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South Korea To Develop Army and Police Robots

Posted by samzenpus on from the you-have-twenty-seconds-to-comply dept.

JonathanGCohen writes "South Korea is planning on developing an advanced line of robots for military and police use by the 2010 decade. A $34 million USD infusion of cash will spur development and result in robotic applications like security watchmen and eight-legged autonomous combat vehicles. "

7 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Worth it? by BHennessy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Although the article says they intend for the robot to take action, surely they couldn't be doing much more than photographing any evil-dooers they come across as chasing down and following people would be quite a challenge. Although, imagine how awesome a giant six legged horse/spider roaming the streets at night would be.

  2. Isaac Asimov would not have liked this! by yobjob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The government also seeks to build combat robots. Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

    2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

    3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

    --
    Czech language for absolute beginners
  3. Re:That bothers me. by jasonditz · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's also a lot easier to keep quiet when you order a robot to torture somebody or massacre a group of protesters... there are all sorts of benefits that the would-be supervillain wouldn't want to pass up.

  4. Realistically by dch24 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I am a robotics researcher. We focus on completely autonomous systems. Realistically, there are some significant technical problems with just a web-controlled robot. Where will South Korea get the high-bandwidth wireless infrastructure? The robots will only work within range of the towers, and what if the towers are taken out?

    Like it says in the article, they will probably just be remotely-operated robots (most of the time). If anyone had a fully autonomous machine ready for combat, then why the DARPA grand challenge? It's coming, but it's not as close as that.

    The article also says "if the robots prove to be viable technically and commercially, we will be able to begin developing them late next year." I read that as: maybe motion detection and some automated patrol route (easy to outwit if the human is careful). Once the alarm is tripped: tele-operation from the base station.

    So what will happen when Korean teenagers hack the police robots, and start committing crimes. Maybe they should break into cloning research laboratories and steal Snuppy.

  5. Why is it the Koreans? by putko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems there are a few patterns here:

    Japanese make friendly servant robots (to help old people).
    Koreans make battle/guard robots. With weapons. So humans don't have to fight.
    Americans make rescue robots, unmanned aerial vehicles.

    Doesn't this seem a bit odd? Why don't US companies try to make a friendly robot like the Japanese? Why are we so big on search and rescue? Why do the Koreans pour their precious money into killer bots?

    Why don't the Koreans make agricultural robots, so that humans don't have to toil in the fields? If we had those in the USA, we'd have a totally automated farming workforce. And where do the Europeans fit in here? What sort of robots do they want?

    --
    http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
  6. Re:Smart Robots? by Neoprofin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It could be just as effective as the company in the US that allowed disabled (or lazy) hunters to hunt via webcam controlled rifles. Just put a team in control of some fire support robots at hot spots and let the over priced camera sit in harms way rather than cheap human bodies.

  7. Re:The Cops, The Criminals & The Civil Fruitca by dbIII · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The other issue is if that were a risk it's possible to harden hardware electronics from EMP fields. A lot of military hardware is already.
    Someone I know was shown around an Antonov transport plane, and initially thought "Stupid Russians, they've got huge areas taken up with valves instead of a little box full of semiconductor components". Then he thought about EMP from a nuclear explosion and how those valves would barely notice it, and it's a lot cheaper than mucking about with short production runs of semiconductors using saphire (if that's how it's done).