Last Thursday night as my children were getting ready for bed, 23.5 miles away from my home, Dallas police killed a man. This man, Micah Johnson, killed five policemen and was threatening to kill more.
We were horrified. My father was a police officer. He worked narcotics and our nightmare was that he would not come home one day. That nightmare came true for five families in Dallas, and our hearts go out to them.
It may be hard to believe this, but the most horrifying thing that happened that evening is not that five police officers were killed, it is that the government killed a U.S. citizen with a robot. This is the first time that a robot has killed a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.
This is a line that should not have been crossed.
Dallas PD Chief David Brown defended his department’s actions, claiming that this was the only way to keep additional police officers from dying. Chief Brown said, “Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger.” I understand his position, and why he authorized the use of the robot to kill Micah Johnson.
However, allowing the government to kill citizens with robots is a very bad idea. Anyone who has watched The Terminator knows this is a bad idea. It’s one step away from a T-70 terminator robot. All we need to add is artificial intelligence.
All of the emotion evoked by police officers killing citizens, and citizens killing police officers, is drawing attention away from the most important thing that happened last Thursday night. A robot killed a citizen! Is this what we want in our society? The ability for robots to kill humans? I say no!
Now is the time to make Azimov’s first law in the “Laws of Robotics” a federal law. The first law reads, “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
Some may say that robots don’t kill humans – humans with robots kill humans. This is where we should draw the line. Even if it puts humans at risk in the short term, robots should not kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.
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