Incident 252: Remotely Operated Taser-Armed Drones Proposed by Taser Manufacturer as Defense for School Shootings in the US
Description: Axon Enterprise considered development of remotely operated drones capable of tasering at a target a short distance away as a defense mechanism for mass shootings, despite its internal AI ethics board’s previous objection and condemnation as dangerous and fantastical.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Axon Enterprise developed an AI system deployed by none, which harmed US schools and US students.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
252
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2022-06-01
Editors
Khoa Lam
GMF Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsKnown AI Goal
Autonomous Drones
Potential AI Technology
Image Segmentation
Potential AI Technical Failure
Lack of Capability Control, Underspecification
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Key points:
- The company surprised its own ethics board by announcing the proposal to have taser-armed drones in schools
- The chief executive said he was disappointed board members resigned before discussing their objections
- The ethics board…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.