Flying stun gun plan in response to US school shootings was expression of potential, not launch timetable, says CEO
Axon, the company formerly known as Taser, has abandoned plans to build a stun gun-equipped drone intended for deployment in schools after an “exodus” of resignations from its internal ethics board.
The company’s chief executive, Rick Smith, said in a statement: “I want to be explicit: I announced a potential delivery date a few years out as an expression of what could be possible; it is not an actual launch timeline, especially as we are pausing that program. 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.”
According to Reuters, the statement was made in response to the resignation of nine of the 12 members of the company’s ethics board. Smith obliquely criticised the resignations but did not directly address them, saying only that it was “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.”
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