Taser developer Axon says he is working to build drones armed with stun devices that can fly in schools and help prevent mass shootings, an idea that the company’s own technology advisers quickly saw as a fantasy. dangerous.
The listed company, which sells Taser and police body cameras, last year presented the idea of a new police drone product to its artificial intelligence ethics board, a group of highly respected experts in technology, policing and privacy.
Some of them expressed reservations about arming drones in communities of color with over-policing. But they weren’t expecting Axon’s latest announcement that he wants to send those Taser-equipped drones into classrooms to prevent massive shots by immobilizing an intruding gunman.
Axon founder and CEO Rick Smith told the Associated Press that he felt compelled to make the idea public after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and said he was “catastrophically disappointed.” for the response of the police who did not move to kill the suspect for more than an hour.
But he stressed on Friday that no product had been released and that any potential release would occur. He said the idea should be shared now because of the public conversation about effective ways for police to deal with attackers safely and how schools can increase security.
Axon’s stock price rose with the news. But the announcement angered members of the ethics committee, some of whom are likely to resign in protest.
“This particular idea is a crackpot,” said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University who serves on the Axis AI Ethics Council. “Drones can’t fly behind closed doors. The physical properties of the universe are still maintained. So unless you have a drone in every classroom in America, which seems crazy, the idea won’t work.”
“We asked the company not to do that,” Friedman said of the company’s announcement. “It was unnecessary and embarrassing.”
Board members issued a unanimous statement of concern describing Axon’s decision as “deeply unfortunate.”
Friedman says Axon has had a respectful relationship with the board on controversial issues such as facial recognition, which Axon decided not to use on his body cameras, and automated license plate readers.
Smith said the company is still in the early stages of product development and will continue to consult with the ethics board, along with law enforcement officials, community leaders and school officials. He acknowledged that the company could then determine that the idea is not feasible and abandon it.
Smith told a Reddit user that Axon was “absolutely not” trying to take advantage of recent tragedies to attract investors. He said the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and what he described as wrong proposals to arm teachers with weapons, forced him to make public the idea of the drone to feature a “much wider variety of voices.”