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Nine members of Axon Enterprise’s AI Ethics Board are resigning after the company announced last week it wants to begin developing remote-operated drones armed with stun guns to address mass shootings.
The board voted not to proceed with a pilot program to study the concept of Taser-armed drones weeks ago, noting the technology company hadn’t considered all the possible safety risks. However, Axon officials announced last week that the firm would begin manufacturing Taser-style stun guns that can be placed on a small drone or robot to incapacitate active shooters, eliciting ire from Axon’s Ethics Board, which said executives made the announcement unexpectedly.
TASER COMPANY WANTS TO ARM DRONES WITH STUN GUNS TO STOP MASS SHOOTINGS
“We wish it had not come to this,” nine officials on the 12-member board wrote in their resignation letter. “That announcement — that the company’s goal is to entrench countless pre-positioned, Taser-equipped drones in a variety of schools and public places, to be activated in response to AI-powered persistent surveillance — leads us to conclude that after several years of work, the company has fundamentally failed to embrace the values that we have tried to instill.”
Axon’s development of Taser-equipped drones is one element of a three-part system to address mass shootings, according to the company. The plan would also integrate cameras to provide real-time video surveillance while officials respond to public safety threats, raising concerns among the Ethics Board that such a system would be overreaching and have disproportionate effects.
“For years the Board has warned Axon against the use of real-time, persistent surveillance in its products,” they wrote. “This type of surveillance undoubtedly will harm communities of color and others who are overpoliced, and likely well beyond that. The Taser-equipped drone also has no realistic chance of solving the mass shooting problem Axon now is prescribing it for, only distracting society from real solutions to a tragic problem.”
Axon has not yet considered concerns about the possible misuse of stun guns or if the drones would “increase the rate at which force is used” by police, the board added. The company also announced it would make the drones available to agencies outside law enforcement, according to the board, a prospect that was not included in initial discussions of the product.
The board chastised the company for making a public announcement before answering key questions about how the project would realistically affect law enforcement agencies.
Such a drone system has been privately discussed within the company in the past, but Axon executives decided to announce the project publicly last week in the aftermath of recent mass shootings in places such as Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We all feel the desperate need to do something to address our epidemic of mass shootings. But Axon’s proposal to elevate a tech-and-policing response when there are far less harmful alternatives, is not the solution,” the outgoing Ethics Board members wrote. “Before Axon’s announcement, we pleaded with the company to pull back. But the company charged ahead in a way that struck many of us as trading on the tragedy of the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.”
Axon executives responded to the resignations before they were publicly announced, noting the company’s decision to move forward without the board’s go-ahead was to “broaden the discussion with many stakeholders” and address widespread concerns.
“Making the world a safer place is a big task, and there are complicated issues we need to address,” Axon CEO Rick Smith said. “It is unfortunate that some members of Axon’s ethics advisory panel have chosen to withdraw from directly engaging on these issues before we heard or had a chance to address their technical questions. We respect their choice and will continue to seek diverse perspectives to challenge our thinking and help guide other technology options that we should be considering.”
Although they defended the decision to move forward with producing the drones, executives announced Sunday the company would pause developments on the project until further notice.
“In light of feedback, we are pausing work on this project and refocusing to further engage with key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward,” Smith wrote. “A remotely operated non-lethal TASER-enabled drone in schools is an idea, not a product, and it’s a long way off. We have a lot of work and exploring to see if this technology is even viable and to understand if the public concerns can be adequately addressed before moving forward.”
