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Robot Rebellion Quelled in Iraq
opencity writes "The Register reports that the (perhaps inevitable) robot rebellion has been avoided ... for now. 'Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.' Gizmodo also has a good photo."
If they don't get robots this far, please don't give them guns, ever. EVER.
That's not so bad when we are talking about automated warehouse trucks and similar robots, but when they are armed and constructed to kill it becomes something very serious indeed.
So you'll need a kill-switch, but not one that the enemy can use, so it needs to be complicated, but not too complicated because then it won't work when needed. Not an easy thing to do.
Oh, and there will be bugs in the machine. I have yet to write a single script or program that didn't have a bug in it. And I don't think I'm unique in this aspect. Now, do we really want to let loose a machine designed for killing that we don't have an easy way to shut off and that we know will have bugs in it?
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
youhave30secondstocomply tag?
Great! And it took only 80-90 000 civilian casualties so far and an invasion to a sovreign country under a false pretense and without UN approval so that "things are mostly going rather well over there.".
"wahts woring iwth my tyoping?"
I didn't actually know there were robot warriors, until today. Now I am thinking about whether I think robot warriors are good or really bad.
On the one hand, I it is a Good Thing that robots can be used to fight instead of people, because, if a robot warrior gets destroyed, I won't feel nearly as bad as when a human soldier gets killed.
On the other hand, incurring human casualties and bad feelings when going to war is a Good Thing. The idea that one can go to war by sending the robots and not incur any negativity on the home fronts is really scary. Going to war _should_ be painful.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
So how long before these are available at Army Surplus? I have some cute ideas for mods.
To be honest, this is a robot with a Fricking Awesome Machine gun, much MUCH cooler than sharks with lasers on their heads, what mods would u possibly need to add!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Ok lets see: you started the Iraq war in 2003, it cost ~$845 billion so far, the occupation costs continue at $195 million per day. There is no way you can use terms like "things are mostly going rather well over there" in this context. Apart from that ~100000 dead are accurately described as a bloodbath.
First off, I don't support the Iraq war in any way, shape or form. Regardless, you can't have a war without costs, time spent and casualties. Saying that a war isn't going well because it costs money and people have died and it takes time is incredibly naive. Altho you could make the point that no war can, by definition, go well.
Nobody expects the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
[my question] is why haven't these things been available for years? It seems obvious that some kind of small remote controlled tread based robot with a machine gun would be extremely useful on the battlefield. I mean, it would allow you to hit people that are defended by sniper fire and the like, without worrying about getting hit.
Um, exactly because of problems like this?
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Iraq is no longer threatening to move its oil currency over to the Euro. Mission Accomplished!
Automatic drones with weapons should be illegal, in the same category as banned nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. We (attempt to) control the proliferation of weapons which are only practical for killing civilian populations, and armed robots can easily go in the same category.
It sounds great the idea of saving soldiers lives. But think about when our enemies have armed drones? When they have cheap, easy-to-build, lethal drones that a couple of rebels in the mountains can build with old computer and car parts?
So after reading the article and associated links, I gather that:
1. The U.S. Army commissioned Foster-Miller to modify their TALON remote-controlled vehicle to carry and operate various types of weapons. The modified vehicle is named SWORDS, and erroneously described as a "robot", although it is neither human-like in appearance nor autonomous in operation.
2. Some time later, the Army canceled the production order, citing an "unexpected movement" of a single test unit.
3. Simultaneously, the Army purchased, from the same company, a bigger, badder version of the same product.
Folks, this isn't a failed robotic uprising. It isn't even the over-reaction of a safety-conscious Army Executive. This is an excuse to kill a little project in order to start a bigger one.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Translation: You are fools for believing your biased and slanted corporate-owned media outlets and partisan pundits! MY biased and slanted corporate-owned media outlets and partisan pundits are far superior!
That which does not kill us makes us... st
You make the mistake of assuming that
a) When lancet says 5-600,000 that they mean 500,000 to 600,000, when in fact it means 5.0 - 600,000. (ok a little tongue in cheek, but the lancet study was quite flawed, and significantly overestimated the number of deaths compared to every other study conducted.)
b) That coalition troops are the ones killing the civilians. This is important. While there are certainly collateral deaths due to american troops engaging resistance or perceived resistance, the majority cause of the deaths has been terrorists.
Further, if a guerrilla fires an rpg from the middle of a crowd and the return fire kills or maims members of the crowd, how can you reasonably attribute the casualties to anyone other than the guerrilla? He's the one that escalated the engagement up to "total warfare" rules.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
No, its an infinite loop with a conditional break().
lol: You see no door there!