LOS ANGELES ¨C A few days after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, a year ago, taser-maker Axon Enterprise floated the idea of a ¡°nonlethal¡± drone for schools that could be activated by AI-powered surveillance.
It caused a stir ¡ª prompting the company¡¯s own AI ethics advisory board to quit in protest and highlighting growing unease about the ethics and effectiveness of security tools being marketed aggressively by technology firms to U.S. schools.
¡°I had to have my secretary screen out the calls from all these companies,¡± said Rita Bishop, former superintendent of the school system in the city of Roanoke, Virginia, recalling sales pitches for everything from drones to AI-powered surveillance cameras and weapons detectors.
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