San Francisco is in an uproar over robotaxis' persistent interference with firefighters, police officers and other emergency medical personnel. The city's fire chief called attention Thursday to the potentially dangerous encounters between driverless cabs and first responders, telling The Times in an interview that she was "fed up" with the incidents, which include driving into active emergency scenes and parking on a fire hose. Now San Francisco's police union has joined city officials in urging regulators to postpone a vote, scheduled for Thursday, on a measure that would allow Waymo, Cruise and other robotaxi companies to expand in San Francisco. "While we all applaud the advancements in technology, we must not be in such a rush that we forget the human element and the effects such technology unchecked can create dangerous situations," union President Tracy McCray said. As robotaxi companies plan to provide service in Los Angeles, San Francisco officials battle with state regulators over robotaxi safety.

Last week, we talked about killer robots. That piece was inspired by a proposal that would allow San Francisco police to use robots for killing "when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD." Last night, that proposal passed the city's board of supervisors with an 8-3 vote. The language was included in a new "Law Enforcement Equipment Policy" filed by the San Francisco Police Department in response to California Assembly Bill 481, which requires a written inventory of the military equipment utilized by law enforcement. The document submitted to the board of supervisors includes -- among other things -- the Lenco BearCat armored vehicle, flash-bang grenades and 15 submachine guns.

Officials in San Francisco have voted to give the city's police the power to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations. The 8-3 vote in favour of the move followed an emotionally charged two-hour debate and came despite strong objections from civil liberties and other police oversight groups in the city on the west coast of the United States. Supervisor Connie Chan, a member of the committee that forwarded the proposal to the full board, said she understood concerns over use of force but that "according to state law, we are required to approve the use of these equipments. So here we are, and it's definitely not an easy discussion." The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has said it does not have pre-armed robots and has no plans to arm robots with guns.

A Google insider who anonymously leaked internal documents to Project Veritas made the decision to go public in an on-the-record video interview. The insider, Zachary Vorhies, decided to go public after receiving a letter from Google, and after he says Google allegedly called the police to perform a "wellness check" on him. Along with the interview, Vorhies asked Project Veritas to publish more of the internal Google documents he had previously leaked. "I gave the documents to Project Veritas, I had been collecting the documents for over a year. And the reason why I collected these documents was because I saw something dark and nefarious going on with the company and I realized that there were going to not only tamper with the elections, but use that tampering with the elections to essentially overthrow the United States."