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Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9
To be fair, it did give them 30 seconds to comply.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers.
I seem to recall seeing a documentary about this about 20 years ago. Ahh, here it is.
This guy's the limit!
During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says.
This gives new meaning to the phrase "Blue screen of death".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Why is everyone picking on and knocking down the Poles!?!?!?
You know who else went around knocking down Poles... That's right.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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 to 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.
"Asimov believed that his most enduring contributions would be his "Three Laws of Robotics" and the Foundation Series."Isaac Asimov article in Wikipedia.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
..killbots have preset limits.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
As I used to say to developers at a company I used to work for,
"I want to tell you about a radical new idea I had - testing things before deploying them."
In the case of weapons systems, that means debugging the software before loading the gun.
Truth me told, most "automated" weapons are more like remote control, for precisely this reason.
Also, while my experience is not vast in the area, most American weapons testers follow a lot of safety rules - including not being in the line of fire of the darned thing. Note I said most - we have our munitions accidents here, too.
Why didn't they have some provision to cut power to the weapon? If they were testing it in a place where there were people exposed in its possible field of fire (effectively "downrange"), they should have taken precautions.
The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether.
As with most automated technologies it will make some mistakes, but less than a human on average. The friendly fire rate for most militaries is no where near perfect.
When it was done, did it say, "I'll be back"?
Have gnu, will travel.
But shouldn't this thing have a kill switch? Seriously, my table saw has a kill switch.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Deleted
Guns don't kill people. Robotic, automated, 35mm anti-aircraft, twin-barreled guns kill people.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"software engineers find that a goto statement was the cause of the recent military disaster. Experts say while this was a terrible tragedy, it could have been much worse."
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
This reminds me of a chapter of Ghost in the Shell:SAC where a Robotic Cannon lost control and began shooting the military.
Is truth mirroring fiction now?
run like hell from our drum-fed, fully automatic robot overlords.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Maybe fill the magazines on the 5th live fire test???
Just sayin, ya know.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Why was an anti-aircraft gun able to hit ground targets at all?
Shouldn't it be constructed so it can only fire overhead at a certain minimum elevation so it cannot hit anything less than let's say a truck's height from the ground? Sure that might not keep it from hitting targets on higher ground but it would make the gun a lot safer for firing crew and support troops around. Even if it was tracking a legitimate target coming in it might shoot right through it's own crew if say put on a hill so the incoming is coming in at 0
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
Guess the NRA has to change the slogan... Guns DO kill people!
A person can screw up, a computer can screw up the same way millions of times a minute.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Dear,
It is my humble pleasure to write this letter irrespective of the fact that you do not know me. However, I came to know of you in my private search for a reliable and trustworthy person that can handle a confidential transaction of this nature in respect to our investment plans in real estate. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. Let me start by first, introducing myself properly to you. I am Peter Okoye, a Branch Manager at one of the standard trust bank in South Africa. A foreigner, Late Nicholas Owen, a Civil engineer/Contractor with the federal Government of South Africa, until his death three years ago in a ghastly automated robot accident, banked with us here at the standard bank South Africa. He had a closing balance of USD$25.5M (Twenty five Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) which the bank now unquestionably expects to be claimed by any of his available foreign next of kin. Or,alternatively be donated to a discredited trust fund for arms and ammunition at a military war college here in South Africa. Fervent valuable efforts made by the standard trust bank to get in touch with any of late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin (he had no wife and children)has been unsuccessful. The management under the influence of our chairman and board of directors, are making arrangement for the fund to be declared UNCLAIMABLE and then be subsequently donated to the trust fund for Arms and Ammunition which will further enhance the course of war in Africa and the world in general. In order to avert this negative development. Myself and some of my trusted colleagues in the bank, now seek for your permission to have you stand as late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin. So that the fund (USD$25.5M), would be subsequently transferred and paid into your bank account as the beneficiary next of kin through our overseas corresponding bank. All documents and proves to enable you get this fund have been carefully worked out and we are assuring you a 100% risk free involvement.
Your share would be 30% of the total amount. While the rest would be for me and my colleagues for purchase of properties in your country through you/your Company. If this proposal is OK by you, then kindly get to me immediately via my e-mail (pokoye_mg@mail.com) furnishing me with your most confidential telephone and fax , so I can forward to you the relevant details of this tran! saction. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.
Best Regards.
Peter Okoye
Branch Manager,
STANDARD TRUST BANK SOUTH AFRICA
In a previous life I worked on the predecessor of those guns and I have been to many tests. Problems were usually due to stupidity somewhere along the line, not due to failures. I suspect that it is still the exact same guns, totally refurbished and with new electronics. The guns move *very* fast and fire at a *very* high rate (similar firing rate to an assault rifle, but with much larger projectiles). Just getting side swiped by the moving barrel can kill an operator. The projectiles actually have various safeties: a. Launch G force b. Spin c. Time delay d. Self destruct The gun also has protection with no-fire zones - to prevent this exact kind of accident. These no-fire zones must also have malfunctioned. I find it surprising that the projectiles exploded, but the article is not clear, maybe the safeties worked and they did not explode. The problem is that they still move at supersonic speed and when they impact something close to the gun, the projectile and whatever it hits will break up, even if it doesn't explode. So, I feel sorry for the operators and I hope that whoever wrote and tested that buggy code have already been fired too.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
1) Do not mistake literary fiction elements for real life.
2) Do not mistake literary fiction elements for real life.
3) Do not mistake literary fiction elements for real life.
All welcome our new robotic cannon overlord!
Votator.com implements a fair voting scheme (free
You have to wonder why there were 20 soldiers just standing around while they were testing an automated gun with live ammunition. I mean, even the Myth Busters know enough to stand behind a shield when guns are firing.
As I read the headline, "Robotic Cannon Loses Control," I immediately thought of the droids in Robocop. I was all set to make a funny post, if someone hadn't already. Then I got to the end: "Kills 9." And suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.
It's one thing to make jokes about things going wrong. It's another thing to make jokes about people dying. I'd like to think that the people who made those comments, or modded them up, only skimmed the headline and summary. But I can't quite convince myself.
You call this a glitch? We're scheduled to begin construction in 6 months. Your temporary setback could cost us 50 million dollars in interest payments alone!
-Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
From here:
Young says he was also told at the time that the gun's original equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon, had warned that the GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon system was not designed for fully automatic control. Yet the guns were automated. At the time, SA was still subject to an arms embargo and Oerlikon played no role in the upgrade.
It may just be me, but automating a machine that fires explosives that isn't designed to be automated just sounds like a Bad Idea(TM).
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"I came here with a simple dream, a dream of killing all the humans."
-Bender
too soon?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I know, totally. Makes no sense. And why does everyone always use Arial? I can't stand it. One of the aspects of having the ability to choose fonts is using DIFFERENT fonts than others. Why can't the authors just pick a different font? Is it really that difficult? I, for one, am sick and tired of always seeing the same font everywhere. And all those gray keyboards. Seriously, what's with that? Gray isn't the greatest color; it's not that hard to pick something better. A little design philosophy and your keyboard suddenly looks three times as good. What's the problem, here, people? And don't even get me started on Apple Jacks. Why the hell do they call them Apple Jacks if they don't taste like apples? Go ahead, mod me down. You know I'm right about everything.
It isn't unusual for even not so smart weapons to turn on their handlers. There are lots of very old historical precedents.
,a few leftover embers from a previous shot touched off the powder and blasted away the tamping rod with his hands attached. Apparently this was a common way to be injured or killed on wooden warships.
A few years back, a cadet had his hands blown off by a cannon at Fort Henry, Ontario. While he was tamping down the powder charge
I was not unusual for soldiers to be killed by accident with US civil war gatling guns which lacked a mechanism for locking the crank in place. As a result, the crank would occasionally make a quarter turn or so under force of gravity, popping off a few rounds. Tough beans for anybody unlucky enough to be in front of it. Automatic weapons can "cook off" a round just from the heat of prior sustained firing.
The Forrestal fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Forrestal_(CV-59) of 1967 was caused when an freak electrical surge caused a F4 to launch a missile across the deck, puncturing the fuel tank of another plane loaded with live munitions and touching off a chain reaction that ultimately killed 132 of the crew.
HERO (Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation for Ordinance) http://usmilitary.about.com/od/glossarytermsh/g/h2814.htm has long been a concern for the military.
My rights don't need management.
In point of fact the gun worked perfectly, it was just ill advised to use the "Dick Cheney" AI personality for live testing.
-And low, the lawyers ran like rabbits... and it was a good thing...
This entire story is inaccurate. The Oerlikon weapons system they were using is a variant of a towed anti-air gun first made in 1955. This version has a computer-based, laser-guided targeting system. But it was made in 1985. This is not robots gone crazy. This is just a software glitch (or perhaps hardware failure) from an outdated system. This is not a fracking robot.
This is typical of recent slashdot who is trying to compete more with the sensationalism of digg and other tech blogs. No fact-checking, just throw it up and wait for the ad impressions to roll in.
I personally do NOT welcome our robotic overlords.
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
It is a double barrel, radar controlled anti-aircraft gun. The system is rather sophisticated and fires at a very high rate of about 1500 rounds per minute. A projectile is about 35mm in diameter and 150mm in length. Various interlocks are supposed to prevent this kind of accident from happening.
Imagine having two over-sized, 3 meter long assault rifles mounted side by side on a very fast moving (rotate and yaw) mechanism and you'll have some idea. The radar and computer system usually stands behind the gun, some distance away, preferably somewhat higher, for a better view of the horizon and incoming bombers. When a battery of 3 to 5 of these guns start firing, it is an incredible experience. With mufflers on your ears, first you feel the ground and air vibrate and then the wind sweeps back a wall of dirt - the next moment either the bombs or the wreckage of the bombers come down at you - either way, you end up diving for cover - quite exciting...
The system has a long lineage going back 50 years. I (used to) know it quite intimately and this kind of screw-up is rather disappointing.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
These Swiss made guns go back 50 years. The guns used in the Falklands war were rented from South Africa (I was there - yes I am old, thank you.). The systems are continually updated and now sport a combination radar and laser tracking system, so they are pretty damn good and can shoot down supersonic targets. At those speeds you only have a few seconds to acquire track and fire.
Good quality military systems have very long service lives. They don't get thrown in the trash every three years. These things are not toys.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
er, statistically speaking, of course.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
If programmers like HIM are writing the code for these "smart" weapons, then I think we should just give the things to our enemies for free.
Defense contractors frequently end up with bad products, but it's usually due to mission creep and gross mismanagement. Based on my experience*, I'd almost guarantee that this guy was lying about his experience. Pretending to have worked on a "top secret" project that you conveniently can't talk about is pretty weak sauce. In reality, there are two kinds of classified projects: mundane ones, where the engineers working on 'em can talk about the "what" of the program in great general detail, but the specific "how" is classified; and REALLY secret ones, which you can't talk about at all, the most you can say is "I work for Lockheed" or whomever. This "I worked on a secret anti-missile program" shit is a load of crap. It falls into the big fat liar zone between mundane and really secret.
* I was an intelligence analyst in the Army. I dealt strictly with excruciatingly mundane secrets. Boring, boring, boring. My father was an engineer for Hughes (now Raytheon). He worked on things like the B-2 Spirit ground mapping radar system. For years he "worked at Hughes", and that was it. Later, he was able to say "I work on the B-2 radar system. You'd be amazed at some of the cool shit we do with it, but I can't say what it is."
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
after careful consideration I've come to the conclusion that your new defence system sucks.
Out of curosity, are you sure that the parent kept the entire population dumb. Your post seems very accusatory of the parent. And saying murder or rape is to be acceptable is beyond idiotic. As far as South Africa not thriving, are we to blame the parent for the utter failure of the whole continent. Give me a break.