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Armed Police Bots with Stun Guns
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Jul 08, 2007 01:33 AM
from the we-don't-serve-their-kind-here dept.
from the we-don't-serve-their-kind-here dept.
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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Wellllll... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wellllll... (Score:5, Funny)
"I'll be back... for the appeal."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 de
Easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Easy... (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
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 moto
On the next episode of "brilliant fucking ideas" (Score:5, Funny)
Diminishing Returns (Score:3, Funny)
Evil doers (Score:3)
Why only worry about "autonomous robots"? (Score:5, Insightful)
3 Laws (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Those aren't laws... they are bits from a novel (Score:3, Interesting)
Civilian uses ? (Score:3, Funny)
If you're not doing anything wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh... wait...
There would be some positives. (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
-jcr
I, for one (Score:5, Funny)
An accident waiting to happen (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
ED209 says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My Question for Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think it can be summarised like this:
- Current AIs are not clever enough to be in charge of weapons, because they aren't capab
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Be careful what you wish for. We have an extensive speed camera network in the UK, and over a period of
Re: (Score:3, Funny)