Policing Police RobotsElizabeth E. Joh
ABSTRACT
Just as they will change healthcare, manufacturing, and the military, robots have the potential to produce big changes in policing. We can expect that at least some robots used by the police in the future will be artificially intelligent machines capable of using legitimate coercive force against human beings. Police robots may decrease dangers to police officers by removing them from potentially volatile situations. Those suspected of crimes may also risk less injury if robots can assist the police in conducting safer detentions, arrests, and searches. At the same time, however, the use of robots introduces new questions about how the law and democratic norms should guide policing decisions—questions which have yet to be addressed in any systematic way. How we design, regulate, or even prohibit some uses of police robots requires a regulatory agenda now to address foreseeable problems of the future.
AUTHOR
Professor of Law, U.C. Davis School of Law. Thanks to the participants of the Program on Understanding Law, Science, and Evidence (PULSE) “Imagining the Legal Landscape: Technology and the Law in 2030,” Ryan Calo, and Michael Froomkin for their helpful comments.
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64 UCLA L. Rev. DisC. 516 (2016)
PULSE SYMPOSIUMImagining the Legal Landscape: Technology and the Law in 2030
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................................................................................518I. Putting Police Robots in Context ............................................................523
A. What Is a Robot?.......................................................................................523B. Military Robots .........................................................................................526
II. The Challenges Posed by Polic Robots .....................................................529A. How Much Control Should Humans Have Over Police Robots? ...........530B. How Much Force Should Be Used by Police Robots ...............................533C. What Is Robotic “Reasonable Force”? .......................................................535D. Will Robotic Police Reinforce Social Inequality .......................................538E. Who Will Decide These Questions? .........................................................540
Conclusion ...............................................................................................................543
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