“‘I just wish I could save them all,’ my virtual reality police officer avatar says as he gazes upon a young woman’s abandoned corpse lying beside a back-alley dumpster. My VR cop partner offers a limp gesture of condolence but doesn’t sugarcoat the reality: My decision got this woman killed.”
“I made the incorrect, deadly choice during an hour-long demo of Axon’s VR offerings earlier this month. The company, which created the Taser and now claims the lion’s share of the cop body camera market, believes the techniques practiced in these VR worlds can lead to improved critical thinking, de-escalation skills, and, eventually, decreased violence. I was grappling with the consequences of my decision in the Virtual Reality Simulator Training’s ‘Community Engagement’ mode, which uses scripted videos of complicated scenarios cops might have to respond to in the real word.”
“Experts on policing and privacy who spoke with Gizmodo did not share Chin’s rosy outlook. They expressed concerns that Axon’s bite-sized approach to VR training would limit any empathy police officers could build. Others worried bias in the VR narratives would create blind spots around truly understanding a suspect’s perspective. Still others said Axon’s tech-focused approach would do nothing to reduce the overall number of times police interacted with vulnerable people—an expensive, unnecessary solution.”