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SAN FRANCISCO SUPERVISORS voted yesterday to put the brakes on a controversial policy that would have let police use robots for deadly force just days after their approval of the plan generated fierce pushback.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to explicitly ban the use of robots in such a fashion for now.
But they sent the issue back to a committee for further discussion and could vote in the future to let police use robots in a lethal manner in limited cases.
The board voted last week to allow the use of deadly robots in extreme circumstances.
The police department said it had no plans to arm the robots with guns but wanted the ability to put explosives on them and use them to contact, incapacitate or disorient dangerous or armed suspects when lives are at risk.
The initial vote thrust the famously liberal city into the centre of a debate about the future of technology and policing, with some saying arming robots was a step too close to something one would see in a dystopian science fiction movie.
Though robot technology for policing has become more widely available, departments across the country have rarely used it to confront or kill suspects.
Three supervisors who rejected the policy from the beginning joined dozens of protesters on Monday outside City Hall to urge the board to change course.
They chanted and held signs with phrases like “We all saw that movie… No Killer Robots”.
Supervisor Dean Preston was among them, and yesterday he told his colleagues the public had not been given enough time to voice their concerns about such a pressing issue.
“The people of San Francisco have spoken loud and clear: There is no place for killer police robots in our city,” he said in a statement after the vote.
We should be working on ways to decrease the use of force by local law enforcement, not giving them new tools to kill people.
The vote was the result of a new state law that requires police departments to inventory equipment including certain guns, grenades, armoured vehicles and battering rams and to seek explicit approval for their use.
So far, only San Francisco and Oakland have discussed lethal robots as part of that law. Oakland police wanted to arm robots with shotguns but backed down in the face of public opposition, instead opting for pepper spray.
Some San Francisco officials wanted to proceed with allowing robots to use deadly force in certain cases, arguing nothing substantive had changed to warrant a reversal.
But the vote to advance the broader police equipment policy — including the ban on lethal robots — passed unanimously.
It still allows police to use robots to check out potentially dangerous scenes so that officers can stay back.
“Having robots that have eyes and ears and can remove bombs, which happens from time to time, is something that we want the police department to do while we continue to have this very controversial discussion,” said supervisor Aaron Peskin, who brought forward last week’s motion around the use of robots.
The new policy needs another vote to take effect.
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Good God.
Their live force armed is bad enough..
Can you imagine how bad it would get with a robot armed force.
@Geraldine O’Riordan: Already did it in Texas
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/08/police-bomb-robot-explosive-killed-suspect-dallas
@Geraldine O’Riordan: No armed robots, I want Judge Dredd :)
@Geraldine O’Riordan: The robots wouldn’t be racist at least
Looks like the Robocop programme has been put on hold for now.
@Sean May: “Dead or alive your coming with me “
Has no one watched Robocop?
@Dave McAuliffe: “I’ll buy that for a dollar!”
@Dave McAuliffe: A few Enforcement Droid series 209 stomping about Frisco & Santa Monica will sort out the shoplifting epidemic!
It’s too soon for police forces to have this weapon. They have to wait for Billy Bob with the Confederate flag to acquire the robot first. And for the Supreme Court to approve his ownership because it comes under his constitutional right to bear arms. Then, after Billy Bob’s 18 year old son sets the robot loose in a school, will it be time for police forces to get their robots.
Your move, Creep.
Good God, it’s like a scenario from Dr Who.
This is like a scenario from Dr Who, but without the option of hiding behind the sofa.
Down with this sort of thing. We need a Sarah Connor.
Come on San Francisco stop threading on Detroit’s turf, robocops are their gig.
@Jason Walsh: True, they’ve already been used but perhaps this outcry will change that policy.
@Jason Walsh: Whoops, that was Texas, and you were making a Robocop joke.
My bad…..
It’s basically a bomb disposal robot looking like a big lawnmower. God, so disappointing – to be taken out by a lawnmower. The indignity.
@Keth Warsaw: Samsung developed one about 15 years ago as an autonomous sniper platform, looks like the bomb disposal one. Nowadays they have them on permanent station on the border between North and South Korea. This isn’t good!
@Keth Warsaw: like that film sleepaway camp 2 or 3 i forget. Pretty disturbing, though. God those films are shi*e
“contact, incapacitate or disorient dangerous or armed suspects when lives are at risk.”
So, how exactly will they ensure there’s no collateral damage!? Or does that not matter?
Interesting how they say “contact” first, like “well we TRIED to speak to them but they were being unreasonable so we detonated a bomb which we can’t predict what damage it will inflict.”
Sheesh!
It’s not really a robot though, it’s not autonomous? It’s just the normal bomb disposal unit which is basically a large radio controlled car. It needs a human to operate it.
Far less dramatic when you call it what it actually is, a remote controlled carrier platform. Not a million miles away from what the Defence Forces would use to approach an IED for inspection and destruction. With some modifications it could be used for example for door breaching in an armed standoff but it’s of course far better to potentially run the risk of ending up with a few dead or wounded officers or soldiers.
@Steven Moens: It’s still pretty dramatic no matter how you describe it.
The use of deadly force should be a last resort and a difficult one, because automating these actions to the point of detactment, very quickly causes complete desensitisation.
You only have to look at the military use of attack drones, using so called precision targeting technologies, to destroy entire towns and villages in attempts to kill one suspect, because the first person view gives no more sense of reality for the operators than a simulation or video game, in fact they are specifically and repetitively trained in that way, to make them detached from the reality of what they are doing.
Such a dystopian country
I want to know more.
Ahh hear
When will they ever learn?????
have your say