In case you've gone the whole day without seeing any grim, dystopian news, consider this: the San Francisco Police Department has greenlit the use of robots that can straight-up kill you.
I wish I was joking, but this is the reality of the situation. There are still a few steps to go before we start seeing killbots patrolling the streets of the Bay Area, but the fact that this project is underway gives us a glimpse of the future of policing.
A Reddit post on r/technology shared a story from the Associated Press about these killer robots. The gist of the situation is this: City supervisors in San Francisco voted 8-3 to give police the power to use potentially lethal robots, even though there was no shortage of dissent throughout the vote.
We've seen delivery robots get smashed and trashed — will lethal robots command more respect? According to the AP, opponents of the move fear that it will militarize a police force that's frequently under fire for using strongarm tactics against marginalized communities.
Supporters, presumably, argued that they've always wanted to create deadly robots and that, at this time, killer police robots are the best possible option.
Are we just playing out dystopic '80s action movies in real-time at this point? Well, if there's anything here to take solace in, it's the fact that the robots won't have guns. Their firepower will be explosive charges that can be deployed to enter buildings or incapacitate suspects.
It sounds like the robots aren't designed to straight-up murder people, but they're fully capable of doing so should the need arise.
We've seen plenty of police forces utilizing military equipment to break up protests, and creating killer police robots just seems to be the next step in that general direction. The concerning thing is the fact that if it's happening in San Francisco, it'll almost certainly happen elsewhere before too long.
Opinions on police may vary, but most of us can agree that police officers are human beings who can theoretically be reasoned with. Killer robots are, well, killer robots. It seems like they may have an "explode first, ask questions later" approach to law enforcement, and it's more than a little bit concerning.
Let us know what you think of this story in the comments.
