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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.
..killbots have preset limits.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
But shouldn't this thing have a kill switch? Seriously, my table saw has a kill switch.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes... did anyone even read the books before posting that? seriously, there are issues with those laws.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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?
As a robotics technician with close to 7 years experience working with Automated machines, all I can say is "PLEASE DON'T GIVE THEM GUNS!!!"
Many times I have seen an automated system go out of control due to something as simple as a broken wire on an encoder to an entirely failed controller. Closest thing to this that we ever got was one day a SCARA robot (about the size and shape of a human arm) ran away (out of control) and hit the door on the work cell. Wouldn't have been a big deal except that another of the robotics guys was walking by and walked into the door as it swung open. Good times, good times, but I would never want to be around an automated machine with a gun, just too big of a chance for something to go wrong.
run like hell from our drum-fed, fully automatic robot overlords.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Guess the NRA has to change the slogan... Guns DO kill people!
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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!
Asimov's three laws were meant to be a thought experiment in hubris and unintended consequences. They were sold (in the context of the stories) as the perfect control system for robots, and then there were always "problems" that the USR management couldn't understand and which Susan Calvin needed to figure out and fix.
Asimov wasn't naive, but some of his characters were...
Regards,
Ross
Of course they are. In the AAAD (All Arms Air Defence) training I did in the Royal Artillery we regularly knocked down scale targets that were moving at equivalent speeds with ordinary GPMGs. It wasn't easy at first but after a few thousand rounds you definitely get the hang of it.
A few other points:
* The majority of low level flying targets are subsonic anyway
* It just takes a single hit in the right place on the airframe for the target to tear itself to pieces
* Having a computer fire a weapon is a very very bad thing, One of the principles that was drummed into us was a human must always pull the trigger. Always. Computers can aim for you, make the tracking easier, calculate the numbers, whatever - anything but actually fire the weapon. That should always be done by a person with the correct training and authorisation.
If this weapon fired by itself because of a software glitch, then it's poorly designed.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
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 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.
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.
That's funny, because as a human, with close to 40 years experience working with other humans, all *I* can say is "PLEASE DON'T KEEP GIVING *THEM* GUNS!!!"
I would never want to be around a human with a gun, just too big of a chance for something to go wrong.
Maybe that's what they tell the grunts. Congratulations, you managed to shoot down large mock targets that weren't shooting back.
Think you can shoot down supersonic missile flying below the horizon? No. They let the computer guided robots do that. You're not nearly good enough at it. Ok, maybe you get lucky and nail it. Now try thirty in five seconds all coming from different bearings. Didn't think so.
Question everything
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.