San Francisco Considers Allowing Law Enforcement Robots to Use Lethal Force

Paul Scharre is author of the book Army Of None: Autonomous Weapons And The Future Of War. He helped create the U.S. policy for autonomous weapons used in war. Scharre notes there is an important distinction between how robots are used in the military versus law enforcement. For one, robots used by law enforcement are not autonomous, meaning they are still controlled by a human.

"For the military, they're used in combat against an enemy and the purpose of that is to kill the enemy. That is not and should not be the purpose for police forces," Scharre says. "They're there to protect citizens, and there may be situations where they need to use deadly force, but those should be absolutely a last resort."

Read the full story and more from NPR.