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I encourage you to look up the word "exigency"
> I encourage you to look up the word "exigency" In your haste to snark, you missed the parent's point, which was that the officer doesn't speak on behalf of the department contra the claim.
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Sometimes companies exaggerate their products in order to charge higher prices. No doubt there is some strict, technical definition of "robot" that this satisfies, but it's not what people generally think of as a "robot". There's also a strict definition of "tool" that is satisfied by a rock or a stick, but that's not what I'm looking for when I ask about tools at Home Depot (and apart from the pedants, everyone gene…
Just some friendly advice, that you might wanna watch where you're pointing that accusation of pedantry.
Personally, I don't think opening a thinly veiled accusation with "just some friendly advice" does much to mitigate the rudeness.
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It's considered a robot by its manufacturer ( https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grum... ), the police who own it, and California state law, so I am confident in my choice of terms here.
Today I learned my toaster is a robot
Even if you disagree that this is the "common" understanding, the sarcastic exaggeration is meaningless.
I agree with another commenter, that a more reasonable criticism would be that it should be called a "remote controlled robot", rather than just a robot.
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The criticism was that the title is clickbait, not that there is no problem with "increased force projection". The latter doesn't justify the former.
Clickbait-accusation seems to imply "do not waste your time reading this." I think you are equivocating.
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It's considered a robot by its manufacturer ( https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grum... ), the police who own it, and California state law, so I am confident in my choice of terms here.
When the subject of Robot + lethal force are combined, people think of Robocop, specifically the ED-209, not the cyborg. That's the implication. An autonomous robot which carries out "justice." It would be appropriate to call it by it's modifier, a remote-controlled robot.
Anyone who spends even a modest amount of time looking at incidents of justified use of lethal force can quickly determine that an officer having a reasonable fear of great bodily harm to themselves or others is enough to justify the force.
Often times this reasonable fear is justified by actions that take place in under a second. A furtive movement towards a waistband in the right context will almost always qualify.
Articles like this that push an unfounded narrative are simply pandering for clicks/views while failing to even attempting to understand/explain the motivations for such a tool are worse than intellectually lazy. I think they quite likely result in needless excess deaths.
It really isn't rocket science to imagine a lethal robot like this being deployed in a situation which results in deescalation, where the robot operator doesn't have to take a shot where an officer would have been forced to. And to suggest that an officer is somehow going to feel more inclined to shoot someone because its pushing a button vs pulling a trigger just shows a truly impressive amount of bias.
I'd much, much rather send in a lethal robot than an officer to a situation where a use of force is likely, and I really can't fathom any logical argument that putting an officer in there is somehow going to result in less use of force. Unless your world view is that every officer is just trying to execute as many people as they possibly can.
Just watch the 10 seconds here. Guy has stolen a car, walking away from officers, yells "shoot me" and "fuck you fuck you!", digging in his pockets, then quickly points at the officer in a drawing motion. If this was a robot POV instead of an officer, zero chance anyone pushes the button to shoot the guy. Why would you and deal with risking your entire career/life? You're still on the hook for all the consequences of unjustified use of force, and you have the time to wait and verify if the suspect has a gun, so you do. The officer on the other hand is put in an impossible situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SeiCU55e3s&t=104s
I'd much rather have a lethal robot be put in that above situation than an officer, and I'd love to hear anyone explain otherwise.
(Also, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be "casual", not "causal": `“legal precedence justifying the causal use of weapons”`, but I ain't no english major)
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I had this same misgiving when Dallas PD used a robot to carry a bomb towards a hostile rooftop sniper. I think it will usually be justified as being in the imminent defense of others / the public. The sniper was actively threatening to continue shooting people. Perhaps they’d say the hypothetical guy shooting at a robot is endangering others via any stray bullets. And perhaps sometimes that would be correct.
I mean, the Dallas (ex-military) sniper was exactly the right use of this sort of technology. He was actively, explicitly murdering cops, and the police had no reason to believe he was unwilling or unable to kill more of them if they moved to arrest him. I can understand concern that this might be used in more ambiguous circumstances, but I don't understand why anyone would object to its use in that particular case.
Maybe ten minutes before, perhaps ten minutes after.
But perhaps they could have cordoned off a wide area until he got hungry or thirsty enough to come down. That would have been a massive hassle for the city and difficult to ensure the city’s safety but you could always blow him up next time he starts shooting at someone.
On balance obviously it was expedient to blow him up at that moment but it’s not clear it was strictly necessary.
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Today I learned my toaster is a robot
Observing this disagreement without having first read the article, you're coming off as unreasonable in your details, though your original criticism may make sense. Autonomy is not, in practice , a prerequisite for the label "robot", no matter how much we would like it to be (and I would like it to be). This is especially true of standins for dangerous operations. We all know that e.g. bomb disposal robots are robots…
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I mean, the Dallas (ex-military) sniper was exactly the right use of this sort of technology. He was actively, explicitly murdering cops, and the police had no reason to believe he was unwilling or unable to kill more of them if they moved to arrest him. I can understand concern that this might be used in more ambiguous circumstances, but I don't understand why anyone would object to its use in that particular case.
Because at the exact moment the bomb was detonated he wasn’t a threat at that moment. Maybe ten minutes before, perhaps ten minutes after. But perhaps they could have cordoned off a wide area until he got hungry or thirsty enough to come down. That would have been a massive hassle for the city and difficult to ensure the city’s safety but you could always blow him up next time he starts shooting at someone. On balanc…
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> I encourage you to look up the word "exigency" In your haste to snark, you missed the parent's point, which was that the officer doesn't speak on behalf of the department contra the claim.
There's no snark in that comment. It is proper and appropriate.
Note also that samfbiddle similarly accused another commenter upthread of not reading his article (without evidence) despite that the commenter's criticism was congruent with a reading of the article (i.e., there was no reason for samfbiddle to assume that the critic hadn't read his article, and anyway voicing as much violates the site guidelines).