>>SFPD
Okay... I'm a long-time member of the ACLU, the SPLC and in general a strong advocate for constitutional rights and civil liberties (I've tipped my hand haven't I?)
Still, I think the use of the word "robot" leads to a lot of confusion. There is a huge difference between a remote-controlled device that is being operated by a human operator and an autonomous devices that is being operated without human oversight. This is a case of the former, right, rather than an actual Terminator scenario?
It makes me think of how in the Middle Ages there was a lot of consternation about the introduction of the crossbow, because it allowed an unskilled, not very highly trained person to kill at a distance. The impetus for moral consternation was that the status of knights, a professional soldier class, rested entirely on their prowess in combat and so it was deemed less than honorable to kill someone from a distance.
There was a similar gnashing of teeth regarding firearms, then aerial bombing, then cruise missiles, then drones. Every time we add distance to killing, we have this debate.
There are definitely philosophical issues there. But is it really different to have a sniper kill someone from long range than to have a remote control machine operator move a machine into position and kill someone from what is effectively still long range for the operator, but short range for the weapon? Does an RC operator with multiple video cams have a worse grasp of the scenario than a sniper looking through a scope from 300m? Maybe, but again, in both cases the ability to understand the situation should be the important factor, not the equipment in play.
It seems to me that once you've accepted the sniper in principle, you've accepted the "robot" in principle. The only real difference is that it is not enough for the target to stay safe by avoiding windows. The real question is whether you accept the use of lethal force by one human against another in a given situation.
Now if it was an autonomous machine that simply was trained to recognize the target and kill ASAP, that would be a major change from the crossbow scenario. For example, police in Colorado tackled and cuffed the hero who charged and bludgeoned the gunman because, by the time the police arrived, the hero (is there another word?) was covered in blood and in possession of the gun. That could have gone very badly with an autonomous assassin vehicle
