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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 think there should be an international treaty banning all lethal weapons without a brain attached to the trigger.
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?
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.
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.
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.