Make Way for the Killer Robots: The Government Is Expanding Its Power to Kill. Is It Time to Ban Any Police Use of Robots?

Posted by freedomforall 1 year, 10 months ago to Government
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Excerpt:
"The purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

Unfortunately, we have gone so far in the opposite direction from the ideals of a good government that it’s hard to see how this trainwreck can be redeemed.

It gets worse by the day.

For instance, despite an outcry by civil liberties groups and concerned citizens alike, in an 8-3 vote on Nov. 29, 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to allow police to arm robots with deadly weapons for use in emergency situations.

This is how the slippery slope begins.

According to the San Francisco Police Department’s draft policy, “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.”

Yet as investigative journalist Sam Biddle points out, this is “what nearly every security agency says when it asks the public to trust it with an alarming new power: We’ll only use it in emergencies—but we get to decide what’s an emergency.”

A last-minute amendment to the SFPD policy limits the decision-making authority for deploying robots as a deadly force option to high-ranking officers, and only after using alternative force or de-escalation tactics, or concluding they would not be able to subdue the suspect through those alternative means.

In other words, police now have the power to kill with immunity using remote-controlled robots.

These robots, often acquired by local police departments through federal grants and military surplus programs, signal a tipping point in the final shift from a Mayberry style of community policing to a technologically-driven version of law enforcement dominated by artificial intelligence, surveillance, and militarization.

It’s only a matter of time before these killer robots intended for use as a last resort become as common as SWAT teams."
SOURCE URL: https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/make_way_for_the_killer_robots_the_government_is_expanding_its_power_to_kill


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  • Posted by mhubb 1 year, 10 months ago
    yes, ban ANY use, except maybe for bomb disposal

    and NOT use to the bot to carry a bomb to kill someone, that is NOT bomb disposal
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  • Posted by Aeronca 1 year, 10 months ago
    I think the deletes are anticipating that their gated communities with human police and soldiers are not enough to protect them. With mass food riots, or political riots, the only way to protect themselves is through mass mechanized murder. They are scared, they are arming themselves. They are preparing to go door to door to disarm the populace. Time for the family pet to be mechanized and armed. Kill, Spot, Kill!
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 1 year, 10 months ago
    Considering the nature and disposition of our politicians and medias complicity, it speaks to the idiocy of any in favor of this. Californians get what they deserve or as Gump would say “stupid is as stupid does”
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 1 year, 10 months ago
    The article provides context of how the gov't started supplying military equipment to local police forces, and SWAT teams appeared, at first for special situation, but then they came to be used for routine policing, even for non-violent crimes like music piracy.
    There is a huge potential for pattern to continue, with robots being called in for special situations and within a few decades we accept robots killing people while performing routing policing, exactly like what happened with SWAT teams.
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