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Axon Ditches Plan for Weaponized Taser Drones (Majority of Ethics Board Resigns)
- joebob42 4y agoI'm glad, but unfortunately I'm sure if the police / government decide they want this sort of technology someone else will build it for them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dmead 4y agoThey wanted to fly them in schools.
- throw457 4y agoIt goes in both directions... We should all be scared of the time when lunatics discover how easy it is to arm commercial drones. Drones are becoming increasingly available and easy to use, and as they become more sophisticated, it is only a matter of time before someone with malicious intent figures out how to arm them. Once that happens, we could see a whole new level of terror and violence, as drones armed with explosives or other weapons could be used to target civilians indiscriminately. Even worse, it would be very difficult to defend against an attack by armed drones, as they can be operated remotely and are very difficult to shoot down. In short, the potential for misuse of armed drones is extremely high, and we should all be worried about the possibility of them being used for nefarious purposes.
- meheleventyone 4y agoThis seems mostly a tv show threat outside of a war zone where commercial drones are already being retrofitted this way.
- latchkey 4y agohttps://youtu.be/TlO2gcs1YvM?t=340 https://youtu.be/TlO2gcs1YvM?t=340
- 323 4y ago> it is only a matter of time before someone with malicious intent figures out how to arm them You mean like in Ukraine right now, where they are dropping grenades from DJI drones?
- danenania 4y agoFor anything widely available, I believe they’re very easy to jam? I don’t know if jammers have been widely distributed to police departments though.
- killjoywashere 4y agoI'm not glad. People have been weaponizing drones for a while now. Non-lethals are infinitely preferable when operationally indicated. https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2021/10/20/politics/drone-attack-syria/index.html https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2021/10/20/politics/drone-attack-syr...
- swagasaurus-rex 4y agoAs a means of stopping a mass shooter, this seems like a promising avenue. We need more ways of incapacitating a dangerous individual without resorting to killing them.
- ews 4y agoLike uhmmm... making gun ownership difficult or basically illegal like the rest of the civilized world?
- asah 4y agolet's not get crazy here. Guns don't kill people. If we banned them, they'd still stone each other. /s
- burrows 4y agoDoes the word “civilized” have any content here? Or are you just saying, “guns are illegal in countries where guns are illegal.”
- yeetawayhn 4y agoNo, "civilized" here is supposed to allow the speaker to ignore all of the countries where gun control doesn't help. Do not pay any attention to the racism of calling those countries "uncivilized".
- salawat 4y agoIf they are so civilized, why do they have to threaten the populace at gunpoint to disarm? Civility is having the means to end someone else's life, and not using it. I assure you, there is nothing more inherently civil about a government that refuses it's citizenry the right to arms.
- usrn 4y ago
- darkwizard42 4y ago
- endisneigh 4y agoIf you assume gun legislation will not change, what’s the alternative? Curious to hear about alternatives being planned. - metal detectors are frowned upon (https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2022/5/26/23143403/detroit-public-schools-community-district-vitti-shooting-uvalde-metal-detectors-safety-security?_amp=true https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2022/5/26/23143403/detroit-pub...) - automatically locked doors are faulty and don’t really stop you if you happen to get in. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/06/buttigieg-shooting-doors-uvalde/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/06/buttigieg-s...) - armed police at school have been rejected already by many urban school district student bodies (https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/06/students-push-back-on-calls-for-police-in-schools/amp/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/06/students-push-back-on...)
- ok_dad 4y agoRemember, guns are for the "well regulated Militia", so regulating gun technology and access to them are inherent in the 2nd Amendment, IMHO. Therefore, I propose: - Regulate access to guns; require training, background checks, and a database of gun owners that is cross-checked against mental health records and criminal legal records - Regulate gun tech for civilians; don't allow magazines or speed-loaders for civilian guns, so it takes longer to reload (will help with how easy mass-shootings are now) and disallow other features that are designed to make killing in battle more efficient (basically just allow hunting and target-shooting guns with reduced reload efficiency) - Cover mental health (and other medical procedures) for all Americans
- endisneigh 4y agoI don’t disagree that gun legislation is the solution, but the democrats are all but certain to lose in the midterms, so it’s unlikely anything will be passed. Mental health records generally are sealed like all medical records. Are you proposing they be accessible? For instance the Virginia tech shooter received mental health care most of his adolescence, bought a gun legally and still committed the worst school shooting to date. My question is around stopping an active shooter once it’s happening.
- pigtailgirl 4y ago"A remotely operated non-lethal TASER-enabled drone in schools is an idea, not a product, and it’s a long way off. We have a lot of work and exploring to see if this technology is even viable and to understand if the public concerns can be adequately addressed before moving forward. Pursuing an extended research path is just one element of getting this right." https://www.axon.com/news/technology/axon-committed-to-listening-and-learning https://www.axon.com/news/technology/axon-committed-to-liste... -- not sure "ditches" is - quite the right word here? --
- latchkey 4y agoSlaughterbots (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
- qgin 4y agoOriginally, tasers were pitched as an alternative to shooting bullets at someone. That sounded very reasonable. In practice, tasers came to be used for situations in which bullets would never be fired in. They became tools to force immediate compliance. Someone doesn’t listen to instructions? Out comes the taser. The non-lethality lowered the bar for use and enabled police to exert a level of control that didn’t exist before. Now let’s say you have a drone that fires a taser. For a mass shooting event, yes, that sounds very reasonable. But of course it will be used for many, many more situations. How long before it’s standard practice for police to send an autonomous taser of some sort to knock on doors to keep occupants at bay while they search the house? I don’t know which tradeoff are worth it, but less-lethal weapons don’t just replace the lethal ones, they end up being used in a much more expansive set of circumstances than the lethal ones they replace.
- endisneigh 4y agoGiven that police already shoot unarmed people who literally are just standing around, or are sleeping, I’m not sure the bar can get any lower.
- qgin 4y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if tasers actually increase the impulse to “reach for a gun-like solution” and may have actually increased gun use in policing.
- angelbar 4y agoThat already happened, recently one officer shoot someone because she got the wrong weapon
- runlevel1 4y agoUSA Today found there were at least 16 instances of weapon confusion since 2001.[^1] The first high-profile case happened just 3 months after BART Police were supplied with them in 2009.[^2] [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/04/13/taser-confusion-errors-like-daunte-wright-shooting-rare-but-avoidable/7210538002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/04/1... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Oscar_Grant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Oscar_Grant
- bamboozled 4y ago“Drones to stop mass shooters”. Stop having mass shooters !
- fnordpiglet 4y ago‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849022496 https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...
- 323 4y agoIt's ok, the Chinese will build them and US will order them from Aliexpress.
- adamredwoods 4y agoOr return to improve sticky foam? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_foam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_foam
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- duxup 4y agoIf you can fly a drone in to “stop a mass shooter”, why not just take other actions? Sit and wait for someone to go get the drone and deploy it? The use case here seems weirdly specific.
- Barrera 4y ago> “I just think the idea is terrifically ridiculous,” said Mr. Friedman, the founder and faculty director of the Policing Project at New York University School of Law. “Drones can’t fly through doors. Shooters wear body armor.” Forgetting about the enormous ethical implications, how is this supposed to work technically? The intro image shows what looks like a taser mounted on a quad copter. Friedman seems to have a point. How exactly is a quad copter supposed to get into a locked classroom? I think the answer comes earlier: > In addition to including schools, Axon’s revised plans for Taser-equipped drones also called for the drones to be activated by a system of AI-powered surveillance. The ethics board has long advised Axon against the use of persistent surveillance systems such as this in its products. Sooner or later, this is where it all leads. By the time there's an active shooter, it's too late. Surveillance system will encounter little of the opposition that robotic tasers will. Not that the resistance is that organized or widespread to be begin with. If you're ok with an armed cop on campus, why not an armed drone. The "nothing to hide" argument will no doubt carry the day as it has at every stage along our current trajectory. Stop the criminal before they can act. That's the sane way to deal with violence. I can just hear the howls of righteous disapproval against anyone who questions "the science" on this.
- neilv 4y ago> Majority of Ethics Board Resigns Does this mean that the people who most objected to something will no longer be in a position to influence future decisions by the company?
- julienb_sea 4y agoThis technology seems inevitable. Do we really think foreign manufacturers will have qualms about developing armed (non-lethal or lethal) autonomous drones? China will have this deployed within a decade. It seems shortsighted for Axon's board to take this position. Whether or not police should use such tooling, and in what circumstances it's appropriate, is a fair point for debate. I just don't believe that Axon refusing to develop the tech will ultimately prevent it from becoming available.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoNot developing something is a great way to prevent it from being developed