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Comment by GartzenDeHaes | Hacker News Reader

They're about 30 years too late on this one. Police and the FBI have been using EOD robots with shotguns for a long time now and have even killed a few people with them. In a hostage situation or standoff, they'll send in the robot with food or a phone hanging from the arm, which has a Remington semi-automatic shotgun attached to the base. Ruby Ridge is one of the more famous examples.

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The primary purpose of that shotgun is IED/UXO disruption, ostensibly. It's unfortunate that the robots have been used as weapons, and that people aren't in prison for it. But I think arming AI-equipped drones specifically to kill is a much more worrisome threat.

Didn’t they use a robot to take out the Dallas sniper who was targeting whites and police. I don’t really see what is wrong with that situation. I get why there is fear about using them in the general case however.

I mean, I get that some jargon is clear to those who have an interest in the topic. But how the hell is it acceptable to use sth like "IED/UXO" on an article about ethics? This is so obviously not a well known term (and not searchable).

My mind boggles.

I assume you aren't American, Canadian, or Western European. The news constantly discussed IEDs in the context of the Iraq and Afghan wars and UXO is used whenever a bomb is discovered leftover from one of the World Wars.

It is also very searchable, at least to me. The results returned are very relevant.

https://www.google.com/search?q=IED%2FUXO&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA85...

I'm guessing you're not in the US (or UK) where IED and PTSD acronyms have been used so much in the context of physical and psychological injury in the Middle East tha they are pop culture hard to avoid knowing. Certainly, in the US, the first term that pops up in a search for IED is:

IED

/ˌīēˈdē/

noun: a simple bomb made and used by unofficial or unauthorized forces.

Danger UXB (UneXplodedBomb) was a popular British drama 30+ years ago.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Improvised Explosive Device (IED), Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). Civilian police use of robotics started with EOD robots, often borrowed from the military.

>But how the hell is it acceptable to use sth like "IED/UXO" on an article about ethics?

how the hell do you expect to understand an article on autonomous drones ethics without knowing that IED/UXO means? It makes obvious that you lack basic knowledge of modern factual landscape in the domain, and how do you expect to understand ethics of the domain without basic factual knowledge of the domain?

The argument that those acronyms are a requirement for the understanding of the ethics of autonomous killer robots is a very difficult one.

it is a major drone use case. Understanding an ethics of technology without knowledge of major use cases - that is a difficult argument.

My bad, dude. The ambiguity has been addressed in other people's replies.

Better robots than people in that position.

Is that a joke?

The guy in Texas was the first IIRC killed with an explosive. https://www.cnet.com/news/dallas-shooter-killed-by-bomb-equi...

And that appears to be the first case on US soil where a robot was actually used to kill.

It's not. Police agencies have taken care to avoid headlines that might raise unpleasant questions about killing suspects with military robots, so it's not something that's easily googleable.

Are there any other examples?

I don't deny that they could be quiet about it - but it actually seems easily knowable given the reports that finally come out.

Plus - there are so few situations where the suspect has barricaded themselves anyway. Its not like car chase suspect or people running away from cops have been able (in the past) to be attacked by anything other than cops guns or tasers or guns.

Most news stories from the late 80's/early 90's don't seem to be available outside of paid archives, so I don't have any links to provide.

PBS on Ruby Ridge:

"The Weavers wouldn’t go near the robot — even after they took off the shotgun that had been strapped to the front of it."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/ruby-ri...

Never too late to change how things are done.

If you're referring to the 1991 Idaho - Ruby Ridge then no, robotics were not deployed.

Weaver's testimony to Congress:

"Come out and get the telephone, and later on I got a chance to look at that robot sitting out there, and it had a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun on the side of it, bolted to it, aimed aright at the telephone, which later they said was empty. I do not believe that. I will never believe that. If they want to negotiate with you and they honestly want you to come out and pick up a telephone, they are not going to have a shotgun there, because they know if I see that I am not going to come out after that telephone. They was hoping I did not see it, and the way it was aimed at the house, I did not see it the first time I looked at it. The second time I looked at it, I saw the hole of that barrel pointing up, and I got to looking better, and I said, holy cow, that is a sawed-off shotgun pointed at the telephone. I did not see it the first time."

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