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Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own
Robert S. Boyd
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday, March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON — The unmanned bombers that frequently cause unintended civilian casualties in Pakistan are a step toward an even more lethal generation of robotic hunters-killers that operate with limited, if any, human control.
The Defense Department is financing studies of autonomous, or self-governing, armed robots that could find and destroy targets on their own. On-board computer programs, not flesh-and-blood people, would decide whether to fire their weapons.
“The trend is clear: Warfare will continue and autonomous robots will ultimately be deployed in its conduct,” Ronald Arkin, a robotics expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, wrote in a study commissioned by the Army.
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“The pressure of an increasing battlefield tempo is forcing autonomy further and further toward the point of robots making that final, lethal decision,” he predicted. “The time available to make the decision to shoot or not to shoot is becoming too short for remote humans to make intelligent informed decisions.”
Autonomous armed robotic systems probably will be operating by 2020, according to John Pike, an expert on defense and intelligence matters and the director of the security Web site GlobalSecurity.org in Washington.
This prospect alarms experts, who fear that machines will be unable to distinguish between legitimate targets and civilians in a war zone.
“We are sleepwalking into a brave new world where robots decide who, where and when to kill,” said Noel Sharkey, an expert on robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield, England.
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14 Responses to “Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own”
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March 26th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Wow. Complete insanity run amok. As usual. If a bad thing can be done, it can be done in a way that makes it even worse.
March 26th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Can we all say “Terminator”?
jeremy Reply:
March 26th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I would say the movie actually touched upon a important subject, If you give a machine the ability to think and make decisions, what could come of it? Nobody knows for certain, but the movie presented a real possibility. How do they know that they wont determine their masters to be the enemy. Maybe we become the enemy, cant get a soldier to shoot at us citizens, use a robot!
eyes open Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 4:08 am
i was thinking robocop…… but same result
rushgna Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Me too, except robocop was a good guy. there is NO WAY th Gov will make anything with a conscience.
March 26th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Classified state of the art is about 30 years ahead of what they let you know about. I say its safe to say terminators are here now. The guy who runs Sun Microsystems has been warning about this for 20 yrs.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
I,ll be back
RodneyV Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Get – Out!
March 26th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Have you seen this boy!
March 27th, 2009 at 1:12 am
“Prepaya to be tuhminated.”
March 27th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Technically such devices already exist and have been widely used for more than a century. Landmines will detect a person and automatically attack them without consideration of who the person is.
An autonomous robot is actually already achievable. All you would have to do is give it a camera, a gun, and a simple computer brain. The camera scans for targets (which can be identified in many different ways such as thermal image, motion+size detection, etc), the gun is pointed at the target, fired. Very simple. The unit could be stationary to guard specific spots, like a sentry. Or it could be a roving mobile unit. You could make an automated machine gun that is small enough to be moved by a single person. Set it up so that when activated it automatically points at targets and shoots them. So a soldier could set it up then when enemies approached get behind deep cover and activate it. Seems like it would be really hard to disable a tiny gun with no person behind it while its shooting at you.
Of course whoever set up such a system would have to be totally ruthless and willing to destroy human life with wanton abandon. Thank goodness no such people exist with the technical expertise to set up such systems, right?
You could make an automated machine gun on a little tripod that is small enough to be moved by a single person. Set it up so that when activated it automatically points at targets and shoots them using its camera and computer and a few small motors. So a soldier could set it up then when enemies approached get behind deep cover and activate it. Seems like it would be really hard to disable a tiny gun with no person behind it while its shooting at you.
kevinabt Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Bit of a copy and paste problem there, sorry for the duplication.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:21 am
The future of kill or be killed
rushgna Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 10:30 am
i love the 80’s feel of the terminator, boy i wish they still made movies like that.