Next week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on a bill that would allow the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to deploy robots with the power to kill people. The proposal will be voted on under California Assembly Bill 481, which requires law enforcement agencies to obtain approval from an appropriate legislature for the use of military equipment.
According to the new bill, robots will only have the right to use weapons when there are no other options left and the danger of losing the life of the public or police officers is clear and sudden.
When asked why this policy change was necessary, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department said: “San Francisco police have always had the ability to use lethal force when the risk of losing the lives of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other available force option. We think the need for the SFPD to use lethal force through robots will be rare and will only be used in unusually dangerous or spontaneous operations.”
The robots defined in the bill are a variety of remotely controlled robots designed for manipulating heavy objects, breaching walls, ordnance disposal, reconnaissance and surveillance. Among them are Remotec F5A, 6A and RONS models, QinetiQ Talon and Dragon Runner; It features iRobot FirstLook and ReconRobotics Recon Scout ThrowBot. None of these robots are built to carry or use weapons, but some are capable of killing people.
For example, in 2016 Dallas police placed half a kilo of C4 explosives on a Northrop Grumman Remotec Androx Mark V A-1 robot and guided the robot into a wall where it hid behind a sniper who killed two police officers and injured others. Police then detonated the explosive, destroying the wall and killing the suspect, with only minor damage to the arm of the $151,000 robot.
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