Robotics Revolution: AI in Crime Fighting
When it comes to the use of robotics for fighting crime and surveilling the public, it is easy to get put off by the ideas of a “Terminator” or “iRobot” scenario where robots are completely autonomous and able to make their own decisions, ultimately coming to the conclusion that humans need to be eliminated. The article we read asks:
Are there unique legal or moral hazards in designing machines that can autonomously kill people? Or should robots merely be considered tools, such as guns and computers, and regulated accordingly?
I believe that an having an army of completely autonomous robots is still far in our future. There is still amble testing and research that needs to be done before such a technology can be properly implemented into society. Legally, there will need to be a number of laws and regulations put in place before robots will be able to freely roam and patrol our streets. Morally speaking, while robots are programmed by humans, I think it is hard to assess robots’ abilities to think critically about a situation even though sometime in the future there will be a program/technology to do such a thing. Programmed as 1's and 0's there is not room for gray areas. A human police officer can assess the severity of a crime like going 7mph over the speed limit or j-walking whereas a computer would simply recognize that a law has been broken and act accordingly.
The current FOX network television series “ABP”, based in Chicago, takes a much more realistic and logical “next step” look at the possible implementation of drones and surveillance technology to assist the CPD. The premise of the show is a billionaire tech mogul and engineer takes over the 13th district of Chicago to test new ways of policing the city logistically and efficiently. He releases an app that works as “911”, sending location and video information in real time back to police headquarters. That information is also sent directly to patrol officers in their squad cars, cutting response times by more than half. He also issues officers with highly powerful stun pistols that temporarily incapacitate suspects for 10 minutes. This reduces fatalities of both civilians and police officers. He also introduces police drones equipped with live feed cameras and the same projectile stun guns. In the second episode the drone is used to respond to an armed robbery in progress on the 10th floor of an apartment building. The drone flies by the windows of the apartments searching for the right apartment, essentially spying on the building’s occupants. Ultimately the drone finds the correct apartment and the robbers start to shoot their shotguns at the drone through the window, but the drone hits them with the stun gun giving the human officers enough time to get into the apartment and handcuff the burglars.
Just in this one episode numerous privacy concerns are raised such as should the drone be allowed to look into the windows with a live video feed of the occupants. In this case the technology is just being used as a tool to help capture the suspects and keep the police officers safe. The suspect is safely captured whereas without the drone the officer would have been in a shootout and either the robber or the policeman could have potentially been killed.
Before robots become the main source of policing I think we will see technology used in this way, as an aid to human officers. We are still a long ways away from seeing completely autonomous robots used in our city streets. They must be proven to work as partners with human officers first and will help the artificial intelligence learn the “gray areas” and how to act accordingly.
