If we are to believe the purveyors of school surveillance systems, K-12 schools will soon operate in a manner akin to some agglomeration of Minority Report, Person of Interest, and Robocop. "Military grade" systems would slurp up student data, picking up on the mere hint of harmful ideations, and dispatch officers before the would-be perpetrators could carry out their vile acts. In the unlikely event that someone were able to evade the predictive systems, they would inevitably be stopped by next-generation weapon-detection systems and biometric sensors that interpret the gait or tone of a person, warning authorities of impending danger. The final layer might be the most technologically advanced--some form of drone or maybe even a robot dog, which would be able to disarm, distract, or disable the dangerous individual before any real damage is done. If we invest in these systems, the line of thought goes, our children will finally be safe.

After the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, an all-too-familiar question emerged: how do we prevent such horror from happening again? A handful of companies have said they have tech solutions that could help. They included Drone firm Axon, which promoted a remotely-operated Taser device to be deployed in schools. EdTech companies, including Impero Software, said their student surveillance services could flag warning signs and help prevent the next attack. The companies are part of a thriving school security industry, one that has grown to $3.1bn in 2021 from just $2.7m in 2017, according to market research firm Omdia.

Armed police couldn't stop the shooters in Buffalo and in Uvalde. But perhaps a very small drone equipped with a Taser could. Specifically, Axon CEO Rick Smith said in a Thursday announcement, "non-lethal drones capable of incapacitating an active shooter in less than 60 seconds" (or so the press release goes), which would be stationed inside of schools. At the push of a panic button, a trained human pilot at a control center elsewhere in the country would launch a drone. With the help of a network of security cameras, they would try to target the drone's onboard Taser probes into the shooter's flesh, in the hope of keeping them down until police could arrive on the scene.

A majority of Axon's AI ethics board resigned in protest yesterday, following an announcement last week that the company planned to equip drones with Tasers and cameras as a way to end mass shootings in schools. The company backed down on its proposal Sunday, but the damage had been done. Axon had first asked the advisory board to consider a pilot program to outfit a select number of police departments with Taser-drones last year, and again last month. A majority of the ethics advisory board, which comprises AI ethics experts, law professors, and police reform and civil liberties advocates, opposed it both times. Advisory board chairman Barry Friedman told WIRED that Axon never asked the group to review any scenario involving schools, and that launching the pilot program without addressing previously stated concerns is dismissive of the board and its established process.

This photo provided by Axon Enterprise depicts a conceptual design through a computer-generated rendering of a taser drone. Axon Enterprise, Inc. via AP hide caption This photo provided by Axon Enterprise depicts a conceptual design through a computer-generated rendering of a taser drone. Taser developer Axon said this week it is working to build drones armed with the electric stunning weapons that could fly in schools and "help prevent the next Uvalde, Sandy Hook, or Columbine." But its own technology advisers quickly panned the idea as a dangerous fantasy. The publicly traded company, which sells Tasers and police body cameras, floated the idea of a new police drone product last year to its artificial intelligence ethics board, a group of well-respected experts in technology, policing and privacy. Some of them expressed reservations about weaponizing drones in over-policed communities of color.