SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco supervisors voted on Tuesday to allow the city’s police department access to robots that have the ability to deploy deadly force. The decision has been met with controversy nationally.
On Thursday, popular podcaster Joe Rogan expressed his disdain with the decision in an Instagram post.
“This is such a f***ing tremendously insane decision with terrifying implications,” he wrote. “The fact that ANYONE thinks it’s ok to vote for robots gunning people down is f***ing nuts, but that a majority is just bonkers.”
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Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also weighed in on the vote on Wednesday. “Now in Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco, they are going to have robots armed with explosives that are authorized to use deadly force,” she tweeted.
While the robots do have the ability to kill, Sup. Rafael Mandelman said they will be authorized to do so only in “extremely limited situations when risk to loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available.”
SFPD said it has no plans to arm the robots with guns, but they could be equipped with explosives “to contact, incapacitate, or disorient violent, armed, or dangerous suspect.”
Mandelman was in favor of the robots, but three San Francisco supervisors opposed it: Hillary Ronen, Shamann Walton and Dean Preston. Sup. Ronen blasted the measure in a tweet, calling it “shortsighted, dangerous, sad.”
Mandelman said the robots have only been used to kill someone one time. In 2016, Dallas police deployed a robot to kill a man that had shot and killed five officers.
Rogan is a podcast host, comedian and UFC commentator with nearly 16 million followers on Instagram. His podcast The Joe Rogan Experience is among the world’s most popular podcasts.