In the US, San Francisco recently voted to allow the San Francisco Police Deparyment to use ‘killer robots’ which are armed with explosives to be used in “emergency circumstances when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent”. It is currently controversial, with some people arguing that it is unreasonable force where police will send out a robot during a mental health crisis.
https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/san-francisco-police-cleared-to-use-robots-with-lethal-force-155778629764
15 comments
No European country has killer robots in their police force. At most drones are used for surveillance and there are of course bomb disposal robot units. The most “killer” attempt was testing tear gas grenades and zip cuffs on drones.
There are however developments for larger combat drones adapted for border patrol and immigrant/fugitive “control”.
SYL
Wait what?
Romanian police officers don’t even have guns in some cases (don’t worry, neither do most criminals, we’re more of a knife kind of country).
No, definitely not. I am not even sure to what extent we even use “regular” robots to search for explosives or similar tasks.
Generally, I think that Austrians are much less willing to use new tech than the US – civilian or military/police. I think we tend to wait till others have tested it and the technology has proven itself to be useful.
No but considering the frontline Garda in Ireland aren’t even armed it won’t be a serious point of discussion. Maybe in the future there’ll be talk of giving them to the ARU but we’re not even in the discussion phase of that yet.
Lol no, our police forces use plain old batons and guns. If there are any robots in Russia, then it’s probably just a guy dressed as one.
The most controversial topic about the police is probably torturing that has become very commonplace.
No, as of now the only drones used by the Italian police forces are the UAS for survelliance and EOD bots.
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Our police force not only has no robots of any kind, the regular human police aren’t in the news every week, month, or even year for killing someone.
What do these “killer robots” look like outside of clickbait headlines? I’d expect European police to use similar tactics as the US police did if they were faced with the scenario this is in reference to, that is a barricaded sniper actively shooting people who was killed with a remote controlled EOD robot jury rigged to carry explosives.
No, because here people look at Terminator and don’t say “Interesting”
No not really but I personally don’t really see the problem with allowing this?
After all it’s still just a cop pressing the button and the robots aren’t supposed to get guns but only as a transport medium to get explosives where they need to be.
I’m not sure about the exact laws but I can’t think of any that would forbid police from doing so in my country
They are (under special circumstances) to use weapons that will result almost certainly in death and they are allowed to use explosive devices if a higher up allows it and other means didn’t work
So I don’t see why it should be illegal to transport the explosive with a robot
In the US, civilians can (and often do) have deadly weapons, so the police need to have even-more-deadly weapons.
In Europe, it is uncommon (and often illegal) for civilians to have deadly weapons, so it is not necessary for the police to have military-grade weaponry.
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Those San Francisco «Killer Robots» are not robots at all. They are guns operated at a distance by a human via a videocamera and a screen. To be real robots it should be them deciding when at whom to shoot.
I’m from Bolivia police here did not Even had guns 😂