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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bystanders. You can't bet someone elses life based on how well a taser may or may not work. LTL is a real dice throw.
LTL = Less than lethal (?) How does a lethal robot mitigate bystander risk compared to a policy officer using lethal force?
How are guns not robots?
It’s a fair point. I suppose the distinction is whether the robot makes the decision to fire on its own.
IMHO it's a pretty fine disinction between a remote-operated gun and a gun that needs to be held by a human hand. (to be clear, i think police should have fewer guns regardless of how the trigger gets pulled)
This is nothing but a good thing.
Nobody cares if a robot is destroyed. A robot will allow everyone time to think and assess the situation before making a snap-judgement we all question later on. This can do nothing but reduce lethal force use.
This opens the door to fitting the same robot with a multitude of options - further reducing the need for lethal force. Pepper balls, stun guns, blinding lights, etc. (less-lethal does not mean non-lethal, when we discuss things like stun guns, pepper balls, rubber balls, etc)
In the field, lethal force happens because people are forced to make snap judgements. Sometimes they get things wrong... but when people's lives are at risk, lethal force will be employed to protect innocents and police alike. This robot removes half of the equation that leads to lethal force. This is nothing but a good thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bystanders. You can't bet someone elses life based on how well a taser may or may not work. LTL is a real dice throw.
> Bystanders. Also vulnerable to bullets, as it turns out.
Maybe I lack imagination, but it seems like if you have enough control over a situation that you can deploy a police robot instead of charging in, then you have enough control to make non-lethal force a viable option.
Bystanders. You can't bet someone elses life based on how well a taser may or may not work. LTL is a real dice throw.
Maybe I lack imagination, but it seems like if you have enough control over a situation that you can deploy a police robot instead of charging in, then you have enough control to make non-lethal force a viable option.
> Sr. Cpl. Banes said they considered using a .50 caliber rifle to fire at the shooter, which had been successful in a similar attack on police 14 months earlier. However, in that case, the suspect had driven an armored truck into police headquarters and remained inside the armored vehicle. Johnson was holed up inside a populated college with thin sheetrock walls, so the tactical team deemed that approach too dangerous. They also considered rappelling down the building or attacking Johnson through the ceiling after opening it with explosives. Both options were ruled out due to the risks they might pose to the officers who would carry it out.
> Senior Corporal Jeremy Borchardt and others ultimately arrived at the idea to use a bomb disposal remote control vehicle armed with about 1 pound (0.45 kilograms) of C-4 explosive. The plan was to move the robot to a point against a wall facing Johnson and then detonate the explosives. The device exploded as intended at approximately 2:30 a.m., killing Johnson immediately. It was the first time that explosives strapped to a robot had been used in American domestic law enforcement. Although its arm sustained damage in the blast, the robot was still functional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police...
nope slippery slope to RoboCop
Maybe I lack imagination, but it seems like if you have enough control over a situation that you can deploy a police robot instead of charging in, then you have enough control to make non-lethal force a viable option.
Exactly, officers can't really say they feared for their lives in such a scenario.
I'm not sure I want this to be policy, though, because it opens the door to "drone with a glock" kinds of things, which would be terrifying if deployed in any mass quantity.
Isn't this just a remotely controlled gun? If we'd be talking about AI making its own decisions that's a different thing. In addition to this I feel better decisions would be made when the person holding the gun isn't threatened by his or her life.
If you can remotely control a gun, aren't there plenty of less lethal things you can also remotely control to try to diffuse the situation or disarm the person?
It seems like in debates about officer involved shootings, frequently people justify police action with, "but the officer feels so much danger to their life in that situation". But if we're talking about robots, there is no danger to an officer -- so why do they need a gun?