Atlanta police don’t have any robots that can kill. One City Council member wants to make sure they never do.
Council member Liliana Bakhtiari has introduced the H.A.L.T. Act, short for Human Authority over Lethal Technology. It would prohibit the Atlanta Police Department from buying or otherwise acquiring autonomous weapons systems, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as AI tools that could use lethal force without human oversight. The bill would bar the city from purchasing or accepting weaponized AI systems and autonomous weapons technology, WSB-TV reported.
“We’re just not going to have robots with guns in Atlanta. Full stop,” Bakhtiari told the AJC. “We’re not going to replace cops with RoboCop.”
The measure went to the council’s Public Safety and Finance committees in October, the AJC reported. It must clear the Executive and Finance Committee before it can reach the full council, according to WSB-TV.
Getting ahead of the technology
Bakhtiari has framed the bill as a pre-emptive move. Atlanta police don’t currently use autonomous tools capable of lethal force, the AJC reported, and Bakhtiari told WSB-TV the technology isn’t under consideration locally. She said it would be naive to assume it never will be.
“I don’t think that we act often enough preemptively,” she told the station.
“This is about responsible government, responsible stewardship. It’s keeping community at the core of public safety,” she told the AJC. “No machine should be given the ability to make lethal decisions.”
“Lethal decisions should never be outsourced to an algorithm. Point blank, full stop.”
Atlanta City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari, to WSB-TV
Why now
The idea came from Washington. Bakhtiari said she was prompted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Sept. 30 announcement of a new Autonomous Warfare Command. Hegseth unveiled it in a speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, describing a four-star combatant command, the military’s 12th, with “service-like authorities” to speed the use of drones, robots and AI, Defense One reported. It is due to stand up by Oct. 1, 2027.
“We know that this is coming because of the secretary’s announcement,” Bakhtiari told the AJC. “It is a hop, skip and a jump away from being utilized by municipalities.”
She told WSB-TV she expects the technology to “trickle down to municipalities and counties,” and that it would not take much to weaponize AI tools already spreading through communities.
She pointed to one future possibility. Earlier this year, an Axon executive discussed drones that could carry Tasers, and Bakhtiari said her legislation would ban that technology, WSB-TV reported.
Axon has been here before. In June 2022, the company paused plans for a Taser-armed drone after nine members of its own AI ethics board resigned in protest. The board had earlier voted 8-4 against even a limited pilot, PBS NewsHour reported.
What Atlanta police already use
The Atlanta Police Department did not immediately respond to the AJC’s request for comment on the bill.
The department does run one of the country’s largest camera networks. Mayor Andre Dickens said in late 2022 that police had access to nearly 17,000 cameras, including more than 6,500 registered by private owners through the Connect Atlanta program, WSB-TV reported at the time.
License plate readers have spread even faster. More than 6,000 of the cameras now dot the greater Atlanta metro area, WSB-TV reported in September.
Where other places have drawn the line
Other cities, states and companies have faced the same question:
- Dallas, 2016: Police used a bomb robot to kill a sniper whose fire struck 12 officers, killing five, in what experts called the first time U.S. police used a robot to kill, NPR reported.
- North Dakota, 2015: A state law allowed police drones to carry “less than lethal” weapons such as Tasers. The sponsor had originally wanted all weapons banned, GBH reported.
- San Francisco, 2022: Supervisors voted to let police use robots with deadly force in dire emergencies, then reversed that vote a week later after public pushback, NPR reported.
- Massachusetts, 2026: A bill to ban weapon-mounted robots and drones, with carve-outs for the Defense Department, the National Guard and explosives disposal, passed the state House 155-1 in May, The Boston Globe reported.
- Congress, 2026: Reps. Don Beyer, Tom Barrett and Sara Jacobs introduced a bipartisan bill in July requiring human control over lethal strikes by autonomous weapons, according to Jacobs’ office.
- Industry, 2022: Six robotics makers, including Boston Dynamics, pledged in a joint statement: “We pledge that we will not weaponize our advanced-mobility general-purpose robots.”
The Pentagon’s own rule, Directive 3000.09, updated in January 2023, requires that autonomous weapons allow “appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.”
A separate fight over surveillance
The bill arrives during a separate council debate over surveillance. In September, Dickens proposed a 10-part framework that would sort the city’s surveillance tools into three risk tiers, require monthly internal audits, quarterly public reports and an annual independent review, ban discriminatory tracking and publish an inventory of covered systems.
“Technology that gives government extraordinary capabilities must come with extraordinary accountability,” Dickens said. The proposal followed an APD audit of 115,578 Flock searches that flagged 79 of them, Atlanta News First reported.
The ACLU of Georgia has called that measure “a step, but it’s not far enough.” Christopher Bruce, the group’s deputy executive director, is pushing instead for a Community Control Over Police Surveillance ordinance, Atlanta News First reported.
Bakhtiari said she wants more investment in officers, not machines, and that a person should always be present when force is used. “This is about making sure that humanity is at the center of public safety,” she told WSB-TV.
Sources and further reading
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘Robots with guns’: Atlanta Council member proposes autonomous weapons ban
- WSB-TV: As AI in policing grows more powerful, Atlanta leaders debate where to draw line
- Defense One: Hegseth plans Autonomous Warfare Command
- NPR: For the first time, police used a bomb robot to kill
- The Boston Globe: Massachusetts weapons-on-robots ban legislation
- Atlanta News First: ACLU questions Atlanta’s proposed surveillance technology ordinance
- Atlanta City Council
Photo: Warren LeMay via Wikimedia Commons (CC0).
