San Fran wants robots capable of deadly force. Bad Idea? Yes. Horrible.

The San Fransico PD has a proposal they want the city’s Board of Supervisors to consider that includes the use of deadly force by remote controlled devices. The aforementioned remote controlled devices being robots. As of now the SFPD uses robots for things like bomb disposal and area inspections. Now the brainiacs want to equip the robots with weapons so they can use deadly force. The robot model in question is already in use by the U.S military and can use machine guns and grenade launchers. Isn’t that a terrifying notion? Yeah. It is. Here’s more on the SFPD’s proposal and the robot in question.

We have a few thoughts about the whole idea of robots, deadly force, even with a human behind the controls. How about no. This is a road you don’t want to go down. How many times does a regular officer have to start blasting a suspect? How many times is violence the best solution? Probably not a lot. Let’s keep it that way. Once you have remote controlled gun, that will be a popular option to choose. The officer’s life won’t be in jeopardy. The go to move will always be to bring in the robot. Then, we are truly sliding down the slippery slope. Soon, the human controller will be taken out of the equation. The AI can move and target faster on its own. (It will be an argument like that.) Then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to weaponized autonomous robots patrolling the streets. And why stop there? Why not flying drone police robots? That would make navigation the terrain so much easier! And think about how ‘safe’ the city would be with a deterrent flying around? It may seem like science fiction right now. It may sound like something out of a novel. A novel called ‘Neither Stunning nor Brave’ by yours truly, Michael Loftus. A story set in the not-so-distant future, where our hero is on the run. Accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Relentlessly pursued by, among other things, weaponized autonomous drones. The book was supposed to be more science fiction and fun, but then the San Fran police decided to test the waters with their deadly force robot idea. Holy crap! Just fyi: Neither Stunning nor Brave is set in San Fran as the west coast seems to be ground zero for most horrible ideas.

So, here’s a quick recap of how things might progress with the deadly force robots: First? They’ll say we shouldn’t worry. A human will always be in control. Second? They will find that the AI can do a much better/faster job of targeting etc. if it can work without the human. Zero hesitation, more precision. Then? They’ll want these things on patrol. On the streets and in the skies. Facial recognition to find the ‘bad guys’ and guns to deal with them. All in the name of safety. This is slippery slope we don’t want to go down. Novels are fun. Deadly force robots are not. Not at all.

About the Author
Writer, Comedian, Geek, Purveyor of the Sexy Heathen lifestyle. Sometimes on TV. AKA 'The Mgmt.' Always hanging round TheLoftusParty.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *