer

good ol' LA! Just put a wall around it and seal the people in...

this is going so bad. then criminals will hack them and turn them loose on us to rob us. they are smarter than most people.

I'll reserve judgement. Sounds like a bad idea, I'd use them to deliver notices, to secure cars at traffic stops and such.

But I'm not a cop, if I was, I'd likely approve!

Imagine if you will... all citizens required to do a tour of duty as an officer, the risks they face. I suspect you'll get a lot more "yes" votes when ones own life is on the line.

Red-Blaze · Accepted Answer

I think this is good for a few reasons
Number one, no risk for life, means you can act faster, and the person creating the issue has less option to resist, like if they got a gun, shoot away, its a robot, it dose not care, so you better off to surrender then hope you may be able to kill and get out

Number two
robots like that work on cameras, that means more view on what the police seen and we be able to more easily decide if there action was justify or not

Number three possibley this robot can have a none human wepone, meaning even if its lets say disabled, thats not more weponce to the attacker

Number four touch on this in the first one, this gives more reason not to shoot someone if you dont have to do so
You scare the crimnal more with less hope to get out of it, or even get any benfit you can save there life as well

Beside all that I think they should try and make it really easy but really punishing to use the attack mode on the robot, but keep the use light
So police feel better using it without the weponce
Few exsample add 20 papers fill on use for each police officer in the area that it was used, keep stats with a - number on the amount of deadly fouced used, that track its captines that aprove it over there service and is allowed to be seen in court in case that captine/chief gets to court
Mind of make it something you only use if you have to use

Cuttie_Country_Girl · Accepted Answer

I think in many situations it would be a life saver, not just the police! When a suspect sees the robot they can’t threaten it, so they either surrender or they’ll die! But more importantly, there can be no “I was afraid for my life” BS if someone pulls out a cell phone! I believe this could save a LOT of lives, especially the suspects life! Also if someone IS shot, we won’t have to hear “oh the body cam was off” or “ the body cam is at the wrong level/angle to see what the officer saw”. Obviously not all situations, but in “manhunt” scenarios, once they have the suspect surrounded, send in the robot! Besides they already killed the Dallas Sniper in 2016, we discussed it in middle school, it happened in a parking lot with a robot loaded with explosives, because he killed like 5 cops already that night, they couldn't risk another officer’s life arresting a man determined to kill as many cops as possible before he was killed by them!

WhiteSteve · Answer

I don’t know…. I’ve never been big on “deadly force” being used. We’re supposed to have due process in America. But it’s like “due process, unless you piss the cops off and they kill you.” I’m not really comfortable with government agents in our society who can ultimately make judgement calls as to if someone lives or dies, whether that’s by a traditional cop or a robotic one.

goaded · Answer

I'm going to disagree with you here, for a couple of reasons:

1. It is keeping police out of harms way

2. It removes the "afraid for my life" defense for shooting someone

US police are already pretty safe, they're been many times more likely to die of covid than firearms in the last couple of years. This makes them even safer.

RangerBlue22 · Answer

It’s funny that in insanely left San Francisco of all places this is being considered. San Francisco is now giving out free money just for people who “identify” as trans.

Anyway people are thinking this is going to be like skynet deploying robots in T2. It’s not artificial intelligence. The Dallas shooter who already killed 4 cops was killed by one of these.

I think it should be used only for mass shooting/terrorist situations. Only let SWAT have it. It could possibly save lives if used properly.

Maybe they could develop a robot to capture homeless people crapping on the streets out there (and clean up their poo too).

Price511 · Answer

Well I mean if it was used as a way to prevent casualties and collateral damage, perhaps I’d condone this. However considering that from what I heard, it uses explosives instead of guns, I only have two thoughts in my mind:
- This is absolutely bonkers and would be highly dangerous if not more so than having an actual officer on the scene. This money can be much better spent actually working on social programs to prevent the problems that cause these things to be even “needed” in the first place.
- Of course America did it, because this is about as American as it gets 😂

Chazmatazz269 · Answer

We’ll quickly find out what percentage of shootings were legitimately motivated by threat of police lives, right? If the robot is threatened, not the controlling officer, then they SHOULD be able to better control their fear response and work toward deescalation, i think. It’s worth a shot.
San Francisco is the wrong place to initiate robots though cuz cops there don’t even arrest violent criminals, let alone shoot at them. They pretty much only arrest working class people and shoot law abiding citizens. If you don’t look like you’ve got a job in SF, you can do anything you want to anyone you want EXCEPT cops and politicians. No joke.

John_Doesnt · Answer

American police have already proved themselves to be irresponsible and violent. We should not be giving weapons of war to American police. Other countries have better trained cops so it would probably be helpful but those countries also have lower gun crimes.

Adam1978 · Answer

Nah you can build a robot that doesn't need to kill its target. Just capture and secure them. So no we don't need terminators. I see no case where killing by robot is required where you simply can't use none leathal force. The robot doesn't need to act in self defense like normal cops. Ie shot back.

Poliker · Answer

I think that robots should kill if the police cannot shoot the bad guy and that this idea can go wrong quickly. It can go wrong if the robot reads one of the cops as the target and shoots, or if the robot gets shot and rendered useless, or it the robot malfunctions and shoots all of the people nearby once given directives.

SpringValley · Answer

My brother and his wife have a robotic Roomba. I've never trusted that damn thing. It has a mind of its own.  Do you seriously think we live in 2390? HUMAN being cops aren't allowed to shoot half the time, so what makes you think this R/C device will be allowed to make life or death decisions? lol

MendaciousMarxist · Answer

All I gotta say is, if Citizens of San Francisco don’t RESIST the use of police issued robots that can kill a suspect or perpetrator by carrying an explosive, then this could be approved of by the State Government across the United States one day.

Guy13 · Answer

It is still the same decision-making process but complicated by technology. I saw this or something similar at the Boston Marathon bombing finishing line in April 2013. It was long time ago and different age. I did see body parts fly and i thought it was TV van until Tobacco Firearms and FBI ran me over...

connemara_crocodile · Answer

Yes, but not yet. We have many dinosaurs still sitting in executive and legal posititions. We would be hearing a lot of "it was never the intention to shoot X person, the gun was triggered by an imperfection in the mechanism", when in reality that's not very likely, but they would get away with it.

FreyaRed · Answer

Police job isn't to play prosecutor, jury and executioner. They can use weapons in self-defense or to defend other people life.
I could imagine a robot kills a hostage taker, but I don't think such robots will ever act autonomously.

abc3643 · Answer

Like this one?

RealMarek · Answer

Horrible idea. Imagine what a hacker could do. And you’re right about the slippery slope with militarizing police departments.

Adaeva · Answer

The police murder enough people, in fact far too many. We don't need more cold blood murders by the police.

D_Bone_Steak · Answer

My 2nd amendment rights should extend to killer robots and owning nukes. Mutual destruction assured peace.

We're going into clown world right now in my opinion... Shit just keeps getting more and more retarded.

exitseven · Answer

There is no difference between this and the use of drones or robots that will enter dangerous environments. Lets face it, if someone is doing something that requires the use of one of these robots they are probably guilty anyway.

FinalFantasyBro · Answer

The police job isn't to be a prosecutor or an executioner it just simply to have criminals being sent to court and possibly in jail for doing something illegal.

whirled_up_girl · Answer

I guess I would worry about the robots malfunctioning and unintentionally killing someone.

Should police be able to use robots that can kill?

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