Warning! Spoilers ahead for Future State: Dark Detective #2
Wayne Enterprises apparently creates an ethically questionable technology in the comics that shares the same type of disturbing elements as a short-lived solution used in Christopher Nolan's Future State.
While doing some good old-fashioned detective work, Bruce Wayne makes an unpleasant discovery that sheds light on a rather unwise business decision in Future State: Dark Detective #2 written by Joshua Williamson and Mariko Tamaki with art by Giannis Milonogiannis and Dan Mora. Before the Joker Wars, Wayne Enterprise began developing micro-tech that would surveil activities in tunnels. The technology never went to market, but, as Lucius Fox warned, it could be used against them. And recent developments in Dark Detective prove that this did indeed happen as Bruce manages to snag one when under siege by the Magistrate, an organization that has a tight hold on Gotham.
This micro-tech is quite similar to Fox's sonar concept that Bruce adapts to create a high-frequency generator receiver in The Dark Knight. Early in the film, this technology helps Bruce apprehend Lau, a corrupt Chinese LSI Holdings ant. But Batman later applies the technology to every phone in the city so that the sonar will display a visual map of the city in his Batcave. The receiver helps Batman take down Joker, but, as Fox queries, "At what cost?" Fox is so concerned about the ethical implications this technology impossd that he is willing to tender his resignation if the receiver remains at Wayne Enterprises. Luckily, Bruce has the foresight to implement a self-destruct sequence that initiates once Fox enters his name.
Whether the comics' Bruce and Wayne Enterprises created a kill switch in the micro-tech remains unseen. However, it is obvious that Wayne Enterprises doesn't destroy the technology (or flip the kill switch) because the Magistrate soon acquires and successfully installs the micro-tech into robotic flies that the organization then mass produces. While the company's decision not to destroy the micro-tech is a systemic failure, the root of the problem can be traced to the comic's version of Fox.
Based on Batman's recollections in Dark Detective, Fox seems to have been most concerned by the possibility of some phantom force using the technology against them. This, obviously, isn't enough to compel him to demand its destruction, even though the company never produced the micro-tech. Had he shared the same level of concern as his counterpart from The Dark Knight did, the Magistrate may have never had the opportunity to take advantage of the technology in DC's Future State.
