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Miami Is Testing a Self-Driving Police Car That Can Launch Drones (thedrive.com) 47

Posted by BeauHD from the surveillance-era dept.
Miami-Dade County is piloting a self-driving police car built by PolicingLab and powered by Perrone Robotics, equipped with 360-degree cameras, AI analytics, license plate readers, and even drone-launch capabilities. The Drive reports: "Designed as a force multiplier, the PUG combines advanced autonomy from Perrone Robotics with AI-driven analytics, real-time crime data, and a suite of sensors including 360-degree cameras, thermal imaging, license plate recognition, and drone launch capabilities," [says the PolicingLab's announcement.] "Its role: extend deputy resources, improve efficiency, and enhance community safety without additional cost to Miami-Dade taxpayers," it continued.

For starters, this is merely a pilot program being sponsored by PolicingLab, not a standard addition to the department's fleet. And second, at least initially, it's being soft-launched as a feeler for the Sheriff's public affairs folks. It'll be posted up at public and media events in order to "gather feedback" before the department considers whether to press it into service. Once it's actually brought online, PolicingLab says the squad car will offer several benefits to the department: "The 12-month pilot will evaluate outcomes such as improved response times, enhanced deterrence, officer safety, and stronger public trust," it said. "Results will inform whether and how the program expands, potentially serving as a national model for agencies across the country."

In other words, PolicingLab expects that the data collected about real-world policing will more than offset the costs of building and supporting the car in the long run, but if these are ever pressed into regular service, you can bet they'll come with hefty subscription and support costs, even if they do eliminate expensive human labor (and judgment) from the situation.
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Miami Is Testing a Self-Driving Police Car That Can Launch Drones More

Miami Is Testing a Self-Driving Police Car That Can Launch Drones

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  • But there's no such thing as bad tech right? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday October 16, 2025 @07:18PM (#65730984)
    When I point out that AI is a fundamentally antisocial technology because of its excessive water and electric use while destroying jobs in a society where you don't work you don't eat inevitably a shitload of people come out of the woodwork to tell me I'm being a Luddite and then start using the good old buggy whip thought terminating cliche.

    Then along comes crap like this to remind us that we are rapidly descending into a techno feudal post-capitalist hellscape.

    The socialists and the Communists have always said capitalism what eventually fall to whatever their preferred system was.

    But what if there's a third option? An option that doesn't include you and me? Where we are relegated to the kind of lives native Americans had on the worst of the reservations before the casinos?

    There's about 2,000 people in America with virtually unlimited money and power working towards that goal and automated policing and military is a big part of that.
    • The aspirational techolibertarian empire may be Eloi all the way down, making Kim Stanley Robinson's quote overly optimistic.

      That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        I think the police need to be trained to think, not trained to shoot first and think about asking questions afterwards. If you really are the quickest gun, then it's reflexes, not thinking. And yet if your mindless skill guarantees that you're going to win every shootout, then I also think that limits any claims of bravery.

        However, given the American situation, it's really hard to argue that the police shouldn't assume any person they see might be packing.

        • It's not about training we need to fundamentally change the purpose of our police force. We need a police force that is not hostile to our citizens and that exists for something other than ensuring the smooth operation of commerce.

          Basically we need to fundamentally reform key aspects of our culture and society and that's way more than changing up a little bit of training.

          Also American here, believe it or not very few of us actually pack heat. When you see those crazy stats for how many guns there ar

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            Acknowledged, but I was just focusing on a relatively minor symptom with a fairly obvious solution approach. Your aspirations seem higher.

  • ...hacked spaced-out RoboCop.

  • I would much rather live in Star Trek than whatever cyberpunk dystopia we seem to be living in. Can the writers please change the genre a bit?

    • Re: I much prefer Star Trek (Score:4, Insightful)

      by commodore73 ( 967172 ) on Thursday October 16, 2025 @09:36PM (#65731154)
      Agreed. I've come to the conclusion that there is basically no reason to expect any good news ever again. Maybe there never really was? The big problem is growing up. My parents gave me hope and made me an idealist. I wonder if this was a mistake that puts me at a disadvantage and can cause mental health issues due to things like cognitive dissonance. The mind really seems like a computer sometimes, a bit of an LLM with garbage in and garbage out, and a ton of flaws. I consumed less garbage as a child (for example, Star Trek, despite its flaws). Now the news is all garbage and it's hard to maintain a positive outlook.
      • The worst thing my parents ever did to me was teach me to be honest.

        • The worst thing my parents ever did to me was teach me to be honest.

          I can absolutely relate. In general, I find it’s best to keep my mouth shut and my keystrokes out of public view, but sometimes I just can’t resist.

          In fact, in the modern world and possibly in the past as well, I think that most of our virtues can work against us. Some see traits such as empathy in others as weaknesses to exploit.

          I still do my best not to relinquish my ethics. Despite the fact that humanity seems to have passed the event threshold, I also try to maintain some level of hope

          • I taught my kids to be honest too. And the dishonest have helped them see that this world is no place to raise a child, so they have decided not to have any.

            • I taught my kids to be honest too. And the dishonest have helped them see that this world is no place to raise a child, so they have decided not to have any.

              I agree with their conclusions and choices, and appreciate people like you that talk honestly about such topics, especially with children. I honestly don't understand why so many parents encourage their children to have progeny, and I see it as their own personal self-interest as grandparents.

              For numerous reasons, I never wanted to have children of my own, but two women convinced me that I was wrong (well, one was more of an accident I guess, but she wouldn't use birth control and then wouldn't abort). D

      • This seems like this is going too far in the other direction. The news is often very negative but that's because we don't have headlines like "Last month, more solar power was installed than any other week in history, again for the 40th month in a row." Similarly, many diseases that were death sentences a few years ago have with the advance of modern drugs been turned into manageable illnesses. Cystic fibrosis for example used to kill early almost everyone who has it. Now we have drugs which make people wit
        • Thanks for your positive perspective. I don’t mean to be negative or sound like an edgelord. I’m just trying to be realistic, and I can only speak from my experience, which seems to indicate a lot of environmental, societal, political, intellectual, and likely other forms of deterioration during my lifetime.

          I don’t deny that there is good news – in fact I seek it – but it always seems rather minor in comparison to the bad news (Israel, Ukraine, climate change, increasing wea

    • Nah, Communism, including the Star Trek version, is not allowed and impossible anyway.

      • Libertarian anarchism "network states" is impossible and ethnonationist white supremacy and antichrist obsession are crazy, but billionaires still try to do them anyhow. The rest of the world has functioning big enough governments that have proper regulations and humane social safety nets.
      • Star Trek is definitely not community. It is post-scarcity. The idea of some sort of "post-scarcity" society is itself pretty unlikely, but the broader ideas of a prosperous free society where advanced technology is used to help people, better ourselves and explore the universe is very different than one where drones and self-driving cars are being used by cops for unclear purposes.

        • Star Trek is definitely not community.

          I assume your auto-carrot did the needful and corrected you appropriately while you actually meant to type in "Communism", in which case you'd have been quite wrong - Startrek is more than 120% communist. It is so communist, that it feels like a dumbed-down fantasy derivative of the great Sci-Fi novels of the USSR of the late 40s and early 50s, a clumsy rework by a mediocre talentless writer with a rather poor grasp of the topics, discussed in those books.

          This isn't meant as criticism, I think it is great t

    • According to Star Trek lore Earth was unified after a nuclear war in the 21st century. The way things are going you might get your wish, just not on the stardate you'd like.

    • I would much rather live in Star Trek than whatever cyberpunk dystopia we seem to be living in. Can the writers please change the genre a bit?

      Sorry, you'll have to wait for the next simulation reboot. This one has to run its course, and was set to dystopia at launch.

  • "Stronger publilc trust" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Thursday October 16, 2025 @08:21PM (#65731054) Journal

    What's better than masked, secret police? Faceless robots.

    And for what? Fostering "stronger public trust", of course. Nothing says "trust" like secret police.

    • At least you can hack a robot. Actual police are immune to all input - like the Israeli government, or people.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        At least you can hack a robot. Actual police are immune to all input

        Au contraire -- quite a few police have a well-known back door that you can exploit with nothing more than an envelope full of $100 bills.

    • We're replacing "I was just following orders" with "the algorithm did it."

    • Which is why at some point, personal assault drones will be as necessary as firearms to keep the government in check. Just look at how they have changed the power dynamic in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        You should read Iain M Banks.

      • Sounds like something they won't let you buy, then.

        As for firearms, the country with the most guns in history is letting their government run all over them. We'll see how long that goes on, but that would indicate the key ingredient is something other than firearms. Courage, maybe. Plenty of ways to kill someone without a gun.

  • You know it'll happen. Cops is in its 37th season.
  • And can the car launch a cyber motorcycle after it crash like in The Dark Knight? Cause I want Florida Man's tax dollars to just kit out a full cyberpunk dystopia so I can be entertained by clips of it on Tiktok

  • As someone who passively consumes too much kids TV, I can confidently say: Drone! WOOF! Donut-location mode Activated!

  • We needed another reason to stay out of Floriduh.

  • All of this automated data collection is rightfully disturbing of course. The problem is that what they are planning to do isn't all that hard these days. I work with machine vision, there's plenty of software available at little or no cost that will analyze a video feed in real time and identify all kinds of things if the server is reasonably powerful. Some laptops could certainly do it.

    Person and object tracking? Deep identification of all cars in the vicinity? No problem. Also easy enough to programmatic

    • The greater issue is permanent recording of all sorts of data about individuals and their objects for profiteering, to guess at social associations, for manipulative filter bubble advertising, shopping, and political persuasion tricks, and/or target them for political reasons or shake them down for fines. It won't ever be limited to just the police for major crimes but will include megacorps and intelligence organizations to think of new ways to exploit day from today to N years ago. (Tin foil hat obligator

  • Sounds like Ed-201 with wheels. Just wait until Elon plugs a neuralink brain into it. Voila! RoboCop!!

  • Bad boys Bad boys, Whatcha gonna do when the robots and drones come for you. Going to need to update the words to the song. Hasnt anyone seen Robocop and think this is a bad decision???
  • the movie RoboCop as a cautionary tale, not an aspirational one.

  • You have fifteen seconds to comply.

  • I saw this on an episode https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0745487/ of "Welcome to Paradox", but the "lawagon" didn't have a drone.

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