The police killed a guy in Dallas holed up in a parking garage with a bomb on a robot (RC iirc) years ago
Edit: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/08/485262777/for-the-first-time-police-used-a-bomb-robot-to-kill
Yea, but let's be honest...the bastard kind of had it coming. He opened fire on an innocent Pride Parade with a fucking rifle, then resisted arrest by using deadly force against law enforcement. Folks generally don't get a break for shit like that.
the problem is that the police in America have shown time and time again through history that if you give them an inch, they will take a mile and use it to kill you.
Today: Give the police exploding robots and authorize them only for use against active shooters
Tomorrow: police are using exploding robots at traffic stops.
Well if people at traffic stops just followed orders then cops wouldn’t have to use exploding robots. The cop is the victim, obviously, because being a cop is scary. s/
I heard cops have the authority to accuse you and tell you to stop resisting arrest or deadly force will be used just by thinking it at you. How is it their fault that you won't listen to their telepathic demands?
Way to bury the lede.
The shooter was Black and fired only at police officers. In his manifesto, he said all cops were white supremacists. And in fact, one of the cops he killed, completely randomly, was an actual white supremacist (with a bunch of racist symbolism on his Facebook page before his family scrubbed it).
Like in every situation where cops are actually at risk, especially when it comes to non-whites, they decided ultra-violence is the answer. Like Philadelphia PD dropping a bomb from a helicopter to burn black children alive and burn down half a neighborhood block.
When I first heard about the Philadelphia MOVE police bombing, I was in utter disbelief. And to think that this is what was happening nearly 40 years ago, compared to the little to no progress to this day, gives little hope for the future.
> the bastard kind of had it coming
I do not care. This idiotic sentiment is one of the main reasons why police is the way it is.
Also, he was targeting cops, not the parade, which is... a factor. For the cops and myself.
Few years back there was a guy on a ranch in Montana or North Dakota taking pot shots at the cops trying to serve a warrant, the cops couldn't see the guy so they called up the local military base and had them fly a predator drone over to spot him I always figured in a few years if something like that happened again they would send an armed one
All that leftover military hardware needs to go *somewhere*, if the military industrial complex can’t send it to the Middle East to kill brown people they’re more than happy to have it here killing Americans, whatever it takes so the factories keep running.
It basically says this in the first sentence of the article
> In an abrupt reversal amid public outcry, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has **temporarily** changed its decision to permit the city’s police department to kill people with robots
I’m going to build a bot myself in the next year or so as a hobby. Probably nothing on the level police would have but still a big battle bot like on tv shows, but with guns. My friend has 2 dji drones retrofitted with 9mm handguns that uses an open source AI to identify whichever objects he chooses and it can shoot them on its own. All learned from YouTube and purchased parts off eBay and Amazon.
Pop cans off the fence or jugs of water in the field. Same AI can be used to identify animals and what not. Police are going to need them to keep up with hobbyists like myself. Because if I can make them, then anyone can. I’m not a criminal but it’s way too easy and fairly cheap for a criminal/anyone to produce an armed bot these days.
Only a matter of time until the next mass shooting is from a bot.
My left knee is a little sore from a recent injury, so put most of your weight on my right and let’s do this.
https://media4.giphy.com/media/5hkDOxALz2y1xKYttg/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952m4htd47q38as0pp3r1wsr0nodmdcqw6zhjgaf6zn&rid=200w.gif&ct=g
Was just about to say the same thing. Whenever something gets backlash they just keep trying a few months later. The death of Net Neutrality is one example
That's exactly how pushing laws works, too. Get tons of opposition to something bullshit? Well, just retract it and sneak it in later to some fine print for raising the budget for education. Don't like it? You're against education? Monster.
This is what CA is is doing with their "let's charge solar customers so many fees it's not worth it anymore" idea too. They're just waiting until we forget and will try again and again until they ram something through that will kill the industry.
They'll use "based on R2D2's programming, the code of which is proprietary and we will NEVER release to the public, the target was identified as a deadly threat and therefore the robot acted accordingly. The government office of Whatever The Fuck has previously approved this robot for law enforcement purposes in accordance with Whatever Dumb Law we paid politicians to pass."
Courts: Sounds like regulation is in place and the robot did nothing wrong. Case dismissed!
[Like in Money Plane?](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ABrJTB0LS1EFfOWtg84a0FrDUNU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20075960/Money_Plane_2.gif)
We’re officially going to act as if we’re not going to use this until the storm blows over, people forget and then we’re ready to rock and roll with killer robots.
Love,
Cops
To be clear... They already had these robots in service. The only reason this made the news was because California passed a law requiring g SF city council to confirm their use.
Pretty sad how Robocop was satire in the 80's but is damn near reality now. That being said, everyone reading this who hasn't seen it (the original 80's one) should absolutely watch it. If nothing else, it's a great over the top 80's action flick, just layered with plenty of satire and criticism of consumer culture. That and Clarence Boddicker is an incredible villain.
"Child without seatbelt detected by AI, automatically engaging long-range missile bombardment."
"Protect and serve."
"Protect and serve."
"Resistance is futile."
I've already seen videos of drones with guns and flamethrowers mounted onto them years ago. I'm honestly surprised that a mass shooting/terrorist attack via drone hasn't happened in the US yet, but it really is just a matter of time.
Yeah it honestly wouldn’t be difficult to combine an off the shelf drone and a raspberry pi, some open source targeting software and a little bit of modification so it only targets your target. Output pins of the pi go to the weapon of your choice. If someone wanted an army of killbot drones it wouldn’t be difficult for pretty much anybody with a programming or engineering background to make it happen. Even easier if you just want them to swarm and take out a bunch of people without going for one specific target.
People with the know-how to make these things reliably functional for such a purpose usually aren't so unstable as to find that they need to resort to using one. While there are exceptions, the only way I could see this happening is if someone was hired to build something like this by someone who wanted to utilize it, and the person building it was more concerned about a payday than the ramifications ofwhat might happen with it.
This doesn't seem much more difficult than building bombs from scratch. And that's been done by a whole lot of unstable people.
If there was someone building one for money, they would squarely fall into that unstable territory in my eyes.
You don't need to worry about recoil and aerodynamics when building bombs.
It's not impossibly difficult to build weaponized drones, but it's definitely a lot more difficult than just building bombs.
Unless we're talking kamikaze drones, in which case it's pretty much the same.
Yeah there’s a bunch of cheap ways you could remotely fire a weapon, my guess is it’s happened but the stories get buried because it’s so easy to copy and so hard to catch who did it. Either that or this comment thread gave some people the idea lol
To be fair, the Jackal didn't built it himself. He had to hire it out to someone with the know-how to build it. Luckily the Venn Diagram of people with the knowledge and capability to design and pilot such platforms doesn't overlap much with those with the sociopathic desire to do so. The increasing access to information and inexpensive prototyping platforms available to DIY, while much lower than they've ever been, still has a threshold that thankfully filters out many in that second bubble. That may change in the future, but for now it's at least not as easy as just going to the local swap meet and picking up an armed drone.
Off the shelf drones often have terrible sub 30 min battery lives. Half or quarter that if you want to add weight like weapons or bombs. You need to be close to the target to establish a radio link. Recoil would prevent burst or auto fire. Bomb drones are single use and expensive. Really not as easy as you make it out to be.
Idk this was the worst test possible lol. Born and raised in the Bay Area especially near sf, no way this was gonna fly. Berkeley would dismantle all that shit. Sf would have people dismantling it or trying to fight back. Protest would be insane. If they proposed this in a richer area though then who knows lol
I don't know, SF has changed a lot over the years. There are a whole lot of tech bros that would be more than happy if robots would gun down the less fortunate.
Sadly, the whole internet was yelling at them mostly under the false impression that SF was building Terminators.
If the news media had clarified that these were basically RC cars with guns/explosives, then there still might have been backlash, but at least we could have had a rational conversation. :-/
> Real Answer: "The whole Internet was yelling at us so we hurriedly put the kibosh on that idea."
This is #currentyear in a nutshell. Everybody is just doing the dumbest shit possible hoping to get away with it then rolling it back like LOLJK when the internet gets wind of it.
“However, the vote reversal is not permanent. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the issue is being sent back to the Rules committee which will debate the topic further.”
Despite making international news about this ridiculous situation, public outcry from local citizens in the area, and voting against it…they still have to debate about it some more? Makes TOTAL sense /s
To be clear... They already had these robots in service. The only reason this made the news was because California passed a law requiring g SF city council to confirm their use.
I saw this as a news flash a few minutes ago in Germany and how dystopyan it is to use "killer robots" as a police tool. Now I see this that they want to start debating about it.
There are several books and movies and games already debating how bad the idea is. Ok they are fiction but they are based on several discussions about the thematic.
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
The tech company in question wanted to test the outcome of the second classic book in the Nexus series - "The Devastating Consequences of Creating the Torment Nexus"
the actual IRL practice of tormenting nexuses is a triggering relic from the patriarchal '50s, so i'll never read *Don't Create The Torment Nexus,* or value its lessons as referenced elsewhere.
let me know if you'd like to know my opinion about the novel's contents though, i have many i'd like to share with you all.
Yeah a lot of people don't realize that in Star Trek lore, post-scarcity utopian Earth only happens *after* homeless concentration camps, secret eugenics wars, World War III, and "post-atomic horror". According to their timeline, WW3 should break out in 2026.
>There are several books and movies and games already debating how bad the idea is.
Those books and movies don't even debate it. They outright *denounce* it.
A conspiracy theorist would suggest that the elites will cause an extremely traumatic event to occur that the use of a killer robot would have easily mitigated.
Would you really run your city based on the kneejerk reactions of people reading misleading headlines? Like 90% of the people talking about this stuff don't even realize the robots are human controlled.
I'm guessing the non-negotiable non-cancelable contracts were already signed and money already exchanged hands, so the important part was already done. Then they give some feel-good message and cancel it.
Many scenarios where the cops feel threatened for their safety could be a case for robots, but given the poor state of police training I’m not optimistic they will be able to properly use those.
I could see one day soon having walking intercom robots approach cars at traffics stops while the cop sits safely in their car.
Probably not the first thing they would spend their budget in though.
Like, in a swat scenario where there is an active shooter, you send in an armored recon robot. "Hey look the guy is hiding behind the math teachers desk". Ok cool. Having that intel would massively reduce the risk to law enforcement while also not creating a scenario where skynet is imminent.
I mean they weren't talking about sending in advanced robots that they will be talking to people with or saving hostages with, the idea was literal suicide drones. Not much to be optimistic about in the first place.
There's no such thing as a non-cancelable contract. The lack of legal permission to do these things never stopped police before, but it would be a force majeure action to cancel any relevant contract.
"We have this great new idea: **NOT** killing people."
I have some other ideas, but all of them build off of this foundation that we were apparently lacking...
sounds like a certain committee didn't find out what it was responsible for until their activities were in the news.. which is either legitimately scary incompetence or a strategy they're walking back now - only because the people on this committee didn't think it was a bad idea until citizens pushed back when they found out about it in the news.
neither scenario is acceptable.
I wonder who is on this "committee" that decides if killer robots for law enforcement are a good idea. Seeing as how modern law enforcement exists primarily to protect the interests of the rich, and how incredibly tone-deaf the rich seem to be, I would guess that the committee is made up of rich corrupt local politicians who in no way represent the majority of regular folks in that area.
Seems to be that way in most of the U.S., to be honest. I can't think of one member of the house, senate, cabinet, hell not one seat in any office, that fully represents regular people in the States. Sure, some are better than others, but now you have groups like "The Squad" (of AOC fame) who are [voting against sick pay for railworkers, going back on their promises of fighting for a min wage increase, and giving up the fight for Medicare for All.](https://www.socialistalternative.org/2022/12/02/rail-workers-betrayed-biden-the-squad/)
It's money. Legal bribery. Always has been, and always will be, if you think politicians are looking out for *you* go check your bank account. Yeah, they aren't fighting for you, sure vote for "the lesser of two evils" like settling for that horseshit is anywhere near acceptable.
Its California, they collect another $50 million from taxes each election per prop measure that break down to "tax increase to form a commitee for the discussion of forming a committee to oversee the committee of committee awareness"
California is such a weird dichotomy of liberal surface-level ideals and corrupt greedy conservative actions.
The two-party system is fucking us all in the ass.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding others’ viewpoint, but to me this seems like a tool that would reduce unnecessary killings by the police. My thought is, if a police officer’s life is not at risk, they are less likely to make the wrong decision and kill someone. Keep in mind these are remote controlled machines, there’s a human operator on the other side, I think all of the news using the word “robot” is intentionally misleading/sensational because many people associate the word robot with an autonomous machine.
Thoughts? Am I missing something? Is there a major flaw in my thought?
I agree some what. I was in the military for 20 years and you vs you with your life in jeopardy are two totally different people. I think your opinion is definitely valid, especially in those cases where a subject has a screwdriver and lunges at the police and gets shot. Or just the police presence escalates the situation.
I really think if they want this, it should be some non lethal device though.
The way the department worded the proposal, these robots would’ve only been used when there was literally no other option. They were never intended to replace officers in traditional lethal force encounters. There would never be a robot driving up to cars on the roadside with a gun ready to kill the driver for speeding infractions…
A hypothetical situation would be a barricaded individual that’s already killed who has a tactical position and is able to kill any person who approaches. If the police exhaust all other options (negotiating isn’t an option) and conclude there is no way to end the threat without the suspect shooting an officer, the bot would go in. This literally happened in Texas. The cops blew the suspect up with a bomb and it was deemed reasonable.
The fear the public had was this standard would be relaxed and abused.
> I think all of the news using the word “robot” is intentionally misleading/sensational because
it is.
Take note of which news organizations are lying to you about this in the title. This isn't the only lie they posted today.
This shit is so stupid and mis-represented by the fucking headline to generate clicks and views.
the robots ARE NOT autonomous. They are FULLY REMOTE CONTROL.
So essentially, you utilize these during dangerous hostage situations, where an actual officer might have to put themselves in danger, they can send this robot in, with video and 2-way audio, and yes a gun (incase it's needed).
The fucking idea that they're having autonomous robots roaming the streets like fucking Zed 9000 is preposterous. but I mean. Reddit gonna react like the headline is all the info they need.
No, explicitly not with a gun. They plan to arm the robot with an explosive device. Their scenario seems to be entirely based on the time the Dallas police decided to kill a guy via robot bomb: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/08/use-robot-kill-dallas-suspect-first-experts-say/
The problem is not that people think it's autonomous, the problem is that police are unreliable.
You've seen videos of police escalation unnecessarily and improper use of force. You've seen police conduct raids on the wrong houses and false reports that contradict body cam footage. There are times when officers strip searched people improperly and planted drugs to get an arrest on their record. Every time these things happen police get shielded under qualified immunity and the public just needs to accept nothing will be done to right a wrong.
Also who do you think determines when it's right or needed to use a explosive robot? Being an officer is inherently dangerous so they can justify it whenever they want. Nothing says they can ONLY use it in certain situations, even if there was, police have always skirted consequences.
I don't think anyone thinks that, but having armed drones would hurt accountability and dehumanize even further, so yeah, still not a good direction. Cops are bad enough. No one thinks robots are magically going to kill more people.
Question: why does the robot police officer need to be armed? The human police officer is only supposed to use their weapon if they are personally in danger. The robot can't be in danger.
This does actually reduce deaths of criminals and deaths of cops though. Just stop and think about it.
There's a man in a house with reports from neighbours they have heard several gun shots. Here's a gun if he shoots you then you can shoot back, now go in and arrest him.
Vs
Same scenario, but you are controlling a robot from the safety of your office.
Which scenario is putting you in a situation that will make you most likely to pull the trigger, the one where you are likely to be shot and killed or the one where there is zero chance of you being shot?
This is so obvious to me. No one that has a brain is going to opt for going in themselves rather than sending in a robot. Stop putting people on both sides in these kill or be killed situations.
It'll certainly prove whether or not police are shooting people for fear of their lives, or because they just like to shoot people.
I suspect there's a lot of people commenting that don't think the number of police shootings will go down after they start using robots.
But if they're sending in the robot avoid a "kill or be killed scenario", then why does the robot need to use lethal force? You can't justify killing someone in "self-defense" of a robot.
The robot needs that option because in a worst case scenario let's someone barricaded in house with gun you need a way to disable that person without anyone else dieing.
I agree it would be nice if we situations could be resolved diplomatically but that would require all parties to be clear headed and mentally stable that's hardly ever the case in these situations. Drugs, alcohol or mental illness seem to always be a factor.
So do y’all remember the Dallas texas shooter they neutralized with C4 because he barricades himself in a one way in hallway and he refused to surrender after hours of negotiations? These weren’t going to be terminator bots 360 no scoping pedestrians for Jay walking but hey the internet wins again I guess.
I am waiting for the commercially available killer robots and the inevitable giant lawsuit when my killer robot kills a cop's killer robot and then they hit me with the $1.5 billion dollar price of replacement.
That or they'd just keep sending killer robots until I was out of killer robots and then kill me with said killer robots. Man. What a world
Real Answer: "The whole Internet was yelling at us so we hurriedly put the kibosh on that idea."
"until the internet forgets about it during the holidays"...
These will end up in the hands of law enforcement eventually. I guarantee it.
The police killed a guy in Dallas holed up in a parking garage with a bomb on a robot (RC iirc) years ago Edit: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/08/485262777/for-the-first-time-police-used-a-bomb-robot-to-kill
Yea, but let's be honest...the bastard kind of had it coming. He opened fire on an innocent Pride Parade with a fucking rifle, then resisted arrest by using deadly force against law enforcement. Folks generally don't get a break for shit like that.
the problem is that the police in America have shown time and time again through history that if you give them an inch, they will take a mile and use it to kill you. Today: Give the police exploding robots and authorize them only for use against active shooters Tomorrow: police are using exploding robots at traffic stops.
Well if people at traffic stops just followed orders then cops wouldn’t have to use exploding robots. The cop is the victim, obviously, because being a cop is scary. s/
My partner's wife's brother's friend's uncle's neighbor's brother-in-law used to be a cop until he saw fentanyl on CCTV footage and died.
Save Ferris
Sorry for your loss.
I heard cops have the authority to accuse you and tell you to stop resisting arrest or deadly force will be used just by thinking it at you. How is it their fault that you won't listen to their telepathic demands?
Plus, make sure you act totally fucking normal while your life is on the line because you can’t guess correctly why you were pulled over
Yes but also we could use some negative reinforcement for driving
Or protests.
Way to bury the lede. The shooter was Black and fired only at police officers. In his manifesto, he said all cops were white supremacists. And in fact, one of the cops he killed, completely randomly, was an actual white supremacist (with a bunch of racist symbolism on his Facebook page before his family scrubbed it). Like in every situation where cops are actually at risk, especially when it comes to non-whites, they decided ultra-violence is the answer. Like Philadelphia PD dropping a bomb from a helicopter to burn black children alive and burn down half a neighborhood block.
When I first heard about the Philadelphia MOVE police bombing, I was in utter disbelief. And to think that this is what was happening nearly 40 years ago, compared to the little to no progress to this day, gives little hope for the future.
> the bastard kind of had it coming I do not care. This idiotic sentiment is one of the main reasons why police is the way it is. Also, he was targeting cops, not the parade, which is... a factor. For the cops and myself.
Yeah fine he had it coming but the argument is about using robots to kill people.
That’s what I was going to say It’s already in place lol
And my understanding is that it is the only case of killing by robot in the US at the moment.
Few years back there was a guy on a ranch in Montana or North Dakota taking pot shots at the cops trying to serve a warrant, the cops couldn't see the guy so they called up the local military base and had them fly a predator drone over to spot him I always figured in a few years if something like that happened again they would send an armed one
You’re gonna like the way you kill, I guarantee it
Fuck, I just wanted a suit, man
All that leftover military hardware needs to go *somewhere*, if the military industrial complex can’t send it to the Middle East to kill brown people they’re more than happy to have it here killing Americans, whatever it takes so the factories keep running.
It basically says this in the first sentence of the article > In an abrupt reversal amid public outcry, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has **temporarily** changed its decision to permit the city’s police department to kill people with robots
They already have them. They just want pre-authorization to put bombs on them.
I’m going to build a bot myself in the next year or so as a hobby. Probably nothing on the level police would have but still a big battle bot like on tv shows, but with guns. My friend has 2 dji drones retrofitted with 9mm handguns that uses an open source AI to identify whichever objects he chooses and it can shoot them on its own. All learned from YouTube and purchased parts off eBay and Amazon. Pop cans off the fence or jugs of water in the field. Same AI can be used to identify animals and what not. Police are going to need them to keep up with hobbyists like myself. Because if I can make them, then anyone can. I’m not a criminal but it’s way too easy and fairly cheap for a criminal/anyone to produce an armed bot these days. Only a matter of time until the next mass shooting is from a bot.
"the vote reversal is not permanent." - literally in the article as well lol
I do not have enough faces, nor palms, to properly express myself. Everyone line up so I can slap you for peak communication.
Reporting for duty
What did the five fingers say to the face?
Spanking? I've been very naughty.
My left knee is a little sore from a recent injury, so put most of your weight on my right and let’s do this. https://media4.giphy.com/media/5hkDOxALz2y1xKYttg/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952m4htd47q38as0pp3r1wsr0nodmdcqw6zhjgaf6zn&rid=200w.gif&ct=g
OwO
Was just about to say the same thing. Whenever something gets backlash they just keep trying a few months later. The death of Net Neutrality is one example
That's exactly how pushing laws works, too. Get tons of opposition to something bullshit? Well, just retract it and sneak it in later to some fine print for raising the budget for education. Don't like it? You're against education? Monster.
This is what CA is is doing with their "let's charge solar customers so many fees it's not worth it anymore" idea too. They're just waiting until we forget and will try again and again until they ram something through that will kill the industry.
And then they straight up drop the new T-1000 and Robocop hybrid.
Then we will put Christmas lights on the killbots to make them festive.
Yeah they actually really want drones with guns but they don't want the bad press.
[drones with bombs*](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-05/san-francisco-police-robots/101736268)
You don’t have to pay drones and kill bots a salary to ‘solve’ a problem
They cost less to put on leave when they execute minorities too. On the other hand, they can't really use the "I was scared" excuse.
They'll use "based on R2D2's programming, the code of which is proprietary and we will NEVER release to the public, the target was identified as a deadly threat and therefore the robot acted accordingly. The government office of Whatever The Fuck has previously approved this robot for law enforcement purposes in accordance with Whatever Dumb Law we paid politicians to pass." Courts: Sounds like regulation is in place and the robot did nothing wrong. Case dismissed!
Cops seem to be the only workers people don't mind paying. Hell, the GOP supports their union.
[Like in Money Plane?](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ABrJTB0LS1EFfOWtg84a0FrDUNU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20075960/Money_Plane_2.gif)
Want to see a man fuck an alligator? Moneyplane
They will do it very quietly.
We’re officially going to act as if we’re not going to use this until the storm blows over, people forget and then we’re ready to rock and roll with killer robots. Love, Cops
To be clear... They already had these robots in service. The only reason this made the news was because California passed a law requiring g SF city council to confirm their use.
[удалено]
"NOOOOO JAY WALKINGGGG" *gunfire*
Exterminate! Exterminate!
E-RAD-I-CATE! E-RAD-I-CATE!
#Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply. -ED209 Robocop 1987 movie/2022 Documentary
Pretty sad how Robocop was satire in the 80's but is damn near reality now. That being said, everyone reading this who hasn't seen it (the original 80's one) should absolutely watch it. If nothing else, it's a great over the top 80's action flick, just layered with plenty of satire and criticism of consumer culture. That and Clarence Boddicker is an incredible villain.
You a good cop, hotshot?
Well, give the man a hand!
One of my top 5 80s movies, I still want to drive a 6000 SUX!
"Child without seatbelt detected by AI, automatically engaging long-range missile bombardment." "Protect and serve." "Protect and serve." "Resistance is futile."
Oh God these black middle schoolers are playing basketball! Send in the drone!
Watching things in Ukraine I'd say we'd have a way bigger problem if anyone realizes what piloted drones can do
I've already seen videos of drones with guns and flamethrowers mounted onto them years ago. I'm honestly surprised that a mass shooting/terrorist attack via drone hasn't happened in the US yet, but it really is just a matter of time.
Yeah it honestly wouldn’t be difficult to combine an off the shelf drone and a raspberry pi, some open source targeting software and a little bit of modification so it only targets your target. Output pins of the pi go to the weapon of your choice. If someone wanted an army of killbot drones it wouldn’t be difficult for pretty much anybody with a programming or engineering background to make it happen. Even easier if you just want them to swarm and take out a bunch of people without going for one specific target.
People with the know-how to make these things reliably functional for such a purpose usually aren't so unstable as to find that they need to resort to using one. While there are exceptions, the only way I could see this happening is if someone was hired to build something like this by someone who wanted to utilize it, and the person building it was more concerned about a payday than the ramifications ofwhat might happen with it.
This doesn't seem much more difficult than building bombs from scratch. And that's been done by a whole lot of unstable people. If there was someone building one for money, they would squarely fall into that unstable territory in my eyes.
You don't need to worry about recoil and aerodynamics when building bombs. It's not impossibly difficult to build weaponized drones, but it's definitely a lot more difficult than just building bombs. Unless we're talking kamikaze drones, in which case it's pretty much the same.
I'm shocked no one has just pulled the move from 'The Jackal' and used a cell phone, camera, and gun to remotely assassinate some one.
Yeah there’s a bunch of cheap ways you could remotely fire a weapon, my guess is it’s happened but the stories get buried because it’s so easy to copy and so hard to catch who did it. Either that or this comment thread gave some people the idea lol
To be fair, the Jackal didn't built it himself. He had to hire it out to someone with the know-how to build it. Luckily the Venn Diagram of people with the knowledge and capability to design and pilot such platforms doesn't overlap much with those with the sociopathic desire to do so. The increasing access to information and inexpensive prototyping platforms available to DIY, while much lower than they've ever been, still has a threshold that thankfully filters out many in that second bubble. That may change in the future, but for now it's at least not as easy as just going to the local swap meet and picking up an armed drone.
Off the shelf drones often have terrible sub 30 min battery lives. Half or quarter that if you want to add weight like weapons or bombs. You need to be close to the target to establish a radio link. Recoil would prevent burst or auto fire. Bomb drones are single use and expensive. Really not as easy as you make it out to be.
Come on, that's clearly impossible; you can't get a raspberry pi anywhere these days.
Exactly - I’m a Bay Area native and they knew exactly what they were doing. Just another Litmus test to see what they can get away.
*Dallas furiously scribbling notes*
Idk this was the worst test possible lol. Born and raised in the Bay Area especially near sf, no way this was gonna fly. Berkeley would dismantle all that shit. Sf would have people dismantling it or trying to fight back. Protest would be insane. If they proposed this in a richer area though then who knows lol
I don't know, SF has changed a lot over the years. There are a whole lot of tech bros that would be more than happy if robots would gun down the less fortunate.
“Raincheck!”
So at first i saw it was with bullets then they clarified it was gonna use explosives. Fucking wild.
What scares me is how many people defended the drones, and still do in this thread.
Police Union complained about losing jobs/hours
I can't believe no one wanted Judge Dredd.
Real Real Answer: “The killer robots are treating people of all colors the same. “
And we'll quietly resume it in 6 months
Alternate real answer: out of spite we’re gonna do even less police work so that you eventually NEED robots.
At least they listened.
Or at least made a show of doing so. And honestly, that's more than we've gotten out of a lot of politicians in recent years, so 🤷♀️
Agreed
20 bucks says texas will pass it within a year
"So now we're just doing it behind the scenes"
Sadly, the whole internet was yelling at them mostly under the false impression that SF was building Terminators. If the news media had clarified that these were basically RC cars with guns/explosives, then there still might have been backlash, but at least we could have had a rational conversation. :-/
> Real Answer: "The whole Internet was yelling at us so we hurriedly put the kibosh on that idea." This is #currentyear in a nutshell. Everybody is just doing the dumbest shit possible hoping to get away with it then rolling it back like LOLJK when the internet gets wind of it.
“while secretly rolling it put anyway”
"Too American, too American..."
“However, the vote reversal is not permanent. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the issue is being sent back to the Rules committee which will debate the topic further.” Despite making international news about this ridiculous situation, public outcry from local citizens in the area, and voting against it…they still have to debate about it some more? Makes TOTAL sense /s
To be clear... They already had these robots in service. The only reason this made the news was because California passed a law requiring g SF city council to confirm their use.
I saw this as a news flash a few minutes ago in Germany and how dystopyan it is to use "killer robots" as a police tool. Now I see this that they want to start debating about it. There are several books and movies and games already debating how bad the idea is. Ok they are fiction but they are based on several discussions about the thematic.
This wouldn't be the first time something from science fiction became reality.
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
The tech company in question wanted to test the outcome of the second classic book in the Nexus series - "The Devastating Consequences of Creating the Torment Nexus"
the actual IRL practice of tormenting nexuses is a triggering relic from the patriarchal '50s, so i'll never read *Don't Create The Torment Nexus,* or value its lessons as referenced elsewhere. let me know if you'd like to know my opinion about the novel's contents though, i have many i'd like to share with you all.
Wasn’t there a Chinese company that wanted to create A.Is and they named it Skynet because they want to remove the stigma from its name?
It is the NSA and they still do it [never gonna give you up](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKYNET_(surveillance_program))
Why is it always the dystopian sci-fi that people borrow ideas from? What I wouldn't give for some Star Trek post-scarcity...
Well in order to get to post scarcity…
Yeah a lot of people don't realize that in Star Trek lore, post-scarcity utopian Earth only happens *after* homeless concentration camps, secret eugenics wars, World War III, and "post-atomic horror". According to their timeline, WW3 should break out in 2026.
Oh good! Right on schedule!
😂😂😂😫
And it will. Source: am Nostradamus.
Because dystopia is easier to relate to, wonder why that might be.
>There are several books and movies and games already debating how bad the idea is. Those books and movies don't even debate it. They outright *denounce* it.
It's a glorified rc car, not fully autonomous.
Already use them in the military. Drones have been a very popular weapon for quite some time.
Different thing entirely for the military to use them than it is for the police.
First topic of debate: How can we spin this so people go along with it? Edit: topic 2: Why you're a racist for not wanting robot cops.
Paint pretty flowers on it, and give him a happy, smiley face screen.
Call it botty mcbotface robokiller
A conspiracy theorist would suggest that the elites will cause an extremely traumatic event to occur that the use of a killer robot would have easily mitigated.
Where's a 9/11 when you need one
Would you really run your city based on the kneejerk reactions of people reading misleading headlines? Like 90% of the people talking about this stuff don't even realize the robots are human controlled.
I'm guessing the non-negotiable non-cancelable contracts were already signed and money already exchanged hands, so the important part was already done. Then they give some feel-good message and cancel it.
We now have non-armed robot dogs to be goodwill ambassadors
How can they be police robots if they arent doing any killing?
I'm hardly optimistic but there's plenty of non-scary uses for robots in police scenarios. ...but I'm hardly optimistic.
Many scenarios where the cops feel threatened for their safety could be a case for robots, but given the poor state of police training I’m not optimistic they will be able to properly use those.
I could see one day soon having walking intercom robots approach cars at traffics stops while the cop sits safely in their car. Probably not the first thing they would spend their budget in though.
Never gonna happen. A robot can't "smell weed".
They probably actually could, but that’s also why they wouldn’t be used for this.
Like, in a swat scenario where there is an active shooter, you send in an armored recon robot. "Hey look the guy is hiding behind the math teachers desk". Ok cool. Having that intel would massively reduce the risk to law enforcement while also not creating a scenario where skynet is imminent.
They already have recon drones for decades, this article is referencing drones with kill capability
There’s plenty of non-scary uses for cops too. It’d clear that American cops aren’t to be trusted with power anymore.
I mean they weren't talking about sending in advanced robots that they will be talking to people with or saving hostages with, the idea was literal suicide drones. Not much to be optimistic about in the first place.
Arguably the license plate scanners they already have could qualify as non-scary police robots.
That’s dumb because none of us speak dog.
I dunno….my dog seems to think I do lol
I read that as non-armed hot dog robots and was excited for a moment.
No, they had this equipment already. 12 drones used for reconnaissance and bomb bomb defusal.
This wasn't about purchasing new robots. This was about changing the rules so the police could use the robots they already have to kill people.
There's no such thing as a non-cancelable contract. The lack of legal permission to do these things never stopped police before, but it would be a force majeure action to cancel any relevant contract.
Well you don’t need to “guess” and spread misinformation
Ya don’t say
I had to check this wasn't posted to /r/nottheonion
I assumed it was that until I came across your comment...
It’s vice, they made the most obvious clickbait title they could
I feel bad for the Onion, real life is much crazier than thier imagination
They actually did say. I’m kinda amazed.
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That guy was a domestic terrorist.
>What should we do for the homeless problem in our city? >SFPD: *"Hey everyone, [I've got a great idea!](https://youtu.be/ZFvqDaFpXeM)"*
But... robots are so cool!
But that would require actual police work.
"We have this great new idea: **NOT** killing people." I have some other ideas, but all of them build off of this foundation that we were apparently lacking...
It's risky, but in times of great need, sometimes a new solution must be sought.
sounds like a certain committee didn't find out what it was responsible for until their activities were in the news.. which is either legitimately scary incompetence or a strategy they're walking back now - only because the people on this committee didn't think it was a bad idea until citizens pushed back when they found out about it in the news. neither scenario is acceptable.
I wonder who is on this "committee" that decides if killer robots for law enforcement are a good idea. Seeing as how modern law enforcement exists primarily to protect the interests of the rich, and how incredibly tone-deaf the rich seem to be, I would guess that the committee is made up of rich corrupt local politicians who in no way represent the majority of regular folks in that area. Seems to be that way in most of the U.S., to be honest. I can't think of one member of the house, senate, cabinet, hell not one seat in any office, that fully represents regular people in the States. Sure, some are better than others, but now you have groups like "The Squad" (of AOC fame) who are [voting against sick pay for railworkers, going back on their promises of fighting for a min wage increase, and giving up the fight for Medicare for All.](https://www.socialistalternative.org/2022/12/02/rail-workers-betrayed-biden-the-squad/) It's money. Legal bribery. Always has been, and always will be, if you think politicians are looking out for *you* go check your bank account. Yeah, they aren't fighting for you, sure vote for "the lesser of two evils" like settling for that horseshit is anywhere near acceptable.
Its California, they collect another $50 million from taxes each election per prop measure that break down to "tax increase to form a commitee for the discussion of forming a committee to oversee the committee of committee awareness"
California is such a weird dichotomy of liberal surface-level ideals and corrupt greedy conservative actions. The two-party system is fucking us all in the ass.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding others’ viewpoint, but to me this seems like a tool that would reduce unnecessary killings by the police. My thought is, if a police officer’s life is not at risk, they are less likely to make the wrong decision and kill someone. Keep in mind these are remote controlled machines, there’s a human operator on the other side, I think all of the news using the word “robot” is intentionally misleading/sensational because many people associate the word robot with an autonomous machine. Thoughts? Am I missing something? Is there a major flaw in my thought?
I agree some what. I was in the military for 20 years and you vs you with your life in jeopardy are two totally different people. I think your opinion is definitely valid, especially in those cases where a subject has a screwdriver and lunges at the police and gets shot. Or just the police presence escalates the situation. I really think if they want this, it should be some non lethal device though.
The way the department worded the proposal, these robots would’ve only been used when there was literally no other option. They were never intended to replace officers in traditional lethal force encounters. There would never be a robot driving up to cars on the roadside with a gun ready to kill the driver for speeding infractions… A hypothetical situation would be a barricaded individual that’s already killed who has a tactical position and is able to kill any person who approaches. If the police exhaust all other options (negotiating isn’t an option) and conclude there is no way to end the threat without the suspect shooting an officer, the bot would go in. This literally happened in Texas. The cops blew the suspect up with a bomb and it was deemed reasonable. The fear the public had was this standard would be relaxed and abused.
> I think all of the news using the word “robot” is intentionally misleading/sensational because it is. Take note of which news organizations are lying to you about this in the title. This isn't the only lie they posted today.
Well if it's got the balls to go save kids like at Uvalde, I'm down.
Shocker
Lmao why do they keep calling them killer police robots and not murderbots
What a concept.
This shit is so stupid and mis-represented by the fucking headline to generate clicks and views. the robots ARE NOT autonomous. They are FULLY REMOTE CONTROL. So essentially, you utilize these during dangerous hostage situations, where an actual officer might have to put themselves in danger, they can send this robot in, with video and 2-way audio, and yes a gun (incase it's needed). The fucking idea that they're having autonomous robots roaming the streets like fucking Zed 9000 is preposterous. but I mean. Reddit gonna react like the headline is all the info they need.
No, explicitly not with a gun. They plan to arm the robot with an explosive device. Their scenario seems to be entirely based on the time the Dallas police decided to kill a guy via robot bomb: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/08/use-robot-kill-dallas-suspect-first-experts-say/
The problem is not that people think it's autonomous, the problem is that police are unreliable. You've seen videos of police escalation unnecessarily and improper use of force. You've seen police conduct raids on the wrong houses and false reports that contradict body cam footage. There are times when officers strip searched people improperly and planted drugs to get an arrest on their record. Every time these things happen police get shielded under qualified immunity and the public just needs to accept nothing will be done to right a wrong. Also who do you think determines when it's right or needed to use a explosive robot? Being an officer is inherently dangerous so they can justify it whenever they want. Nothing says they can ONLY use it in certain situations, even if there was, police have always skirted consequences.
I don't think anyone thinks that, but having armed drones would hurt accountability and dehumanize even further, so yeah, still not a good direction. Cops are bad enough. No one thinks robots are magically going to kill more people.
Did someone finally force them to watch terminator
we watched robocop, we won't make the same mistakes
Nah they took one look at the ED 209 jizzed their pants and decided that was perfect
Poor Kenny
Did someone not read the article? They're not autonomous and lack any decision making ability.
How about a robot that cleans up poop and picks up hypodermic needles? The city could all benefit from that!
I feel like that would require admitting there's a problem.
Question: why does the robot police officer need to be armed? The human police officer is only supposed to use their weapon if they are personally in danger. The robot can't be in danger.
I don’t know. ED-209 might be able to put a dent in the number of car break ins.
I just watched Robocop too
Typical government idea fairy flying around developing policy without any awareness of downstream effects.
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This does actually reduce deaths of criminals and deaths of cops though. Just stop and think about it. There's a man in a house with reports from neighbours they have heard several gun shots. Here's a gun if he shoots you then you can shoot back, now go in and arrest him. Vs Same scenario, but you are controlling a robot from the safety of your office. Which scenario is putting you in a situation that will make you most likely to pull the trigger, the one where you are likely to be shot and killed or the one where there is zero chance of you being shot? This is so obvious to me. No one that has a brain is going to opt for going in themselves rather than sending in a robot. Stop putting people on both sides in these kill or be killed situations.
It'll certainly prove whether or not police are shooting people for fear of their lives, or because they just like to shoot people. I suspect there's a lot of people commenting that don't think the number of police shootings will go down after they start using robots.
But if they're sending in the robot avoid a "kill or be killed scenario", then why does the robot need to use lethal force? You can't justify killing someone in "self-defense" of a robot.
The robot needs that option because in a worst case scenario let's someone barricaded in house with gun you need a way to disable that person without anyone else dieing. I agree it would be nice if we situations could be resolved diplomatically but that would require all parties to be clear headed and mentally stable that's hardly ever the case in these situations. Drugs, alcohol or mental illness seem to always be a factor.
How about a robot that traps people in a big net or something?
It's an explody robot though. In many situations you cannot be sure that only the suspect is going to be killed/exploded.
So do y’all remember the Dallas texas shooter they neutralized with C4 because he barricades himself in a one way in hallway and he refused to surrender after hours of negotiations? These weren’t going to be terminator bots 360 no scoping pedestrians for Jay walking but hey the internet wins again I guess.
So what was different about this than the other bomb robots that have been used to kill barricaded active shooters in the US
Your use of the plural is, I think, inaccurate. It's happened once.
It's the exact same.
All it took was literally building robots that could kill humans for cops to realize that "hey maybe we shouldn't be murdering people".
GEE!
r/facepalm
r/nofuckingshit
$100 says some cop was playing with one of the murder bots and accidentally shot themselves in the foot.
They realized that they can’t justify shooting someone if no cops are nearby to be “in danger”
I am waiting for the commercially available killer robots and the inevitable giant lawsuit when my killer robot kills a cop's killer robot and then they hit me with the $1.5 billion dollar price of replacement. That or they'd just keep sending killer robots until I was out of killer robots and then kill me with said killer robots. Man. What a world
r/ABoringDystopia
Cops union wanted to let folks work from home too. Not today! You shoot your suspects in person!