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Machine Gun Sentry Robot Unveiled
mpthompson writes "Samsung has partnered with a Korean university to develop a robotic sentry equipped with a 5.5mm machine gun. Meant for deployment along the DMZ between North and South Korea, the $200,000 robot employs sophisticated pattern recognition software for targeting humans. No three laws here, but the robot does include a speaker that can be used to politely issue a warning before taking the target out. The promotional video is both scary and funny at the same time."
I guess after a half-century mediation by America and China, the Korean Peninsula conflict has degenerated into the Crazy Olympics.
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make install -not war
We need some improvements in pattern recognition before this is a feasible idea. There is a lot of cognitive processing that goes into seemingly simple decisions like 'Is this a person?' and 'Is this person an enemy?' and 'Is this person armed?'
It does not appear to have the capacity to tell the difference between an unarmed intruder and a heavily armed one, so defeating it is not hard: Approach it with some kind of heavier firepower, and while it talks, you blow it away.
And 200K? For 200 I could do the same thing: a home-depot motion sensor, a voice chip with loudspeaker, and a handful of fertilizer/oil land mines.
When people escaped the DDR (East Germany), specifically over the Berlin Wall - the West Germans helped them in any way possible with open arms, short of provoking war.
Now we shoot them?
Reminds me of this scene. Hope they beta test it...;)
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
Wrong.
It's not because of their religious beliefs.
It's the door-knocking and the self-righteous proselytizing that get them to the front of the line for ED-209 testing.
I assure you, when I want to be a part of someone's religion, I'll find them. I don't need a herd of intrusive leaflet pushers to steer me in the "right" direction.
Lots of robocop references, but the movie Aliens is where it's at: they had the remote sentries, with remote video. That was cool.
It's a machine gun for the Korean demilitarised zone.
There's nobody in there that isn't an enemy, and there's nobody in there that isn't armed (or at least, it doesn't matter if they are or not).
And if it accidentally shoots the odd deer, then nobody cares.
Further, the whole point of talking is to prevent accidents with North Korean troops seen by accident out fishing or something.
You can bet your ass at the first sign of real trouble, they'll all be set to "kill on sight".
Take another look at the context of where this thing will be actually used, then try commenting again.
What about:
- inability of current computer vision and AI technology to make sufficiently informed decisions about threats
- massive moral issue of allowing an autonomous device to kill humans without specific targeting by a human operator
- probable violations of laws of war and humanitarian laws as a result of the above
- fact that military-industrial complex can waste money on shit like this when there are people starving on the same planet
I see these as slightly more problematic than whether it has enough frigging ammo.
Read Pynchon.
I mean, it is not like the NK will not have week, month or year to map map out where those are, then prepare artillery bombardement on those coordinate. Or pass through the holes between the coverage zone of those gun. And it is not like anarmored vehicule would not roll those over twice. And I wonder also if there isn't ways to simply camouflage yourself : have a very wide light weighted tube for the infrared, go in the center with something for sight, and advance slowly toward the sentry gun. Or advance slowly under a thermal carpet. Or in a camouflage of bushes. OR snipe it out with explosive bullet or destroy it with mortar. It sound like this things would need an incredible AI to handle the various way to camoufalge yourself, but it seems only to have IR camera, normal camera and be smart enough to distinguish between trees and human. Just disguise yourself as a tree and that is it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yeah, and there's nothing amusing about it. A fireman or paramedic will set off a booby trap just as readily as a burglar will. You aren't allowed to kill ANYONE who walks through your door, only those with criminal intent (and in many states, only those who present a direct physical threat). Since booby traps are incapable of making those judgments, they're illegal.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I love the way the bullet shells fall into the Samsung-branded case. Man, that robot thing is far from good PR here in Europe.
You make atheists such as myself and other unbelievers look bad. But you'll grow up some day. People are not stupid for believing in one or many gods. There is no way to prove conclusively that a deity or deities exist or do not. I believe they do not; others may differ, and we cannot prove who is right. Soon enough we will know. So why fight about it? Why argue and bitch and whine? Those who attack a person's faith (or lack thereof) with such vitriol are merely insecure in their own beliefs.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Dude, I am not a military person. Still, all the retired Marines I have dealt with have been pretty sharp people. They are a bit weird usually, as they take discipline more seriously than even best trained dogs, but otherwise their brains work fine.
More generally, until recently US forces had some decent aptitude tests even for service ranks far below Marines. The rep for stupidity probably has to do with the fact that mostly poor kids go for military service and hence military folks often give off a strong redneck vibe. However, except for the more recent (get somebody, anybody, to Iraq) recruits they are likely just fine mentally.
You hear that? That's the sound of a joke passing overhead.
Think about the alternatives... Given the 1+ million strong army north of the border, and the questionable sanity of the leader controlling it, that border must be defended. The numerical superiority means some defenses must be automated, leaving land mines as the only existing technology. This robot is far better than a land mine however; It can be switched off, can be configured to give a warning, and can be removed easily when it is no longer needed. Land mines have none of these properties.
Would it be nice to live in a world where such things were not needed? Of course. I'm not going to blame the South Koreans at all though, given the realities of their situation. Maybe it will even let more countries sign the land mine treaty/ban. The US, for example, could buy these for defending Guantanamo, and remove the land mines we have placed there.
For those that think the current border is "cruel" because of the harsh desert and mean ranchers, this is better. People will cross when the chance of death is only a few percent. They won't cross if death would be nearly certain. Thus, fewer people die.
That only works if they believe the alternative is better.
I am quite willing to believe that a very low double digit percentage of illegal aliens feel that 'staying home' is a fate worse than death. People who think that way will still take their chances, even in the face of almost certain death. As my girl Janis once opined, "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose..."
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No. But that kind of politically correct tolerance does. It takes only cursory look of medias over the years to see that many many leaders use the god/faith-card to make stupid sheeple do their bidding.
That is irrelevant. Violence, forced fairytales of ID and others, hiding of everyday matters like sex must stop. Religious nutjobs who can't keep their insanity to themselves and STFU must be stopped.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Realistically the land mine treaty is a waste of time. Mines will not be abolished from the battlefield for the forseeable future because they are an extremely effective weapon. Here you have a simple device that can be deployed by minimally skilled troops, it is cheap to manufacture, hard to detect and neutralize and can be deployed from aircraft with great speed for rapid denial-of-terrain as the US military likes to call it. Of all the things that tank commanders fear, they fear mines the most. You can see or detect another tank or a helicopter before it strikes, you can even stand a chance to evade, detect or even destroy and LGB or a missile with a counter measures system but a mine the tank commander can't see or detect rapidly in combat. The same pretty much goes for the infantry, they fear few things as much as mines and snipers. Here is an object that costs what? $50 to manufacture that has the power to scare the shit out of the crew of an M1 Abrams tank that costs $4.3 millon to make and better yet it stands a very good chance of destroying it. You can't beat that combination in terms of value-for-money. Trying to ban mines, land or naval, will go the same way that the various attempts back in the 1930s to outlaw the areal bombing of civillians. It is deplorable, but unfortunately also true.
These people are not part of an invading army. They are not trying to kill us. They are not here to destroy our way of life. They are starving people who want to cross over to mow our lawns and take care of our children. I'm not saying that we should just let them waltz in or anything, but for crying out loud, where's your sense of compassion? You don't need guns to stop the flood of illegal immigrants, you need to put pressure on the Mexican gov to get its act together and start acting more responsible towards its people -- especially those in the lower classes. I have a couple of friends who are upper-middle class Mexicans, they speak of the lower classes with such disdain that it's no wonder they have no problem exploiting and then exporting a large part of their population to the United States. This is the real issue and we need to *shame* upper class Mexicans for what their doing to their own people. But nobody will ever talk about this -- instead we talk about stupid things like building fences. Why? Well, because rather that tackling actual problems, it's a lot easier to scare people with invasion on the right or massive deportation on the left, or to push racist buttons (on both sides). These are the sort of things that get votes.
Maybe you are setting the standards too high? Of course religion is stupid, but there is a sort of "shhh! don't say it out loud" understanding that usually prevents people from posting rants like yours. Also, do you have any ideea how hard it is to live without a point of support? Well, you probably do, but let me remind you anyways: hard. So most people don't bother, since they'll be happier anyways believing in something.
:) I _really_ enjoyed your post. Found it refreshing. Feel free to post the links you were threatening with earlier...
And lastly, Larry Wall. An exception, true, but reason enough to avoid blanket statements like "all religious people are idiots".
Don't get me wrong btw
So Euler was an idiot? Pascal an idiot? Newton an idiot? Wow, you must have contributed so much to the field of scientific endeavor, because you are certainly riding one mighty high horse there. Maybe you should actually calm down and see that not everyone views the world in the same way you do, and that has no bearing on their intelligence. Or maybe just grow up and realize that you are not in fact the smartest person in the world and if you are going to claim that others are idiots, you might want to check who that group includes first.
Funny that you mention wikipedia, have you ever looked at the articles on various religions in there(hint, they are there). Ever notice how some very well educated believers contribute material to the articles on their respective religions? Are you claiming you are in fact smarter than all those people?
Every world religion count(s/ed) among its adherents some of the smartest people ever to walk this earth, there are some insanely smart people who believe in no religion at all. My point? Believing in a religion has no bearing on your intelligence, and you are an arrogant fool to say otherwise.
Monstar L
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. -Thomas Jefferson
He was wrong: Tyrants fear the people much more than any other government. That's why they make sure that the people fear them, for if the people don't fear the tyrant enough, they might remove him.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
...self-proclaimed "chosen people" who are somehow smarter...
After reading your post and some of the replies in the thread, I have difficulty understanding in what way you are different. Sure, you're not knocking on doors, but your stated desire to "round 'em ALL up and put 'em in a sandbox", strip them of public office and do violence to people for talking to you puts you in the same category as the worst of them.
In some posts, you say you think {some,all} people are genius and idiot at the same time in different areas, including yourself. However, you seem to view other peoples idiocy as inherently and dramatically worse than yours. This comes across as very arrogant.
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I just assumed that it was a complete joke test, designed to let EVERYONE ace it just so recruiters would have an excuse to harass students with phone calls telling them what a great soldier they'd make. Then I overheard a couple of guys I played football with talking about having to retake it just to meet the minimum score. I guess when you're smart, or even not stupid, you just assume everyone else is too. That's probably why we have such tunnel vision here on /. when it comes to technology (hard to believe there is still a statistically significant number of people out there who still fall for spam and phishing schemes)
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Can anyone imagine what would happen if one of these would be lt loose in a busy place like a christmas shopping mall, a crowded airport or atoher place where loads of people are available and unprepared for such a device? Sounds like the perfect massacre tool to me...
Just because someone else makes an inflammatory "joke" doesn't mean that he's required to play along. He gets to respond in any way he chooses. He chose an intelligent response to a stupid joke.
I'm not just throwing around random insults. If you believe in unproven and especially disproved things, you are in fact an idiot. So by simple definition, MOST religious people (all billions of them) are in fact idiots.
Count yourself in that group. There is no certainty as you cannot know what it is that you do not know. That is the boundary of rationality, if you cannot test it, you cannot disprove it, therefore you cannot rationally consider the question. Having faith in the existence or non-existence of omniscient dieties falls outside the limits of criticism. Attempting to prove religious belief with certainty is as much a futile effort as trying to disprove them. As the parent pointed out, the only logically true statements are boring and do not tell you jack about what you should do.
I mean, if you truly believe that some guy died for your sins 2,000 years ago and that your belief in him somehow will be your salvation "in the next life", or in some made up location like "heaven" or "hell", which clearly we have absolutely no evidence for, then you ARE in very simple terms, a moron.
You have no evidence for getting up in the morning. There is no certainty, no rational reason to believe you will live to see another day, that the sun will rise or that this day even exists and this isn't just a dream. Just ask yourself this question, why do you get out of bed? You will not find a rational basis for the answer, no matter how many answers you try.
Lots of people believe the earth is flat. What do you call them?
This is testable, like the age of dinosaur bones, however these tests are a predicated on the irrational belief that there is some sort of natural order to the universe. Rationality has been our best tool for discerning this natural order, but to overlook the limits of criticism and thus the bounds of rationality leaves one with statements of faith disguised the illusion of reason. If all of our empirical tests are not invalid for some reason, the earth is not flat. However, I cannot know the answer to this question with certainty, just as those who declare it is flat cannot present their position with certainty. Now, it may be counter productive to most of the shared irrational goals of humans to disregard empirical evidence, but one can only claim superior adherence to the rationalist identity if one explicity states the irrational goals, such as the natural order of the universe, that the predictive content of your assertion is based.
Now, there is a possibility in some backwards cultures and societies that these believers are in fact ignorant and not morons, but with the advent of the internet, at least in most countries where you have access to so much knowledge for free (wikipedia, etc.), ignorance is no excuse, and in fact if you REMAIN ignorant, that is in itself a form of idiocy.
Again, you're simply assuming that everyone else shares your irrational goals for why they get out of bed in the morning.
Stop defending ignorant people who willfully refuse to accept the reality they live in. They are idiots, and they're hurting themselves, their families, the planet, and most of the good things that humanity and individuals IN humanity have achieved over the last few millennia. It's inexcusable. Stop defending them. They are idiots, by the very definition of the word.
Perhaps you should concentrate on your own illusions and errors. How is it that you can go about providing salvation for the rest of humanity when you have such a poor understanding of your own faith? I don't care what irrational goals other people have, nor what their faith dictates they believe. That is liberty of conscience, something I refuse to live without and would not deny to another. I only care if you violate my rights, which are the irrational goals of the political state I live in. The civil courts and law enforcement have a way of ensuring there are consequences to impedding those goals, just as reality has a messy habit of enforcing gr
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me