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Armed Police Bots with Stun Guns
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."
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Hopefully the person operating it.
.....acting the way they are and getting into trouble where they need to be stunned in the first place :P
To me this s pretty funny. Has anyone seen the bot they use in the bomb squad? I mean if you put a machine gun on that thing even a dog in a wheel chair would be able to get away in time. I think that things like this are not really effect as an actual combat or police platform in terms of hitting your target, but rather provide a heavy scare factor. I can imagine that most people would see it and thing terminator and run like hell rather then walk briskly past it and just push it over which is all it would really take to disable it.
It's a bad day to be a criminal, and soon the police force will be out of a job. Robotaserthing is in town, and ready to electrocute some scum.
On a more serious note, it's not like this was unexpected, and it's not the first of the line either. We're smack right in the middle of the robotic era, from mini automated vacuum cleaners, to hover spy robots, to shotgun equipped killing machines. This is just another step, and it's not going to end, ever.
Well......it could end for us, but not for the robots.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
Res publica non dominetur
Cops that can be neutralized with a refridgerator magnet! (Hey, it works on Bender!)
nc
...a step by step program.
Can they stunlock or are there diminishing returns?
remember oddworld? there advertise robot that got agressive and shoked ppl if they didnt buy the product? thats the future of these robots
civilians arming themselves with stinger missiles and radio jammers
[Mr. Kinney points a pistol at ED-209]
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.
There really has to be a good Ed-209 joke in here somewhere.
Anyone want to bet me that this project gets scrapped in less than a year due to "malfunctioning" bots that zap officers more than civilians ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Damn robots and their poor judgment.
A real use for "That robot had one day till retirement" joke.
Anyone remember those big robot things from Robocop?
Eh, but we can always build more kill...errr, stunbots.
Why not just have the bots detain people instead of arming them with something that could seriously injure or kill someone (heart-atacks, etc.)
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
Is this the same Steve Wright who bought some batteries, but found that they weren't included?
Why only worry about "autonomous robots"? Even remote-controlled robots with stun guns would worry me. Anything that would make it easier for a cop to hurt someone without looking into the whites of their eyes would worry me.
Why do police always stick out like sore thumbs ?
Uniformed officers are easy enough to avoid, I can only imagine how many episodes of Americas' dumbest criminals are going to be based on criminals dumb enough to get anywhere near these robots.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Last I checked, stun gun weaponry was called Less-Lethal, not Non-Lethal, as in Stun Guns kill people LESS than regular weapons.
0. Obtain a Stunbot3000 (capture it in a box or net and place it in a Faraday cage that provides sufficient electromagnetic shielding to keep it from communicating with it's legal owners wirelessly)
1. Hack Sunbot3000, preferably installing Linux or BSD on it.
2. Program it to shock corrupt cops, Christian fundamentalists, members of the Bush administration, corporate executives, and other undesirable figures. Perhaps speech to text and a bit of grepping could be enough to determine who is/isn't an undesirable figure?
3. ???
4. Profit! (or at least social progress?)
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
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.
.
When will it end? This is such a load of...[zzzzap] OWWW!!.. ...I...for one...welcome...[zzzzap] AAAAHH...our new robot...
Robot insurance doesn't seem so silly now, huh?
I'll be darned if they use my per-scrip-shun drugs for fuel! (Medicare "D" was just a ploy!)
--
Toro
At this point, the robots aren't going to be 100% autonomous, the amount of AI that would imply is staggering. The robots will have to be controlled by humans. Most likely, they'll be more along the lines of an RC device, like most police robots are now. For example bomb robots many large police forces have are basically just large RC units. They actually could be used to do quite a bit of harm to someone, their grips are usually very strong. As such it falls on the shoulders of the person operating it.
Same deal here. If the operator orders his robot to stun someone continuously, it'll be his ass on the line.
This really isn't a problem until we start to get to a level of AI that is fully automatic. If this was a device that could locate someone, decide they were a threat, and take them down all without any human interaction, then it would be a question who gets asked why. However so long as there's a human with their finger on the trigger, that's the guy who is responsible for making sure the robot does what it should do.
.. to interfere with a CopBot,
or to tamper with a CopBot,
or to kill a CopBot?
I, for one, welcome our stun gun armed robotic overlords.
Will they run Linux?
-- I'll be back before you can say antidisestablishmentarianism...
Can I buy one to beat up people that don't pay ?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
With over 75 deaths from stun guns in the four years before 2005, it seems these weapons can be lethal. If the recipient has a heart condition, or is on stimulants, there is a significant risk of death from the taser. Very little research is being done on the use of tasers on people, but it is somehow considered 'safe' - seemingly by mere assumption.
In my research, I found this article: Prehosp Emerg Care. 2006 Oct-Dec;10(4):447-50 "Taser use in restraint-related deaths."
You can search pubmed for this article.
- ABB Cynic's Report
...what have you got to be afraid of? Malfunctioning police robots with giant killer tasers?
Oh... wait...
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
In Capitalist West expensive robot stuns you.
In Soviet Russia buggy robot source code stuns you.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Does it matter? the IPCC will exonerate everybody anyway, like they always do.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Given how lazy police actually *are*, they will probably respond *slower* to crime because of these, trying to rely on it as a deterrant. The only problem is, people will start carrying supersoakers with salt water, or something. DIE ROBOCOP DIE!
www.isoHunt.com
Secondly, I find it interesting that according to the official announcement from Taser International, this is coming about as part of a "strategic alliance" with iRobot, the company who's building robots for the military. According to Taser Int'l, "This combination of capabilities will allow law enforcement, federal, and military users to employ TASER technology from an iRobot® platform at a safe distance to engage, incapacitate, and control dangerous suspects without exposing those personnel, the suspect, or bystanders to unnecessary risks."
We have human police officers on the street because humans are the best able to determine what's going on with all their senses. If you take some guy sitting behind his desk and only give him a 90-degree-angled video feed and a cheap microphone to listen in with, that kills a large part of his effectiveness, and we end up with plenty more problems than we started with. Cops should be able to do their jobs better when they can judge situations with all of their senses.
And then, who needs reasonable suspicion when you don't have to physically taze someone? How could this NOT be a vehicle for the perversion of power? Somebody said earlier, Anything that would make it easier for a cop to hurt someone without looking into the whites of their eyes would worry me and I couldn't agree more. And let's not even get into buggy software or hacking enabling these robots to go after children or bill collectors or something.
As a sidenote, let's compare these things to real cops: would disabling one of these things be tantamount to committing capital murder? If it calls for backup, is another RoboTaserCop going to come to its aid? How do these travel to the scene of a crime? If they're controlled remotely as the original announcement states, from where? A patrol car a few meters away, where any criminal who would be a threat to an actual officer can still shoot the officer from his car, or a desk kilometers away, requiring repeated tasing while an officer is sent to arrest? Is running away from one of these things considered evading arrest? I mean, it's a robot out to hurt you...
I'd be very hesitant to have robots with tasers running around but I think it's fair to point out there might actually be some really positive aspects to this.
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.
Welcome to the internets, you must be new. I am not talking about the stupid commercials. If you think they are gone drop by Usenet or Fark sometime. They, like Bob the Dinosaur where just hiding behind the couch.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
If they plan to allow a machine decide whether to taser somebody, expect this idea to vanish in a blinding plasma cloud of litigation. If they're talking about a human being operating this device by remote control, then whoever's at the switch is on the hook legally for any claim of excessive force, especially since the operator wouldn't be in any danger (the usual excuse of an overzealous police officer.)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Do NOT welcome our new taser-bearing robot overBZZZZZZTT Gaaaah!
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
I can't wait to go to Arizona and threaten, fool, reprogram, and infect with a viral upgrade, my own robot from America. Can we reprogram it to taser cops who beat people? That would be one fine robot. It would certainly make the world a less meat headed place. And isn't that what we all want? (Except for the meat heads?) I dunno. But I like the idea anyway.
I for one welcome our Stun Gun carrying Robot Overloads
Non-lethal restraint is what your talking, That's spray webbing which even with a skilled shooter can block airways.
Netting, which is kinda one shot and what if they got a knife? (most likely)
Or some sort of Tentacles. The artist of Hentai are obsessed by tentacles and with robots? I don't think we need to go any farther with this. My spider sense are tingling already. (opps thats not my spider sense)
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
It's going to be decades before robots are able to stand up to a human bare handed, never mind with something as simple as a stick.
Deleted
Who needs an offensive weapon on robot? Has nobody here seen the Dark Angel series or the movie Runaway? Sheesh geeks today...
People we are talking Jessica Alba here (the only think that makes the Fantastic Four films worth seeing) Dark Angel had several episodes about them. They are a staple of William Gibson Cyberpunk stories. Enough prior art to gag a hippo so no patent needed.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The Fourth Law is the most important: "Any attempt to arrest a senior OCP officer^W^W Republican party member results in shutdown".
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
In California, they don't use robots, they use the Governor.
Do they run Linux?
'Cause if MS gets the contract, we are in deep shit.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Asimov's laws are really nice, but I don't see law enforcement agencies or authorities turning to a sci-fi novel for guidance. Let's face it, the UK authorities don't pay much attention to George Orwell's 1984 ....
After seeing a video of a sentry bot with a machine gun onc, I'm not looking forward to further developments in this field:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5YftEAbmMQ
http://www.taser.com/
Deleted
Slightly thicker jacket will do the job. Then all it takes to kill the robot is a gentle push.
Tell you what. I'll get worried about robots when they develop flinch reactions.
Deleted
Local recruitment agencies reported a surge in demand for taser robot service engineers. Said a spokesperson: "Yes, we have seen the demand for service engineers quadruple straight after the UPS module was introduced. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to establish if this is the result of a module defect or something else, as of yet no engineer has returned our calls. As a matter of fact, they haven't cashed their paychecks either".
Spokespeople for the employer sited a "surge in demand" as the main reason for the vast intake of service engineers, as bulldozers loaded with large cardboard boxes drove by.
Insert
Last month a Texas Ranger (state police, not ball club member) fired a taser at a guy who had just poured gasoline all over himself. The spark set off the gas and fried the guy. The ranger is is trouble because he should have known better. Even if he hadn't seen the gas can he could have smelled the gas.
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.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
A picture is worth a thousand words
From: How to survive a robot uprising
Defend your home and property from crazed taserbots with the new Smith & Wesson EMP Rifle! Handgun versions coming soon! Get yours while the gettin's good!
a beowulf cluster of these!
But I think it was called Robo Cop. Soon enough things like IRobot will start to happen, and then the robots will invent time travel and then things like T1 and T1000 will be roaming the streets looking for John Connor.
This is Slashdot! Give me the latest gadget, bug, or OS project! This ain't english class so don't confuse the two!
Could you shower it with water/pee and short it out ;-)
... a robotic, non-lethal, rigidly honest police force, or human cops with human natures and human weaknesses?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Deleted
You can also trust the computer to not get more aggravated because the suspect is of a wrong race. You can also trust it to not engage in selective enforcement — the machine will either prosecute no one or every suspect (as much as the time allows).
The taser-ing may be too much for the current state of the Art of Computer Programming, but issuing speeding tickets ought to be automatic, for example. When everyone on the toll highway, who got from entrance to the exit with the average speed above the legal speed-limit, gets a ticket at the exit, we will see the speed-limit climb up to reasonable levels very quickly, and the real cops will suddenly have less work to do, and less opportunities for harassment too.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... we need some sharks with some frickin' "tasers" on their heads instead
This is a very, Very bad idea, especially for police. At least in the United States we have had many an incident involving police misusing nonleathals. At least when they do personally misuse them there is some (unfortunately, very remote though) possiblity of punishment. But with a robot in the mix they can claim "it wasn't me", even if the robot is human controled they can attribute any "accidents" to faulty design, malfunction, ect. (heck its even been tryed with guns, one "report" claimed that the gun had "malfunctioned" because when the officer pulled the trigger, the gun fired shooting a restraied, compliant individual lying face down on pavement in the head). These robots, especially if they are autoanomous would have LIMITED military uses, such as if you had to clear a building that was filled with not nice people and your choices were send in a platoon with shoot to kill orders or send in a bunch of these robots and have the platoon simpely arrest the incompasitated suspects. Even then there would have to be some pretty serious safeguards in place, such as a blackbox recorder that the unit did not have access to that recorded the inputs (if any) and at least a sampeling of video and audio that would be copied to a central database and reviewed by human rights officials with the capability of filing charges against any perceived violations.
Splinter cell sequels, Deus Ex, and I believe Half Life 2. Autonomous robots are a staple of movies, books, and games.
This year it is robots with tazors, next year, we get Robots with AI.
Maybe something should just not be done. Maybe this will make people obey traffic laws. We could use a few around here to keep the bicyclists off the sidewalks, pedestrians from j-walking, and red-light runners, as these are against the law.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
This just reminded me of the robots in the Commodore 64 game, Mission Impossible. Those suckers would zap you to death.
Another visitor? Stay a while...StayyyyyforRRREEEVERRRRR
As shown in 'I Robot', when a robot kills a person, it is an 'Industrial Accident', not murder, so why bother using a taser? Use a shotgun...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Hmm, the UK police should add shotguns to their talking, panning, tilting, eavesdropping cameras. That will bring the public crime rate way down, really quickly.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
What worries me most about this isn't the idea of armed robots, it's what'll happen when some guy sees the robot coming and shoots/blowsup/beats the crap out of it. I have a feeling he might wind up getting shot by the cops on the scne, for what is only a crime against property. The anthropomorphization of battle/bomb defuser robots has already been documented in Iraq and elsewhere.
I knew little johnny's anti-terrorist fridge magnet was good for something. Wish I'd kept it now.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Who would you hold responsible? Let's see... The company that makes the robots, the middlemen, the city they tasered you in, the maintenance people, the people who stood around watching as you were hurt, the hospital that inflicted additional emotional distress on you in mishandling your injuries...
I'd probably skip suing the bystanders though. Unless one of them was rich.
To see the new One TaserBot Per Citizen (OTBPC) project. That little guy, following you around with his taser, zapping you for jaywalking... it's just going to be awesome. Nobody will commit felonies like copyright infringement ever again!
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
...a Beowulf fuckin' cluster of these.
What a truly sad state of affairs we are in when I have to agree with a post like this.
After working with computers for god knows how many years, I have developed a well-learned mistrust for computers to do the right thing with any regularity.
How sad is it then, that I still trust a computer to do the right thing more often than I trust a cop?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I can see it now...a few of the autonomous bots go on a rampage, and then they get caught...and somehow, they've advanced to learn psi powers! *wavey hand* "These are not the bots you're looking for..."
"Success isn't a result of a spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." - Arnold H. Glasgow
Was established to conserve Gasoline. The safety bullshit is not backed up by statistics, and a is a family friendly way to justify the limits.
Of course with our current petroleum issues we will have 50 mile an hour limits any day now.
Gun toting law enforcement robots singing country and western!
BTW, the authentication word for my posting was "Convicts", coincidence?
QUOTE: If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?
The robot's owner, duh!
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!