Carl Takei

Photo: Sascha Schuermann (Getty Images)When Silicon Valley investor and Axon board member Hadi Partovi strutted onstage to address a packed crowd at this week’s TASERCON event, he did it to put to rest a nagging critique often levied at the policing tech company’s top executives. If the so-called “non-lethal” electric-shock weapons, Axon’s patented Tasers, are really so safe, why won’t anyone from the company step up and submit themselves to their effects?“That’s what I’m here to do,” Partovi said to a round of applause.A…

Axon’s controversial and short-lived Taser Drone project is powering down… for now.The company’s CEO announced the company is “pausing” the development of the drones following immense backlash from the public, civil liberty groups, privacy advocates, and a majority of the company’s own independent AI ethics board. The pause comes less than four days after Axon officially announced interest in developing the drones.In his blog post, Rick Smith said his, “passion for finding new solutions to stop mass shootings,” led the…

Axon, the maker of Tasers, police body cameras, and VR training simulations, wants to add a new buzzy product to its tech policing ecosystem: Taser Drones. While the company believes these shoebox-sized shock machines could potentially save lives during school shootings, privacy and civil liberties groups told Gizmodo they believe the drones may do more harm than good and could be used to brutally suppress protestors and other political dissidents.Axon floated its idea in a press release this week announcing it had begun…