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Armed Police Bots with Stun Guns

Posted by Zonk on Sun Jul 08, 2007 12:33 AM
from the we-don't-serve-their-kind-here dept.
Robotics Science
foniksonik writes "'On 28 June, Taser International of Arizona announced plans to equip robots with stun guns ... the new stun-capable robots could be used against civilians.' Non-lethal weapons experts are concerned that the robots will have to stun the suspected criminal for longer periods of time while awaiting human police to come make the official arrest. "If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?" asks Steve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK."
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  • "If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?"
    Skynet.

    • Re:Wellllll... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2007, @01:57AM (#19786795)

      "I'll be back... for the appeal."

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by susano_otter (123650)

      "If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?"

      So a company in America says they're going to try mounting tasers on robots, and before the first prototype is even built, and long before the first police department decides to evaluate them, some guy on the other side of the Atlantic is worrying about who to sue, if the robots ever get used in his country?

      Besides, isn't the answer obvious? You sue the organization or individual who decided to deploy the robot

  • .....acting the way they are and getting into trouble where they need to be stunned in the first place :P
    • Wow, I've often thought that it would be much faster to board planes if you had little robots that could detect people loitering in the aisle and taser them in the ankle to get them to move into their row faster...

      Heheh. Zap!!

    • ED209 says ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Sunday July 08 2007, @12:53AM (#19786461)
      [Mr. Kinney points a pistol at ED-209]
      ED-209: [menacingly] Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.
      [Mr. Kinney drops the pistol on the floor]
      ED-209: [ED-209 advances, growling] You have 15 seconds to comply.
      [Mr. Kinney tries to run away]
      ED-209: You have 10 seconds to comply.
      [entire room of people in full panic trying to stay out of the line of fire]
      ED-209: You have 5 seconds to comply... four... three... two... one... I am now authorized to use physical force!
      [ED-209 opens fire and shreds Mr. Kinney]

      From the movie Robocop.
  • To me this s pretty funny. Has anyone seen the bot they use in the bomb squad? I mean if you put a machine gun on that thing even a dog in a wheel chair would be able to get away in time. I think that things like this are not really effect as an actual combat or police platform in terms of hitting your target, but rather provide a heavy scare factor. I can imagine that most people would see it and thing terminator and run like hell rather then walk briskly past it and just push it over which is all it would
  • It's a bad day to be a criminal, and soon the police force will be out of a job. Robotaserthing is in town, and ready to electrocute some scum.

    On a more serious note, it's not like this was unexpected, and it's not the first of the line either. We're smack right in the middle of the robotic era, from mini automated vacuum cleaners, to hover spy robots, to shotgun equipped killing machines. This is just another step, and it's not going to end, ever.



    Well......it could end for us, but not for the robot

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hobbesmaster (592205)
      I seriously doubt these things are actually autonomous, given that theres no source in the article and I was under the impression that bomb squad robots are remote controlled. Upon further inspection at Taser International's website shows that this is a "strategic alliance" with a robotics company that may lead to "...remotely controlled or autonomous robotic systems..."

      Now, I may be behind on things, but what autonomous robot systems, if any, are in use today with law enforcement? From my knowledge of el

  • Easy... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lixee (863589) on Sunday July 08 2007, @12:44AM (#19786405)

    "If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?"
    The idiots that allowed a robot in the police force.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by ChromeAeonium (1026952)
      Hopefully, they'll be smart enough to realize that robots are a tool, just like hand held tasers, guns, ect., and not an intelligent, thinking crowd control panacea, and treat them as such. Besides, I don't think armed robots roaming the streets would fly with a whole lot of folks.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by sfm (195458)
        Don't worry, nothing can go wrong... go wrong... go wrong... go wrong...

      • Re:Easy... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MichaelSmith (789609) on Sunday July 08 2007, @06:38AM (#19788167) Homepage Journal

        Besides, I don't think armed robots roaming the streets would fly with a whole lot of folks.

        A long time ago I heard about a survey of bank customers who preferred automatic teller machines to human tellers because the computerised version is friendlier.

        Now, cops are not known to be friendly, in fact, many problems arise when they depart from established procedures and start setting policy, rather than enforcing it.

        I would say that a robot which is programmed to respond in a particular way would do so all the time. The real problem comes when Government finds out that robot police are so cheap they can put one every ten metres along every street in the city. That would worry me. Probably worth pointing out that while speed cameras pay for themselves we don't have millions of the things on the roads yet, at least where I live.

        As long as we can trust our governments to want to stay popular, they might continue to use technology appropriately. I hope so, anyway.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by jimicus (737525)
            It's not that I have a problem with the speed limit being enforced. But speeding isn't the only thing which is dangerous.

            Speed cameras don't do anything about the Corsa which cut me up at 70mph on the motorway yesterday. Speed cameras don't stop the motorist who was all over the lane while yakking on his mobile phone. They don't stop the tailgating motorist who caused an accident which (thankfully) didn't look too serious but could have been far worse.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by noidentity (188756)
      But they will be shielded by shifting the blame to the company that produced the robot, or others who also took part in the decision. Like with electronic "voting" machines in the U.S., the failure will take years to correct, if at all.
  • Cops that can be neutralized with a refridgerator magnet! (Hey, it works on Bender!)

  • Diminishing Returns (Score:3, Funny)

    by had3l (814482) on Sunday July 08 2007, @12:49AM (#19786435)
    Can they stunlock or are there diminishing returns?
  • civilians arming themselves with stinger missiles and radio jammers
    • Too much work, just use a sticky note and slap a

      HACK ME
      sign on their backs. This will happen faster then you can say ROBOT WARS.

  • There really has to be a good Ed-209 [wikipedia.org] joke in here somewhere.

  • Evil doers (Score:3)

    by Joebert (946227) on Sunday July 08 2007, @12:56AM (#19786487) Homepage
    Anyone want to bet me that this project gets scrapped in less than a year due to "malfunctioning" bots that zap officers more than civilians ?
    • With over 75 deaths from stun guns in the four years before 2005, it seems these weapons can be lethal. If the recipient has a heart condition, or is on stimulants, there is a significant risk of death from the taser. Very little research is being done on the use of tasers on people, but it is somehow considered 'safe' - seemingly by mere assumption.
      In my research, I found this article: Prehosp Emerg Care. 2006 Oct-Dec;10(4):447-50 "Taser use in restraint-related deaths."
      You can search pubmed [nih.gov] for this art
  • Why not just have the bots detain people instead of arming them with something that could seriously injure or kill someone (heart-atacks, etc.)
    • At the end of the day, a guard is a pretty poorly paid job. I would think it would be cheaper to pay guards than buy bots and pay the insurance on those bots.

      A hackers dream, hacking a guard bot, would it be an inside job if a electronic guard bot stuns every body and robs the place. As for restraining people, yeah, set off a smoke detector and the bot has to let you go or else in the event of a fire you could get roasted innocent victims.

      Now I wonder who will be guaranteeing the quality of the software

    • Non-lethal restraint is what your talking, That's spray webbing which even with a skilled shooter can block airways.

      Netting, which is kinda one shot and what if they got a knife? (most likely)

      Or some sort of Tentacles. The artist of Hentai are obsessed by tentacles and with robots? I don't think we need to go any farther with this. My spider sense are tingling already. (opps thats not my spider sense)
  • Is this the same Steve Wright who bought some batteries, but found that they weren't included?

  • Why only worry about "autonomous robots"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stephanruby (542433) on Sunday July 08 2007, @01:23AM (#19786649)
    Why only worry about "autonomous robots"? Even remote-controlled robots with stun guns would worry me. Anything that would make it easier for a cop to hurt someone without looking into the whites of their eyes would worry me.
  • Why do police always stick out like sore thumbs ?

    Uniformed officers are easy enough to avoid, I can only imagine how many episodes of Americas' dumbest criminals are going to be based on criminals dumb enough to get anywhere near these robots.
  • 0. Obtain a Stunbot3000 (capture it in a box or net and place it in a Faraday cage that provides sufficient electromagnetic shielding to keep it from communicating with it's legal owners wirelessly)

    1. Hack Sunbot3000, preferably installing Linux or BSD on it.

    2. Program it to shock corrupt cops, Christian fundamentalists, members of the Bush administration, corporate executives, and other undesirable figures. Perhaps speech to text and a bit of grepping could be enough to determine who is/isn't an undesirab

  • 3 Laws (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kramulous (977841) on Sunday July 08 2007, @01:47AM (#19786757)
    1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

    2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

    3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

    Isn't this a violation? Oh, wait. It was human programming.
  • Robot insurance [youtube.com] doesn't seem so silly now, huh?

    I'll be darned if they use my per-scrip-shun drugs for fuel! (Medicare "D" was just a ploy!)

    --
    Toro
  • At this point, the robots aren't going to be 100% autonomous, the amount of AI that would imply is staggering. The robots will have to be controlled by humans. Most likely, they'll be more along the lines of an RC device, like most police robots are now. For example bomb robots many large police forces have are basically just large RC units. They actually could be used to do quite a bit of harm to someone, their grips are usually very strong. As such it falls on the shoulders of the person operating it.

    Same

  • Civilian uses ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ls671 (1122017) on Sunday July 08 2007, @02:08AM (#19786855) Homepage
    Can I buy one to beat up people that don't pay ?

  • If you're not doing anything wrong... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jon287 (977520) on Sunday July 08 2007, @02:21AM (#19786937)
    ...what have you got to be afraid of? Malfunctioning police robots with giant killer tasers?

    Oh... wait...
  • In Capitalist West expensive robot stuns you.
    In Soviet Russia buggy robot source code stuns you.
  • If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?

    Does it matter? the IPCC will exonerate everybody anyway, like they always do.

  • First of all, these things wouldn't be autonomous, as the summarization says. That's according to UberGizmo [ubergizmo.com]. That takes care of who to hold responsible for excessive use of force.
    Secondly, I find it interesting that according to the official announcement from Taser International [taser.com], this is coming about as part of a "strategic alliance" with iRobot, the company who's building robots for the military. According to Taser Int'l, "This combination of capabilities will allow law enforcement, federal, and milita

  • There would be some positives. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jartan (219704) on Sunday July 08 2007, @03:34AM (#19787349)
    I'd be very hesitant to have robots with tasers running around but I think it's fair to point out there might actually be some really positive aspects to this.

    Cops have caught a lot of flack lately for over aggressiveness and in a lot of those cases the reason is the cop has to be aggressive is to protect himself. With a robot we can let it basically do totally suicidal things to try and subdue the suspect without harming him.

    Also cops can be intimidating when it's not necessarily good to be intimidating. If a big guy with a gun and a nightstick comes after you then your fight or flight responses kick in and you might start acting irrationally. If a weak robot without weapons attempts to arrest you it could lead to much more calm thought and actions on both sides of the fence. Of course thats assuming the suspect to be arrested would act rationally in the first place.

  • Robots or Waldoes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jcr (53032) <jcr@ma[ ]om ['c.c' in gap]> on Sunday July 08 2007, @03:53AM (#19787417) Journal
    If they plan to allow a machine decide whether to taser somebody, expect this idea to vanish in a blinding plasma cloud of litigation. If they're talking about a human being operating this device by remote control, then whoever's at the switch is on the hook legally for any claim of excessive force, especially since the operator wouldn't be in any danger (the usual excuse of an overzealous police officer.)

    -jcr

  • I, for one (Score:5, Funny)

    by MadMidnightBomber (894759) on Sunday July 08 2007, @03:58AM (#19787443)
    Do NOT welcome our new taser-bearing robot overBZZZZZZTT Gaaaah!

  • An accident waiting to happen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DynaSoar (714234) on Sunday July 08 2007, @06:57AM (#19788269) Journal
    Last month a Texas Ranger (state police, not ball club member) fired a taser at a guy who had just poured gasoline all over himself. The spark set off the gas and fried the guy. The ranger is is trouble because he should have known better. Even if he hadn't seen the gas can he could have smelled the gas.

    I'm betting these robots won't be able to smell gas. That's just one situation and limitation. Everything they can't do that a person can is a possible problem.

    • Re:My Question for Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tftp (111690) on Sunday July 08 2007, @01:13AM (#19786583) Homepage
      it would apprehend violent/armed criminals who have an intent to do harm

      Intent to do harm??? How can a robot determine that? As a helpful hint, humans have a problem figuring that out - that's why we have courts, juries and appeals. But here a dumb robot is suddenly capable to tell if you have an intent to do harm? For example, can this wonderful robot tell the difference between a weaponless pocket thief and a group of boys armed with super-soakers? Any generic machine would taser the boys and leave the thief alone; to do it the other way around you need to understand far more about our society that a modern excuse for a computer can possibly do.

      P.S. Tasering a child can kill the child; if that happens I have no pity for any official who promoted the idea. At this stage of development of an AI I can trust the computer only to show a letter 'a' on the screen when I press the 'a' key.

      • At this stage of development of an AI I can trust the computer only to show a letter 'a' on the screen when I press the 'a' key.

        I think it can be summarised like this:
        - Current AIs are not clever enough to be in charge of weapons, because they aren't capable of understanding when they should be used.
        - Science fiction AIs are too clever to be in charge of weapons, because they always use them to take over the world.
        On the whole, it sounds like a really really bad idea to give an AI a gun, no matter how smart

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by jimicus (737525)
          The taser-ing may be too much for the current state of the Art of Computer Programming, but issuing speeding tickets ought to be automatic, for example

          Be careful what you wish for. We have an extensive speed camera network in the UK, and over a period of time they do reduce average speed, but it's received criticism for a number of reasons:
          • Speed cameras used as revenue generators - placed in areas which obviously don't need them but there is likely to be a strong temptation to speed.
          • Used as an alternative
    • ... or maybe just driving while black, or young, or poor in the wrong part of town. Yes, why mess with the excellent, highly professional police departments we have now? Besides, if this becomes common, the lads won't be able to dress up in their camo toy-soldier costumes and kick down the doors of weedy potheads, as is their wont.

      I guess you weren't around for LEAA in the late 60s when Nixon gave brain-dead redneck cops all over the country the high-tech toys of the day (helicopters with gas dispensers,
    • I think it's time to sell cheap, conductive underwear to all. Maybe just a cheap aluminized Mylar under-vest, flimsy as a space blanket, but cheap and universal and available in S-M-L. And maybe we need jeans with conductive threads interwoven. But this proliferation of dumb cops with lethal Tasers has got to stop. Ask that UCLA student Tasered repeatedly inside a building after he collapsed. You don't use lethal force on unarmed people, and we have the right to shield ourselves against sanctioned sociopath

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