Technological Slippery Slope

Will AT-ST Walker Be Next Weapon?

OK, we now have a new paradigm in crime fighting.  The Dallas Police Department created a technological precedent last Thursday by neutralizing the threat of an active shooter by using a robot.  The robot carried roughly a pound of C4 explosives to within a lethal range of the shooter, one Micah X. Johnson, and well, blew him up.  Good job Dallas.  Scratch one bad guy with no further good guy losses.

But wait.  Is this precedent a good thing?  Is using non-human methods to kill humans opening a  Pandora's Box that can never be closed back up?  Scenes of science fiction movies like The Terminator spring to mind as mindless, preprogramed weaponized robots aimlessly kill humans wantonly.  That image should give thinking folks a good deal of pause.  How long will it be before those robots cast off human control and go rogue?

The Dallas Bomb Carrying Robot

The vehicle that killed Johnson in Dallas is actually a remote controlled tracked vehicle, not what most folks consider a robotic with some degree of artificial intelligence.  Built by Northrup Grumman, the Andros F6B is a military grade, heavy duty remote controlled robotic vehicle.  And while this is the first time it - or any robotic vehicle - has been used in a civilian application, they're used in combat scenarios from time to time.  The appeal of use is that a machine can deliver lethality to an enemy without potential loss of life of friendlies.  I get it.

But some ethicists are worried.  “My initial reaction was that we have just got onto the slippery slope,” said Heather Roff, a senior research fellow at Oxford and a research scientist at Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative. “This is going to be very hard to put back and that the militarization of police capabilities means that they may now feel that it is reasonable to use robotics in this way to ensure compliance.  If one doesn’t have to talk to a subject and can demand compliance, then this may mean more forceful or coercive demands are made.”

Yep, that's exactly what concerns me:  Demand compliance with impunity.  Think of armored robots rolling - or walking -  through the streets, armed with lasers or other advanced weaponry.  That's certainly a good way to control the populace, and now that we have a popular acceptance of using robots to kill civilians, as bad and radical as they may be, I think we're on a technological slippery slope.  Very steep and slippery.

I'm all for law and order, no doubt. But I also respect the constraints put on police.  And I think the current fad of militarizing the police isn't necessarily a good idea.   That said, I realize that certain people in this country are radicalized into an anti-American fervor and they're no longer content with peaceful protests.  And I think the Regressive left has fanned these anti-American flames to incite these kinds of attacks, and they're solely responsible for the divisive racist rhetoric.  The Kenyan and his administration has demonstrated this undeniably.

So instead of militarizing the police, lets add more cops on the beat with fewer bureaucrats to politicize them.  And let's counter the Regressive left's propaganda by teaching self respect and self reliance, not victimization, for all citizens.  

And if this is done, we won't need to dance on such a slippery technological slope.