I am not sure robots being tasked with intervening in situations with potentially violent persons is such a bad thing. a robot does not need to fear loss of life, it seems like this will be a good thing for discouraging the use of deadly force
I've been watching a bunch of youtube videos about police activities lately and quite often the officers will cite their need to "get home to their family" as an excuse for some seriously unconstitutional behavior. Some officers place their personal safety above all else with law abiding citizens (and, tragically, sometimes victims) paying the price.
I say we have a RoboDog following around every law enforcement officer to record their interactions with citizens and, if possible, protect both sides from harm.
I fear it's not long until police use deadly force to protect a robot dog from a criminal.
In theory, police shouldn't be able to use deadly force to protect the life of a (biological) police dog, but they regularly do, and the courts accept it. The argument given and accepted in court is like this; whilst a dog is not entitled to the same protections as a human, the suspect attacking the dog caused me to fear for my life and that of others.
You could give the same argument about a robot dog.
This fetishistic anthropomorphizing of what amounts to destruction of property is weird and gross. Is the language used meant to make us sympathetic towards the militarization of American police? Are we supposed to feel sorry for this piece of equipment?
It's not a robotic "police dog", it's a mobile surveillance and weapons platform. You know these things are going to have guns mounted on them eventually, if they aren't already.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 36.0 ms ] threadI say we have a RoboDog following around every law enforcement officer to record their interactions with citizens and, if possible, protect both sides from harm.
In theory, police shouldn't be able to use deadly force to protect the life of a (biological) police dog, but they regularly do, and the courts accept it. The argument given and accepted in court is like this; whilst a dog is not entitled to the same protections as a human, the suspect attacking the dog caused me to fear for my life and that of others.
You could give the same argument about a robot dog.
It's not a robotic "police dog", it's a mobile surveillance and weapons platform. You know these things are going to have guns mounted on them eventually, if they aren't already.
Reading this article has ruined my suspension of disbelief in The Guardian.