“My guess is that the general public is not going to have a hard time with it. If the alternative is that we have this great technology and this great robot, but no, we can’t do that, because that’s too Orwellian, and now the husband or the wife with kids has to go down the hallway and see if they can get the bad guy. I think people will generally understand the difference.” – Drone engineer Ben Miller in Eyes in the Air, Guns on the Ground: The Near Future of Police Robots [via nbcnews.com]

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38 COMMENTS

  1. Police robots absolutely will happen.

    One benefit: You can shoot them and it isn’t murder or even attempted murder.

    • Once police drones become more widespread, which IS coming soon for sure, you can expect that to change. I would bet donuts that it wont take many years before the destruction of a .gov drone will be same as shooting an officer or an animal unit.

    • Ahhh, No…..Just like using a police dog in court…You can’t cross examine the BOT on the witness stand in a fair court trial in a jury by your peers…..People put to much Faith in technology…And I’m a tech-head ! That’s like taking a kids windup toy. Wind up the key, and letting it run amok…While saying see, “See ! It has the same qualities as a living, thinking, spiritual human beings!!! Machines do NOT have the same qualities as a biological entity…The reasoning, thinking abilities…The psychological, metaphysical…The God Damn holy ghost!!! Robots are machines with advanced mathematics programs…Which requires a human to program them…They are NOT self-aware…Animals, and other advanced forms of life have more in common with humans…Then a junk Atari toaster-bot !!!

    • Yeah well ISIS is already using commercial drones to drop bombs on people. So why the hell wouldn’t the police use not use some of the same tech for just basic policing?

      Of course, that said, I’m at the point where I’m all about people using their own drones for defense purpose. Especially given that most rifles can shoot father than drone can fly anyway.

  2. Unless they mount mini guns and can fire without human command, folks are not going to have a problem with police robots.

    Unless they crowd the donut shops. 🙂

    • I don’t know.

      Especially in the area of evidence collection and probable cause … If, say, a police-controlled drone sees something bad or naughty through a second story window – that an officer on the ground would have no chance of observing – does that give probable cause for a warrantless entry?

      Does a drone flying through an open window constitute a warrantless search? Or since no human set foot in the house, is it okay?

      I’m sure there are other examples, that’s just the first two that come to mind.

      • All it takes is for Progressive leaning judges to declare that the citizenry has no reasonable expectation of privacy if the robot sees it through a window or via thermal imagery or whatever…and that court decision to become a precedent…and blammo, you still have a right but it is excessively curtailed by “common sense” dictates from the political elite. If someone thinks it cannot happen, look at what they have done to the 2nd amendment.

        • Sure, today, that is true. After watching Obama and the Progressives make a mockery of our Criminal Justice System, the rule of law, and the Constitution, I am not so sure about tomorrow, next month, next year, or the next decade.

    • No carve outs for government or their employees. If you are going to police then have the police at the location to be policed.

      Photo radar is not policing and not for safety. It’s revenue generation.

    • Just envision a Dunkin Donuts crowded with LEOs on their iPhones running drones. Pull the fire alarm and the whole city goes into deep, dark anarchy. lol

  4. Toys and gimcracks. Command and control is the “magic” needed for Skynet.

    Search/read on “FirstNET” coming to towers near you. Despicable and nauseating and brought to you by the mindless statist bureaucracy of Obumer (conceived of by RINO Bush2 admin)

    • If the world did that, China and Russia could take over the world from the comfort of their office chairs, and Wikileaks would post the documents and videos to prove it.

      • Ya, you mean, instead of building robots that would farm and potentially prevent the periodic famine in China?

        If ALL of your outlay of effort and resources is on threat, then you are threat. No one has to wait until you culminate the entirety of your threat before they interdict you.

  6. More of a sales job than anything to do with the blue line.

    If window is closed does the drone captain shoot it open? Can it be configured with a ram to break through window? Can it maintain flight after breakage?

    Is it limited to visual or a comm device attached? Is volume louder than spinning rotors.

    Then the home owner with family hallway comment. How would a drone be better than multiple cameras…..Laughable

  7. For use in crowd control / observation of public spaces and tactical situations sure why not. For augmenting or replacing regular patrols no.

    For example, I have no problem deploying eyes in the sky to help police monitor riots, demonstrations, or large open air public events like a concert, music festival or local town/county/city fair. Places where density of people can inhibit movement and early detection of problem spots can help response reach those places and keep them from boiling over.

    Or in a hostage type situation where using drones (ground or air based) for surviellence helps the negotiators and insertion teams do their job better and safer have at it.

    But roving eyes in the sky/on the ground just recording everything it picks up is completely no bueno.

    • This will be widely abused just like all other tools government uses. All of the good gained will be offset by the deliberate misuse.

      Illegal NSA monitoring, Homeland Security checkpoints within 200 miles of a coast just to name a few.

      The government doesn’t act Constitutionally now. Giving them these tools only widens that gap.

  8. I have no problem with using robots to save human lives, but police using robots to murder criminals like the Houston shooter is a step way too far.

    • Agreed! Police are NOT Paramilitary commandos in this country! They are supposed to be guardians, and stewards to the U.S. Constitutional-/Bill of Rights, and the citizenry ! Israeli style paramilitarizied training should be banned from all US police training academies!

      • You’re mistaken. Police in this country are not guardians or stewards of anything.

        They’re role is simply to enforce the law.

        They have no legal responsibility to guard you, save your life, or do any other warm, fuzzy thing that people believe.

        This has been proved in the courts many times.

    • But “murdering” him with a SWAT team would have been okay? Why is a pistol or rifle a more acceptable tool than a robot?

  9. Damn I’m a LEO and this is a whole new can of worms.
    I guess it’s like any other tool it needs to be regulated and watched so we don’t violate rights. I can’t see it being shot the same as a dog or Officer but equipment destruction like a patrol car. I mean bomb robots aren’t classified that way so.. I’ve been wrong before though but it wouldn’t be right.
    The drones have been in limited use and I think it needs to stay limited. I can see a few other applications but again the 4th needs to be respected.
    Dang skynet, I dunno I’m glad I wont live to see it but I sure don’t wanna leave a mess for the kids either.

  10. Excerpt:

    The 100 Greatest Movie Robots of All Time

    By Scott Wold & Paste Staff | November 2, 2015 | 2:00pm

    66. Police robots, Elysium (2013)

    66-Best-100-Robots-in-Film-PoliceRobots-Elysium.jpg

    If you’re frantically looking up and down this list wondering where the hell Chappie is, well, sorry, because Chappie kinda sucked. But, really, he’s pretty much already included in this entry, seeing as he’s really just one of the police robots from Elysium, with an annoying emo personality. How cool are those robots, though? They really look, move and feel authentic, and seem a more-than-realistic glimpse into the future of urban pacification. Chillingly so. —S.W.

  12. Excerpt from Tech crunch :

    https://youtu.be/PbLdf47-Pk4

    Meet Knightscope’s Crime-Fighting Robots
    Posted Dec 31, 2015 by Sarah Buhr (@sarahbuhr)

    The robots might one day rise up and take over, but a Mountain View startup called Knightscope has developed a fleet of crime-fighting machinery it hopes to keep us safe.

    Knightscope’s K5 security bots resemble a mix between R2D2 and a Dalek from Doctor Who – and the system behind these bots is a bit Orwellian. The K5’s have broadcasting and sophisticated monitoring capabilities to keep public spaces in check as they rove through open areas, halls and corridors for suspicious activity.

    The units upload what they see to a backend security network using 360-degree high-definition and low-light infrared cameras and a built-in microphone can be used to communicate with passersby. An audio event detection system can also pick up on activities like breaking glass and send an alert to the system as well.

  15. A few closet Statists here…Pro-Chest puffing for “Future Fascist Terminator Police commando Bots ! ” When will folks like YOU are going to learn that like Crazy Liberal Progressive ideologies…”Fascist Pro-Police state ideas” are INCOMPATIBLE with all Civil Rights, including the 2nd Amendment !

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