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US Army Testing Robots with Shotguns
Darren writes "The US Army is testing robots armed with shotguns. The robots are called Packbots and have already seen some action in Iraq. It also has chemical sensors that detect nuclear, biological, and chemical contaminants. Maybe I've seen a few too many bad sci-fi movies, but robots with shotguns scare me."
if they can afford to build a (let's face it) Terminator (T-0.00001a?), then why can't they afford to build a weapon for it that's better suited to being used by a robot? A shotgun is a pretty complicated weapon to fire, whereas an uzi-nine-millimeder isn't.
I thought they already put shotguns on bomb defusal robots as a way of remotely triggering explosives.
And, I also seem to recall (probably on a Fox special) police using a robot with remote camera and a shotgun to negotiate with an armed man (and get the layout of his place)... and this was YEARS ago.
Why is this really news, outside of it containing the "Iraq hotbutton?"
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Actually the US rules of engagement prohibit firing at women/childen/civilians. So if terrorist babies are shooting at US troops the usual approach now is to withdraw without returning fire, and then call in an airstrike to kill the babies (they can now be considered collateral babies), which is allowed apparently.
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How come we don't have something like the automatic machine guns that were used in Aliens? I think they'd be great in securing remote points from enemy filtration. All you need is a machine gun with a motion sensor and tracking software.....
Perhaps this has to do with the potential psychological effects of shooting women and children?
I'm guessing that it is much more traumatic for an 18-year-old guy to shoot a woman or child than it is to shoot another adult man. And I would think this is true even if the woman/child shoot at him first.
I admit that the policy sounds crappy from the perspective that we won't kill them with bullets but we will with bombs. I'm just guessing the thinkging goes something like: if they have to be killed, let's do it in a way that is the least harmful to our own troops (in this case, in terms of morale rather than physical injury).
the guy that wrote this article, which was linked to from one of the original links is president and CEO of a well known email marketing software company. In other words, it was written by a SPAMMER. http://www.arialsoftware.com/
Asimov never intended the three laws of robotics to be taken seriously.
No, he didn't, but he was quite pleased with himself when he saw the impact they'd had. And rightly so. The three laws of robotics (four if you count the zeroeth law added in later stories) are a wonderful story telling framework, but they do potentially have a serious use. There are people working on making robots that adhere to these laws in some way. Asimov should be considered the forefather of modern robotics (a word he invented) in my opinion, despite the fact he only ever told stories about them.
If that was meant to reduce my worries, it doesn't. In the German army you have to refuse illegal orders. No choice included and no excuse possible you were 'just following orders'.
You can refuse orders given from someone without the appropriate authority (due to not in chain of command or ordering things unrelated to the task (e.g. cleaning his shoes)).
a 12 inch spread of buckshot does not qualify as an "area effect" weapon. Napalm is an area affect weapon. Claymores are an area effect weapon. A shotgun is not.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
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... to more than 90 per cent in the wars of the 1990s."
p 91lopez
http://www.unicef.org/graca/patterns.htm
"Patterns in conflict:
Civilians are now the target"
"Civilian fatalities in wartime have climbed from 5 per cent at the turn of the century
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=se
"Not so clean"
'The U.S. strategy of Air-Land Battle closely resembles "total war."'
I am not so sure that the Geneva Convention was the the limiting factor in gas warfare in WWII. I think the technical limitations were more important. Against modern mechanized armies, like the Americans and British, chemical weapons were of limited tactical value. In WWI they proved unpredictable, environmentally sensitive, and difficult to target. Granted, during the war the Germans developed far deadlier chemicals than WWI's phosgene and mustard gas, nonetheless defensive tactics developed in WWI were still deemed effective. The Germans and Soviets in particular were probably hesitant because of their own vulnerabilities. The prevalence of equine transport in those two armies rendered them more susceptible to chemical attack.
Likewise, technical problems precluded all but the Americans and British from strategic chemical attacks. Only those two nations fielded strategic bombing forces capable of effectively delivering the volume necessary for an effective attack on a major city. The Germans had the most advanced agents, but by the time they developed them the Luftwaffe was overwhelmed by allied forces.
Interestingly, the nation best positioned to use gas as a strategic weapon, the United States, did in fact plan to do so. The Army Air Force had an advanced plan for massive mustard gassing of Japanese cities. Japanese air defenses were much softer than the German's. Additionally 8th Air Force commander Curtis Le May had markedly less regard for Japanese civilian life than german. The AAF anticipated millions of Japanese civilian casualties. However, with the success of the Manhattan project, the chemical plan was dropped. After the war the plans were sanitized to look like a hypothetical study and the originals destroyed. However, one original copy, complete with complete hand written versions of the postwar changes, escaped destruction due to a clerical error. It surface in the National archives in the 1990s. There was a big article on it in Military History Quarterly. pabl
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
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