Back in mid-September, a pair of Massachusetts lawmakers introduced a bill “to ensure the responsible use of advanced robotic technologies.” What that means in the simplest and most direct terms is legislation that would bar the manufacture, sale and use of weaponized robots.
It’s an interesting proposal for a number of reasons. The first is a general lack of U.S. state and national laws governing such growing concerns. It’s one of those things that has felt like science fiction to such a degree that many lawmakers had no interest in pursuing it in a pragmatic manner.
Of course, it isn’t just science fiction and hasn’t been for a long time. To put things bluntly, the United States has been using robots (drones) to kill people for more than 20 years. But as crass as this might sound, people tend to view these technologies very differently when it comes to their own backyard.
The concern about “killer robots” is, however, far more broad than just military applications. Some are, indeed, still based on your typical Terminators; I, Robots; and Five Nights at Freddy’s. Others are far more grounded. Remember when MSCHF mounted a paintball gun on a Spot to make a point? How about all of the images of Ghost Robots with sniper rifles?
While still not an everyday occurrence, there’s also a precedent for cops using robots to kill. The week of Independence Day 2016, the Dallas Police Department killed a suspect by mounting a bomb to a bomb disposal robot. Whatever you think about the wisdom and ethics of such a move, you can’t credibly argue that the robot was doing the job it was built for. Quite the opposite, in fact.
More recently, the potential use of weaponized robots by law enforcement has been a political lightning rod in places like Oakland and San Francisco. Last October, Boston Dynamics joined forces with Agility, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics and Open Robotics in signing an open letter condemning the weaponization of “general purpose” robots.
It read, in part:
We believe that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or autonomously operated, widely available to the public, and capable of navigating to previously inaccessible locations where people live and work, raises new risks of harm and serious ethical issues. Weaponized applications of these newly-capable robots will also harm public trust in the technology in ways that damage the tremendous benefits they will bring to society.
With that in mind, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Spot’s maker played a key role in planting the seed for this new proposed legislation. Earlier this week,
