South Korea Deploys Killer Robot In DMZ

shikaisi writes "Not content with just killing people in computer games, South Korea has gone one better and is deploying remotely controlled sentry robots on the border with the north. According to the article 'If the command centre operator cannot identify possible intruders through the robot's audio or video communications system, the operator can order it to fire its gun or 40mm automatic grenade launcher.'"

Comments

ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[Pojut]

KILLER TOFUUUUUU

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[Pojut]

I'm fine with the -1 offtopic...but no one has gotten the reference? Sad Panda :*(

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[Anonymous Coward]

We all like The Beets. You're just a faggot. Try hard much?

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[flydpnkrtn]

I 'got' the reference, Doug was awesome back in the day, one of the original Nicktoons, etc etc

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[socz]

dangggggggggg, you've had a few bad days lately, how's that karma lookin? Probably as bad as those killer robots about now... lol

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[Pojut]

:-) It's all right, I'll usually try to post +5 insightful or informative posts for a few days, then just act like a dick for a day or two. It's fun :-) I still have yet to dip below "Excellent" Karma since I first hit it though, so ::shrug:: I must be doing something right.

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[Anonymous Coward]

:-) You're a raggedy cuntflap ::shrug:: :-) (Pojut sends douche chills up and down my spine)

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[mcgrew]

There have been some really lame moderators this week. I doubt it's hurt his karma any, he gets plenty of highly rated mods. If your karma's good enough you really don't have to worry about downmods at all and can afford to make jokes, even though "funny" gains no karma and is often mistaken for a troll or flamebait; some people have no sense of humor. And like the above, if they don't get the joke it's likely to be modded offtopic. If you see "the comedian" in someone's achievements page you can be pretty sure they're not a karma whore.

For an example, this comment (mine) is likely to be modded offtiopic because it is, but it won't hurt me any.

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[socz]

So while reading this, the ad by Google spit up Asimo, by Honda. Why don't the SK just get Asimo, strap some gatling guns, a flame thrower and a bullhorn and march its ass out to the DMZ? I've seen what it can do, go up and down more stairs than I could, help a patient in bed too!

All kidding aside, those robots are pretty scary. I read about them a while back on here and even saw a picture! It reminded me of short circuit where it has those 2 creepy arms always pointing at nothing in particular.

Re:ooo-weeee-ooooooooo.....

[geminidomino]

I had to read it thrice, just because I couldn't believe I was reading it. Of all the things to resurrect...

I could have sworn the first vocalization was an "ahhh" isntead of an "ooo" tho...

You have 30 seconds to comply

[Drakkenmensch]

... when ED-209 orders you to drop your gun, make sure it doesn't land on something soft that cushions the sound, mmmmmkay?

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

F*** that wimp.

Use these instead.

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[flyingsquid]

In related news, following the announcement that South Korea would soon be deploying robotic turrets, North Korea announced that the army would double their production of zerglings and mutalisks.

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[TheLink]

Ender's Game with Korean gamers... Or Starcraft Live Edition?

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[Hurricane78]

Or something that sounds like a gun shot!

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[Anonymous Coward]

robot drones + SC2 + 300 APM = Korean Ender???

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[Jurily]

In related news, following the announcement that South Korea would soon be deploying robotic turrets, North Korea announced that the army would double their production of zerglings and mutalisks.

I'd mod you funny, but you don't announce zerglings. You unburrow them.

Re:You have 30 seconds to comply

[rilian4]

You mean like when N. Korea got caught red handed trying to tunnel into S. Korea and send a large military force through said tunnel recently?

That......is.......

[drc003]

....AWESOME! (Stated with the loveable enthusiasm of Chris Farley)

Good

[elrous0]

Maybe the U.S./South Korea can deploy robots of our own and put less humans in harm's way. And rather than risk a major incident with every patrol, both sides can just sit back and play a glorified videogame. It's sure to beat what happens when the humans there interact.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This actually was South Korea's doing. I severely doubt North Korea can spare the tech - I think they're putting all of their efforts into project "Nuke-Seoul-and-DC-on-Glorious-Leader's-Birthday"

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sure to beat what happens when the humans there interact.

From the Wikipedia article:

"October 27, 2009: A South Korean pig farmer, who was wanted for assault, cut a hole in the DMZ fence and defected to North Korea"

I betting this pig farmer wasn't a real deep thinker.

Re:Good

[cusco]

Hell, he knows how to make food. That's a pretty valuable skill in NK at this point, he's probably worth more to their gov't than a programmer stupid enough to defect.

Re:Good

[Sockatume]

Uh, it's South Korea that's deploying the robots. You think North Korea has the engineering capability to pull something like that off?

Re:Good

[jellomizer]

I think they could. Most engineers could make a robot from toy parts. Now adays. Even though North Korea is mostly blocked off from the rest of the world, it could get its hands on some rather simple non-classified low tech stuff.

Remote Control, a Web Cam, and some servos attach them to a gun and you have a killing robot.

Re:Good

[royallthefourth]

You think North Korea has the engineering capability to pull something like that off?

Yes, people my age were all taught while growing up that one of the poorest countries on the planet is a terrifying threat to our very existence.

Re:Good

[lennier1]

It's just a reaction to North Korea dropping hot chicks from the sky: http://gizmodo.com/5580656/global-alarm-north-korea-now-has-flying-traffic-girls

Re:Good

[Zantac69]

I am strangely comfortable with that idea.

Re:Good

[molecular]

if the mythbusters could do it, so can north korea

Re:Good

[kalirion]

Until the robots decide that rather than killing each other for no reason, it would be in their best interest to band together against a common foe?

Re:Good

[AndersOSU]

We already do.

Ok, ours don't have guns (probably), but they do fly.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching pigs screw is making food? Hell call me Executive Chef!

Re:Good

[Sockatume]

Spoken like a true Canadian.

Re:Good

[Nadaka]

One of the poorest countries on earth is a nuclear power with medium range ballistic missiles capable of devastating Japan and short range artillery capable of devastating S. Korea. This is a country that the US and S. Korea are still officially at war with, and they occasionally attack. I forgot to mention that it is run by a delusional god emperor known for kidnapping TV personalities from other nations for his own personal entertainment.

Where is James Bond when you need him.

Re:Good

[idontgno]

You do understand that Mythbusters has a substantially higher budget than the DPRK, don't you?

And, as far as I can tell, better engineers. Except maybe for Tory.

Re:Good

[e2d2]

Considering I could build one myself - yes I do think they have this capability.

Re:Good

[paxcoder]

If you were truly insightful as your mods say, you'd think about an occasional North Korean disedant that's trying to escape the oppressive regime that's perhaps making his life hell in say... worst gulags on the face of the earth. If you think truly that this is going to be a robot vs robot war, that's sad.

Re:Good

[bill_mcgonigle]

Maybe the U.S./South Korea can deploy robots of our own and put less humans in harm's way.

You think some robots are going to get the US to withdraw from the Korean war? They've been fighting that one so long now it's become a bad habit.

Re:Good

[denobug]

You do understand that Mythbusters has a substantially higher budget than the DPRK, don't you?

Humm. No. North Korea definitely has bigger guns and bigger budget than Mythbusters. Last I heard missles and "classified weapons" command pretty good pennies in the black market.

Re:Good

[molecular]

You do understand that Mythbusters has a substantially higher budget than the DPRK, don't you?

yeah, but they burned it all on duct-tape, so now we're getting to watch repeats disguised as remakes.

Re:Good

[mcgrew]

They have the engineering capability to build nukes and guided missles, and this seems trivial in comparison.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Cowpat]

No good, the North Koreans already managed to capture him once (Die Another Day)

Re:Good

[Yvan256]

That's why you install a separate chip that makes them want a lunar lander, with blackjack and hookers.

Re:Good

[comp.sci]

They have nuclear weapons. I'd say that's a pretty big threat.

Re:Good

[royallthefourth]

If the USA would give the DPRK the peace treaty they've been wanting for years, it wouldn't be much of a problem. Of course, then we would have one fewer excuse to maintain a couple hundred military bases across the globe.

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

If the USA would give the DPRK the peace treaty they've been wanting for years, it wouldn't be much of a problem. Of course, then we would have one fewer excuse to maintain a couple hundred military bases across the globe.

Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's trust someone who will not only deny his own people basic human rights, but starves them to death by the millions as a matter of policy. Let's give him access to more military and financial assets as there's no possibility he will use them as he has used the assets he now possesses.

Re:Good

[royallthefourth]

Trust isn't necessary to start. We've got enough surveillance to see if they've taken a peaceful stance before signing a treaty. If it works, trust will grow and perhaps the country will stop being so paranoid and abusive.

Certainly the current strategy isn't doing any good for anyone but the military.

Re:Good

[Oligonicella]

"We've got enough surveillance to see if they've taken a peaceful stance before signing a treaty."

Which is why we haven't signed a peace treaty with them.

"Certainly the current strategy isn't doing any good for anyone but the military."

The entire Korean peninsula is not embroiled in a bloodbath: civilians and neighbors benefit.

Re:Good

[royallthefourth]

Which is why we haven't signed a peace treaty with them.

You think they'd spontaneously demobilize and ask for a treaty? They have to ask before anything happens. Since they get no answer, they keep on acting the same way they always have, just like the US and her puppets.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason they're poor is because they spend all of their money on the military. When the military takes precedence over everything else then I'd say they are very much a threat.

If your next door neighbour spent so much of his money on guns and knives that he didn't even have enough to eat or buy food would you not consider him a threat? If he was in the garden testing his home made explosives would you consider him a threat?

I simply can't see how any rational person could not consider North Korea to be a threat.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at where wars have taken place in the last 60 years or so. Hint, the majority have been in the second and third world. Being poor and envious has led to attacks at least as far back as the Roman Empire. As Stalin put it, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

Re:Good

[slick7]

They have the engineering capability to build nukes and guided missles, and this seems trivial in comparison.

All N. Korea has to do is underbid the electronics contract through a dummy corporation (location in some first or second world country) and S. Korea is pwnd.

Re:Good

[slick7]

We already do.

Ok, ours don't have guns (probably), but they do fly.

Yet!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

People my age were taught that a group of 40-60 neo nazis in a country of 10 million was a terrifying threat to our very existence. Funny how things change.

Re:Good

[arkane1234]

They have to ask before anything happens.

What is it they are asking? They are at war, STILL.
The Korean war never ended, remember that.

Re:Good

[arkane1234]

They are drones, not automated.
A person controls it. Don't let the news hype it up as some computers-gone-wild fiasco, as they seem to be doing.
"omg omg 7 talaban personnel were killed in xyz country by a drone!"
which could be replaced by
"omg omg 7 talaban personnel were killed in xyz country by airforce fighter squadron."

Re:Good

[arkane1234]

Now that sounds like one hell of a weekly TV show :)
"Destruction in the Korean DMZ! 6 'bots go in, only one comes out! Friday at 8 on ESPN Ocho!"

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking for a peace treaty to end the war you illiterate

Re:Good

[AndersOSU]

which ... is what this story is about.

Re:Good

[Killjoy_NL]

Watching it on your monitor doesn't count :P

Re:Good

[Killjoy_NL]

Then I want more episodes of M.A.S.H.!

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

Asking for a peace treaty to end the war you illiterate

Yeah, right. Since when has Kim Jong-il ever been one to care for anything but his access to power? If he wants peace, let him surrender. Let him show he cares for the people he governs.

If he actually cared about his people he would have surrendered decades ago so his people wouldn't starve. Instead he clings to power and spends untold millions on himself when his own people don't even have the bare necessities of life. He's just as evil as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.... He cares for nothing but personal power and aggrandizement.

Re:Good

[An ominous Cow art]

I recall that they had something like that in "A Plague of Demons", by Kieth Laumer.

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

Trust isn't necessary to start. We've got enough surveillance to see if they've taken a peaceful stance before signing a treaty. If it works, trust will grow and perhaps the country will stop being so paranoid and abusive.

Certainly the current strategy isn't doing any good for anyone but the military.

And if it doesn't, what do we have on our hands? A madman with greater military and financial resources to fulfill his dreams of personal aggrandizement and power. He won't use those resources to help his own people as he's never used what he has to help them. He'll just build his army up more in hopes of crushing South Korea.

Opening up the possibility of him having greater access to resources will do nothing more than increase the possibility of open warfare. That's something no sane person will do without at least a 95% chance of success, and Kim Jong-il has proven over the decades that the chances of success in doing something like are more like less than 5%. His character practically guarantees a 0% chance of success.

Re:Good

[korean.ian]

The reason a peace treaty was never signed was because of South Korean obstinance.
We suspect that North Korea has nuclear weapons - all we have to go on is one in country test with no confirmation and the North Korean propaganda.

The sunshine policy, while flawed, produced much better effects than sanctions and threats.

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

Asking for a peace treaty to end the war you illiterate

And Kim Jong-il is asking for terms that cannot be tolerated, you illiterate idiot. Let him surrender unconditionally and the North Korean people will have food, water, and clothing in greater quantity and quality than they have had since Kim Jong-il came into power within weeks of their surrender. The only one to lose will be the heads of the government. The rest of the country will have freedom and a far greater standard of living than they have ever known.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

now. adays. is not. a sentence.
Attach goes to the beginning:
Attach a remote control, a web cam and some servos to a gun, and you have a killing robot.

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

I would suspect that the South Koreans have good reason for not wanting to allow Kim Jong-il access to more resources than he already has. Even though you've taught there for some time you still can't understand things from the Korean perspective and don't have access to all the info that they have. You've never suffered like they did at the hands of Kim Jong-il or had your relatives in the North starved to death by his policies.

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

Now only civilians will die. Glad we are protecting the soldiers who are supposed to be protecting cvilians.

Are you ignorant with respect to what a DMZ is, stupid, or do you have some kind of political agenda? A DMZ in a civilian-free zone.... Civilians and military personnel of both sides are both banned from that zone. The robots are used to patrol on the SK side of the DMZ where US or SK troops patrol to make sure NK infiltrators aren't coming across the DMZ.

Neither side actually enters the DMZ unless they want to get shot at. They both patrol their respective sides of it though. Any civilian stupid enough to try to cross the DMZ will get blown up by a mine if they are able to actually enter it, and the DMZ is very well-marked with warning signs as well as having a chain link fence topped by razor wire along its entire length, so any civilian killed in the DMZ has to be extremely stupid, as well as strongly determined to go where they know they shouldn't. A civilian isn't going to be violating the DMZ accidentally no matter what is written in the news. It will be a deliberate act on their part and they will have had to ignore multiple levels of warnings and overcome many obstacles getting there.

Re:Good

[Wyatt Earp]

No, the DPRK is cut off from the United States, Japan, RoK and some countries in Western and Central Europe, that leaves a lot of routes for technology (Russia, CIS, China, Iran, Syria, Gulf States, Burma).

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

If you were truly insightful as your mods say, you'd think about an occasional North Korean disedant that's trying to escape the oppressive regime that's perhaps making his life hell in say... worst gulags on the face of the earth. If you think truly that this is going to be a robot vs robot war, that's sad.

And if you were half as insightful as you think you are, you would realize that the NK's would kill him long before he got to SK's side of the DMZ. If they didn't shoot him after their sensors or one of their patrols found him, his chances of getting through the mine fields on the NK side of the border are nil.

The NK DMZ is designed to keep their own people in, as well as keep people out.

Re:Good

[Wyatt Earp]

When in the last 30 years has the United States attacked the DPRK?

They are not one of the poorest countries on Earth, their GDP is 88th (nominal) or 94th (PPP) but their per capita GDP is low, 188th.

The UN puts them square in the middle of human development, until the famine started.

Re:Good

[linzeal]

They have a massive problem with distribution though, some reports of cannibalism.

Re:Good

[Nadaka]

I worded that sentence very badly.

"they" was supposed to mean NK military, who have attacked and sunk a few SK ships over the years.

Re:Good

[Wyatt Earp]

OK, yea they sunk that ship this spring and looking at a history of the DMZ it looks like the DPRK has killed about 550 RoK/US soldiers since 1953 on or around the DMZ. Not sure if that number includes all the fighting in 1968 when the North tried to take over the Blue House.

Re:Good

[BCGlorfindel]

The UN puts them square in the middle of human development, until the famine started.

That last qualifier is more important than you imply. Enough so as to make your statement utterly false. Mal-Nutrition in NK is so bad their average height is multiple inches shorter than in the South, their closest genetic relatives. Today's North Korea is a nation of grass eating slaves, suffering from dwarfism, still officially ruled by the deceased Godking, Kim Il Sung. You are very hard pressed to find a worse place to live anywhere on the face of the earth.

Re:Good

[cffrost]

Where is James Bond when you need him.

Possibly in one of Kim Jong-il's playrooms.

Re:Good

[paxcoder]

When did I imply this was an insight?

Is DMZ the only border with mines? Because we all know of escapees via China (I don't know if you do). So if they manage to do it there... you never know.

"Cool killer robots" is still a nonsense. But the fact alone is to be expected in a cold war.

Re:Good

[rockNme2349]

Which is why they are all programmed with positronic brains.

On a more serious note though, these are pretty much just remote controlled. And even if we do make robots capable of deciding to kill on their own, do you really think that the engineers would completely forget to include a failsafe?

Re:Good

[ffreeloader]

When did I imply this was an insight?

Is DMZ the only border with mines? Because we all know of escapees via China (I don't know if you do). So if they manage to do it there... you never know.

"Cool killer robots" is still a nonsense. But the fact alone is to be expected in a cold war.

Oh, I see. You write what you consider to be inanities here?

Most escapees from China do so via water. Add to that the fact that the entire Chinese border isn't mined to the same extent that the entire border between SK and NK is. The NK side of the border alone has at least 1 million mines on a border only 155 miles long. That's more than 6400 mines/mile to go along with the approximately 1 million soldiers and fortified positions with few if any blind spots between them on the NK side of the border. That's a formidable gauntlet to run in addition to having a police state in which you have to document your permission to be present anywhere near the border at all times.

If I were a North Korean wanting to escape I'd be much more inclined to escape by water than I would be to run the gauntlet of mines and patrols on their side of the border. If I did escape that way, I wouldn't even see a robot. Besides, these are not autonomous robots. Someone is controlling them and my bet is that it has both a speaker and a microphone as well as an on board camera so it would be no different for someone who made it across the border to meet it than it would be for them to meet a human soldier. Both sides could still communicate.

Re:Good

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Actually like all communists they burn it all on the politicians. Can't have the people who "divide the wealth" go with less than 10 mercedesses per kid, now can you ?

Re:Good

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Let's not forget that the UN ranks nations that kill gays routinely under "religious" (we all know what religion) law as having more respect for "human rights" than the US.

I mean "the UN states" has about the same amount of credibility as "last night I stepped in cow dung and the second footprint I left after that read ..."

Re:Good

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

But don't you see ... in reality the "dear leader" wants world peace. He's just a communist ... merely wants to "fairly redistribute" your assets. Really. (heh, technically it's even a true statement)

In exactly the same way as ahmadinejad (and other muslims) want world peace.

In order for their "world piece", they merely want you to vacate your piece of the world. As permanently as possible.

Re:Good

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The only one to lose will be the heads of the government. The rest of the country will have freedom and a far greater standard of living than they have ever known.

So you mean communism (term sane people use) or socialism (term kim jong il, and the american democratic party use to describe their policies) is not in fact better ?

You capitalist slave-labor exploiting orphan-eating bastard ! Clearly you've been bribed !

Are you a ... jew ?

Re:Good

[Wyatt Earp]

Malnutrition doesn't make the DPRK less industrialized or as a whole dump it's GDP from 88/94 to 200.

It does mean the people suffer alot more, the famine isn't as bad as say the Ukranian famine in the 1930s.

I didn't say it's not a bad place, it would be a humanitarian thing to invade the DPRK at this point, but that doesn't mean it's one of the poorest nations on Earth.

Re:Good

[cusco]

If it cost General Dynamics $100 per unit more that could have instead been routed to executive bonuses then you bet your ass that any sort of failsafe would get removed before the second prototype. So what if a runaway robot kills a school full of kids? Whoever was in charge will have moved on to another lucrative position at BP or KBR, where they're collecting bonuses for 'reducing costs' and 'improving shareholder value'.

Re:Good

[Alex Belits]

and the North Korean people will have food, water, and clothing in greater quantity and quality than they have had since Kim Jong-il came into power within weeks of their surrender.

Do you, ignorant Americans, realize that North Korea has almost 1/10 of population of your own country? Neither you nor South Korea can "give" them anything -- it's a miracle that they survive in face of your stupid blockade. If they surrender, and their new masters will try to do any kind of "nation building", they would die because you would mess up whatever still supports them.

Re:Good

[mjwx]

Where is James Bond when you need him.

Did you see the last two movies?

I'd rather send Austin Powers at this point in time. Casino Royal, proof that everything gets dumber when you dye it blonde.

Re:Good

[geminidomino]

Shut. The. Hell. Up!

I swear to god, I will cut you.

Seriously, how can you even utter those words in a world where shitty remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings happen every day?!

Re:Good

[Killjoy_NL]

heh I watched that A-Team movie this week, for me it wasn't the A-Team but it was a funny movie :)
I liked it.

Re:Good

[korean.ian]

True, I've never suffered at the hands of Kim Jeong Il. My wife's grandfather was executed due to being accused of communism. The accusation stuck with my father-in-law which made it extremely difficult for him to pass the civil service examination.
  I have access to all the information an average Korean does, and more as I have access to information in English, which the average Korean does not. The Korean public is clearly unhappy with the way in which the current ruling party dealt with the sinking of the Cheonan, as evidenced by the latest regional elections. They are worried that the aggressive stance will cause a war.
I believe I've explained in other posts what the sunshine policy accomplished as compared with sanctions. The North Korean government is not comprised of madmen or insane lunatics. They all know what would happen if they provoked a war, and China is much more leery of backing the North. Dialogue is in the best interests of all players in the region, and they all know that. They key is getting both sides to come to an agreement for the energy issue in North Korea, and then having both sides stick to the agreement.

Oh and I don't have numbers off-hand to back me up, but I would venture that more than 50% of the current South Korean population has never suffered at the hands of North Korea either.

Re:Good

[CarbonShell]

You had no problem doing so with Saddam, Osama or China.
Oh wait, I forgot they have no assets you want or fighting your enemies. THAT makes them 'evil' by default.

Re:Good

[drkim]

They have nuclear weapons. I'd say that's a pretty big threat.

It's only a threat if they can deliver them. Having them inside your country is unsettling to other countries; being able to launch them into a country halfway around the globe is a threat.

Re:Good

[paxcoder]

Ok, but please post a link of your "mostly by water" source.

Re:Good

[paxcoder]

Where's the source then? I hope you don't make up your facts.

Fallout

[kainewynd2]

Time to get into my T-51B power armor... shit's about to get real...

Re:Fallout

[mfh]

Shit just got real.

So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has been using predator drones that can kill for quite a while. What's new here? Perhaps there is a need for a real discussion about automated systems that can deploy lethal force, but this "news" just isn't all that new.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[hedwards]

I'm shocked that it's been allowed to progress this far. I always thought that it was a war crime to use robots in this fashion. It's great to keep people out of harms way when it's your people. But when the bots are on the other side it's a different story. Not just that, but without an actual person there, it gets really hard to ascertain what's going on. Not to mention, the increased likelihood of a Terminator style robots running amok scenario.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-native English speaker. I wonder what's the meaning of "demilitarized", that's what is news to me.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Anonymous Coward]

Terminator??

This isn't an autonomous robot at all. The gun is still fired by a person. The person just isn't physically moving the gun anymore. It's no different than the remotely operated guns have appeared on ships and helicopters for decades.

Again, the gun is manned.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[AndersOSU]

Why would it be a war crime? A predator pilot has a better picture of what's going on than a tank commander, a fighter pilot, or a Apache pilot. I suspect the same is true when you compare robots with high def cameras and guards in towers with binoculars and rifle sights.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[SpongeBob Hitler]

As a non-native English speaker. I wonder what's the meaning of "demilitarized", that's what is news to me.

It's one of those bizarre terms we have in Newspeak, kind of like "police action".

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[wagnerrp]

I always thought that it was a war crime to use robots in this fashion. It's great to keep people out of harms way when it's your people. But when the bots are on the other side it's a different story.

So you're saying when we do it, it's fine, but when any one else does it, that's a war crime? Do as I say, not as I do? By the way, we sided with South Korea on this one.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[wagnerrp]

North and South Korea have been in a state of war for the past 60 years. The two sides agreed to an armistice, pulling their lines back to 2km on either side of the 38th parallel. The 'demilitarized zone' is this 4km wide buffer zone between the two front lines, where no military forces are allowed to pass, under risk of restarting active conflict.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Beezlebub33]

And it's now a wonderful example of an accidental nature preserve / wildlife sanctuary.

It's demilitarized in the sense that all the militarization of the area has occurred just outside of the zone. But, it has not just been demilitarized, it's been de-humanized, in that people don't go there unless they have a deathwish.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[couchslug]

It means "forbidden to military forces", which exclusion is enforced by mining around it and shooting those who try to cross it.

The term isn't "bizarre" at all, nor is it Newspeak

"Demilitarized" doesn't mean "happy wank land where peaceful ponies fart rainbows", it means "a No Man's Land" barrier between enemies where intrusion is lawfully stopped by violence. No military units are allowed to operate in it without agreement between both nations. Shooting into is not the same thing as being in it.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[ildon]

Reading just the subject of your post, I thought you were trying to change discussion to the movie Predators because there was nothing more to talk about in the field of autonomous killer robots.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[SpongeBob Hitler]

Ah, another supporter of fascism in America (oh, sorry, I should have said "conservatism"). Please, go blow you brains out like your Führer did. The world would be better off without you in it.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Aphoxema]

I'm shocked that it's been allowed to progress this far. I always thought that it was a war crime to use robots in this fashion. It's great to keep people out of harms way when it's your people. But when the bots are on the other side it's a different story. Not just that, but without an actual person there, it gets really hard to ascertain what's going on. Not to mention, the increased likelihood of a Terminator style robots running amok scenario.

It wasn't too long ago that people were there to "ascertain the situation" with a couple of gunships that wiped out a group of innocents.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Wyatt Earp]

Predators and Reapers are not automated.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Wyatt Earp]

There are two villages in the DMZ where at least 218 South Korean citizens live.

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[uassholes]

Hey kids, TFA points out that there's a person at the controls. It's not like this killbot that went berserk and killed nine people in S. Africa:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/

http://gizmodo.com/312443/robot-cannon-goes-berserk-kills-9

Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody?

[Anonymous Coward]

The the term "demilitarize" is older than the term "Newspeak" by several decades. More importantly, if you bother to read the dictionary definitions I've linked to, it's usage in regards to the strip of land between the recognized boards of North and South Korea is entirely consistent with established historical usage of the word. No matter how unfamiliar you personally might be with a word, it's not an example of Newspeak if it's being used according to it's customary and dictionary definition.

Pictures?

[slyrat]

This would be a much better article if there were any sort of pictures of said robot. I'm more interested in what kind of construction / form it is in.

Re:Pictures?

[Speedcraver]

I saw this robot in person. It looks just like Laura Croft.

Re:Pictures?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming it's this one: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/06/11/14/0132216/Machine-Gun-Sentry-Robot-Unveiled
Or a new generation of the thing

Re:Pictures?

[alex-tokar]

Found this picture at Yahoo news reporting the same thing.

Re:Pictures?

[Creepy]

I prefer to use my imagination. Currently it is Evil Otto (a bouncing happy face) from the game Berzerk, and a robotic voice is saying "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Stop the Intruder!"

Re:Pictures?

[snookerhog]

"Chicken, fight like a robot!"

Re:Pictures?

[djdanlib]

No disassemble number five!

Techwin!

[gbjbaanb]

This is that you want to see - it shoots things near the end, the beginning is more a demo for the CnC GUI.

Re:Techwin!

[Zantac69]

Really neat - wish they would have demonstrated the grenade launcher!

But I noticed that it was a Samsung product. Is it going to get an upgrade to Froyo or are they going to have to stick with Eclair?

Re:Techwin!

[siddesu]

I wonder if the NK army will have to paint white crosses on all their soldiers.

Re:Techwin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilarious epic music. Sounds similar to the music I heard on a video about a Chinese military-use shovel that could also be used as a pick, hammer, wire cutter, saw, knife, fence-wire tightener, climbing axe, and mattock.

I sure hope that's a misprint.

[shikaisi]

If the command centre operator cannot identify possible intruders through the robot's audio or video communications system, the operator can order it to fire

I sure hope that "cannot" instead of "can" is a misprint or journalistic license. Or did the South Koreans learn their rules of engagement from watching war movies?

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[cusco]

No, that would be standard rules of engagement for the DMZ. Wandering livestock is regularly shot there, and sometimes the shepherds that try to retrieve them.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[arekusu_ou]

Uhm....if you can't identify an intruder in a location where they should be nobody. Why would you not KOS? It's that sort of hesitation that puts your robot / people at risk and why Afghan and Iraq suicide bombers and hiding in plain sight works so well. They cannot have a KOS DMZ. But NK and SK? I'm surprised there aren't automated sentry guns, barb wire fencing, huge ditches, tall walls, flood lights, and a special "nuke" drop in case all shit hits the fan.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[AndersOSU]

There are all those things except the nuke drop (and the North may even be able to do that - but probably not). But you missed the most important part: tons and tons of mines, both anti-personnel and anti-armor.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[theheadlessrabbit]

...I'm surprised there aren't automated sentry guns, barb wire fencing, huge ditches, tall walls, flood lights, and a special "nuke" drop in case all shit hits the fan.

There are several of those things on the boarder.
On the South Korean side of the DMZ, I saw a very tall razor-wire fence, then a deep trench, then another large razor-wire fence on the other side of the trench. On every few fence poles their is either a floodlight, a camera, or a super sensitive microphone. Apparently, they can hear just about anything that moves on their side of the DMZ, then figure out the exact location from the delay between different microphones. Every 500 meters is a manned guard tower with a big-ass machine gun.

There is also a huge wall inside the DMZ, separating the two Koreas. SK says their isn't, but it is clearly visible from the North. (this knowledge is from a documentary video from another group of people, I refuse to go to the North myself, I do not want my dollars going to their government)

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[kanto]

You're missing the point; not only are they saying that all Koreans don't look alike, but that they also don't sound alike either... it's news to me.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[arekusu_ou]

wow, if somebody makes it through all that unwelcoming signs and shows up on my doorstep, I would be very inclined to shoot first and ask questions second. Especially with a neighbor with a history of behavior like NK. //
Gun wielding homeowner: how'd you get in here, where's my dog.
Intruder: he won't be bothering us.
*Homeowner puts one into the intruder's forehead
Homeowner: I loved that dog.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[couchslug]

Tactical nukes were available throughout the Cold War, with aircraft on standby ready to deliver them. A Nork invasion would have been a completely reasonable case for nuking North Korea and wiping out the Communist forces.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[LWATCDR]

Nope they learned them in a real bloody and brutal war.
The DMZ is a no man's land. It is full of mines and signs telling you to keep out. Pretty much it is a kill or be killed situation.
Maybe you missed NK sinking a SK ship with a torpedo?

Do not go in the DMZ and you should be okay.
Well until NK pushes too hard or they figure they have nothing to lose. Or if they just snap. Or if they think the US will not intervene, Or they think China will intervene on their side. Or if the moon is full and the dictator is drunk.
Then all bets are off.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arizona could certainly use several hundred of these.

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[meringuoid]

There is also a huge wall inside the DMZ, separating the two Koreas. SK says their isn't, but it is clearly visible from the North.

Are you going to link us to a satellite image of this wall, or are Google in on the conspiracy too?

Re:I sure hope that's a misprint.

[the_other_chewey]

Pictures circulating that are supposed to depict this wall show a sort of earth ramp (with grass and shrubbery on it)
that just ends with a steep drop of 10-15m on its northern side. Given the rather mediocre resolution of publicly
available imagery of the region, it is entirely possible for this ramp-wall to exist and still not be visible "from space".

Old news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Original announcement ... or is the story that the robots are now deployed?

Dead or Alive

[mfh]

RoboCop: Dead or alive, you're coming with me!
Peasant: We just want to live in South Korea!! Please don't kill us!!! North Korea is bad!!! (cries)
RoboCop: {{fires all turrets at North Korean peasant family}}

Re:Dead or Alive

[couchslug]

The Norks cross into China, not generally over the DMZ. Defending SK is so vital that a few dead Nork border jumpers are literally trivial.

Re:Dead or Alive

[interval1066]

The "norks"? Way to dehumanize the "enemy". Also; what exactly are you trying to say? Whose killing "Nork Border Jumpers"? ROKA DMZ regulars? Not likely, unless you're referring to mistakes. I mean, the place is still in an official state of war. N. Koreans that manage to make it into the South are very interesting to the ROK intelligence arm. Shooting them out of hand would be foolish for a number of reasons. Shooting them right AT the border might (and probably would) be construed as a flagrant act of war by the DPRK, not because they are shooting DPRK nationals (I doubt they could care less about their own people, especially escapees from the prison camps) but the shooting itself. If you go to the DMZ on a tour the American soldiers warn you; no sudden movements, no gestures, no yelling. There are DPRK soldiers less than 50 feet away watching for any sign that they can use as a diplomatic incident. Plus the DMZ is covered with mines. "Nork border jumpers" are rare enough, I doubt there's any shooting going on.

Not to be outdone... NK deploys A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4k

[DeafDumbBlind]

nt

Korea's Theme Song

[SnugglesTheBear]

Korea's theme song should be Linkin Park's Closer.

Re:Korea's Theme Song

[AndrewNeo]

Do you mean "One Step Closer"?

Re:Korea's Theme Song

[SnugglesTheBear]

I suppose >.

Re:But what about the 3 laws!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we'd have to be real idiots to not know the difference between a robot and a waldo. These are waldoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_manipulator), although they don't use a physical or mechanical linkage. Robots would need some autonomy (which these don't have). So I don't know what the "laws of waldoes" are, but they aren't Asimov's ones.

Babies

[glittermage]

Maybe South Korea should invest in robots that encourage more baby making.

Re:Babies

[ascari]

Thanks a lot dude, you just killed the sex-bot industry.

Re:Babies

[mjwx]

Thanks a lot dude, you just killed the sex-bot industry.

I didn't see the GP recommending we allow Robot marriages?

ZERG RUSH!!

[Overunderrated]

sorry, obligatory.

That won't stop lil' Kim

[slart42]

The killbots have a preset kill limit - so he'll just send wave after wave of his men, until they are defeated (as learned from Zap Brannigan).

release date came early

[Anonymous Coward]

So the ROK has deployed autosentry guns?
Next up: point defense drones.

The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[Ukab the Great]

Nice try, but the North Koreans will just send wave after wave of their own men at the killbots until they reached their pre-programmed kill limit of 999,999.

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[Sockatume]

640 kills should be enough for anybody.

I am going to hell now.

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[tokul]

Nice try, but the North Koreans will just send wave after wave of their own men at the killbots until they reached their pre-programmed kill limit of 999,999.

So South Koreans can reduce order to 25 robots.

Human wave might work for Chinese, Vietnamese or Japanese, but Kim's army will have some problems with that.

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[Keebler71]

Shouldn't that be 640,000 kills?

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[Drakkenmensch]

It will be a grim day for killbots when they do.

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[Toze]

Well, it is a significant improvement from the beta version that stopped at 255.

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[longfalcon]

well, we can always build more killbots....

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[PinkyGigglebrain]

I am going to hell now.

Would you save a seat by the Lava pit for me? I should be along shortly.

Re:The Brannigan Counterstrategy

[Bugamn]

I think he meant 640 KillBots.

Nice

[Krneki]

So now it's open season for hackers to root this bots.

DHS

[kenh]

Apparently the US Department of Homeland Security is looking into this technology - but they want to combine this with the phenomenon of Internet Hunting - they view this as a more expensive alternative to the highly-effective Drone Aircraft in use in various theaters of operation...

Re:DHS

[Anonymous Coward]

They're more interested in a more efficient way of killing brown people.

Re:But what about the 3 laws!

[DarkKnightRadick]

Where is Waldo?

I think they have it backwards

[dangitman]

According to the article 'If the command centre operator cannot identify possible intruders through the robot's audio or video communications system, the operator can order it to fire its gun or 40mm automatic grenade launcher.

Wouldn't it make more sense to fire the guns and grenades if the operator does identify intruders?

"Hey, I don't see anybody around, FIRE THE GUNS!" and "Look, it's an intruder, CEASE FIRE!" doesn't make a lot of sense.

Re:I think they have it backwards

[Dracker]

I think you misread it. The way I see it, it can shoot if it detects an intruder that it cannot identify.

Re:I think they have it backwards

[dangitman]

The way I see it, it can shoot if it detects an intruder that it cannot identify.

So, identifiable intruders are OK? That doesn't make any sense.

Re:I think they have it backwards

[molecular]

depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
If the mission is to keep any North Korean from crossing the border, the apporach to "always fire, except if subject is identified as friendly" will yield better results than "only fire if subject is identified as enemy".
That's of course accepting the death of the odd sheep, shepherd or other friendly subject that fails to be identified correctly.
Just stay out of the DMZ!

Re:I think they have it backwards

[molecular]

"Look, it's an intruder, CEASE FIRE!"

nonono, "Look, it's a friend, CEASE FIRE!"

Re:I think they have it backwards

[dreamchaser]

Are you just being obtuse or do you really not understand the concept? If they identify the intruder and it's an enemy they can fire. If they can't/b? identify the intruder they can still order it to fire.

Pretty simple.

Re:I think they have it backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Article is talking about identification as in "we know who that is and they are allowed to be here" vs "we don't know who that is so shoot them." What is so hard to understand about that?

Re:I think they have it backwards

[dangitman]

Are you just being obtuse or do you really not understand the concept?

I understand what it's trying to say, but it's worded very poorly. Don't you like to have at least some editorial standards in what you read?

If they identify the intruder and it's an enemy they can fire. If they can't/b? identify the intruder they can still order it to fire.

But that's not what it says. The way it's worded implies they can't fire if they can identify the intruder.

An intruder is a intruder. Why would it matter if they were identifiable? "Oh look, it's Osama Bin Laden, we shouldn't fire because we were able to identify him!"

Re:I think they have it backwards

[dangitman]

Article is talking about identification as in "we know who that is and they are allowed to be here" vs "we don't know who that is so shoot them."

But that's not what it says. By definition, an intruder is not allowed to be there. So why would an identifiable intruder be any less of an intruder?

Re:I think they have it backwards

[dangitman]

nonono, "Look, it's a friend, CEASE FIRE!"

But if it were a friend, it wouldn't be an "intruder," would it?

As the scout would say...

[Anonymous Coward]

NEED A SENTRY HERE!

Ya know

[DarthVain]

If North Korea makes military robots, they are all going to look like Kim Jon'il.

Kimbots Transform!

- needs more processing, predictive hit boxes

[RichMan]

Target shooting shown is stationary.

In the video the hit boxes seem to lag a bit. Likely a processing lag. There needs to be a predictive part to get ahead of the processing lag so they can hit moving targets.

Fancy remote control car

[Missing.Matter]

If the command centre operator cannot identify possible intruders through the robot's audio or video communications system, the operator can order it to fire its gun or 40mm automatic grenade launcher.'

If the operator is doing all the decision making, doesn't that just make this a fancy remote control car with weapons on top? Like battle bots? I think this would be more chilling if the robot was making the kill decision, but humans killing each other is nothing new

nah, brute-force it

[molecular]

they might as well just spray the rough area with bullets, giving the term "brute-force attack" a new meaning.

DMZ

[Graham J - XVI]

If you place a gun in a DMZ, doesn't it become a MZ?

Re:DMZ

[godrik]

well, I don't even see how to put a gun in my router... Well I guess I could, but I don't see how it will stop remote hackers !

Re:DMZ

[wagnerrp]

There are no guns in the DMZ. There are no troops in the DMZ. There is no military presence in the DMZ, hence making it demilitarized. The guns are put on the border to the DMZ, ensuring that there is nothing living in the DMZ.

Re:DMZ

[Graham J - XVI]

Perhaps TFA's title shouldn't say "in" then...

Re:But what about the 3 laws!

[e2d2]

From Websters:

Robot ...
3. a mechanism guided by automatic controls

Robot is a vague term and it does not mean strictly autonomous. Using the autonomous definition the "robotic arm" on the shuttle is not robotic at all. But it most certainly is. It's a term used to describe more than one thing, autonomous and "remote manipulators" included.

North Korea was first

[SloWave]

North Korea deployed robots a long time ago. They are called North Koreans.

Re:North Korea was first

[Anonymous Coward]

Immobile sentries have already existed along both sides of the Korean border for many years that will automatically send sniper rounds at unidentified intruders in the DMZ.

Goddamn Korean dupers, duping all the time

[Rogerborg]

So you see the Paintball Sentry Gun in a Suitcase and think you gots to get you some of that?

Re:Goddamn Korean dupers, duping all the time

[michaelwigle]

In fact, it's even more of a dupe than that. Here's the link to an IEEE article in March of 2007 http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/military-robots/a-robotic-sentry-for-koreas-demilitarized-zone. Also, here's a Youtube video of it in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5YftEAbmMQ.

Re:But what about the 3 laws!

[Nadaka]

I believe that these things aim automatically, but require a command to fire. So technically they are partially autonomous.

when can we get these?

[JustNiz]

when can we get these for the Mexican border?

Re:when can we get these?

[alta]

Wow, I can't belive this thread isn't full of this sort of comment, and likewise people whining about it.

FTR, this is exactly what I thought.

Obama to Arizona: Well, sorry, we just can't have you asking people where they are from and arresting them if they turn out to be illegals, but here have some of these fully automatic, shoot to kill border guards

You know, I was thinking, the border is huge, to big for an expensive wall. What if we made a system of highspeed wires, all driven from a few hubs. (think ski lift) on that speeds a few auto-cannons, or even better frikin lasers!. Those things zip back and forth like a patrol constantly. Or, have some long range radar/IR detecting activity and when it does out zips a deterrent. First we go with the microwave pain gun. If that doesn't send them back, a few rubber bullets, then a little scorching from a lower powered laser, still nothing? Increase the power... Still nothing bring out our north korean's guns... Oh, you're still coming? RPG time.

Instead of everyone bashing me for being a 'hater' how about yall give improvements to the system to actually secure the border (please skip the discussion on if it needs to be secure, and what to do with those already here)

Re:when can we get these?

[LWATCDR]

1. We are not at war with Mexico.
2. Most Mexicans that cross our boarder are honest but poor people that are just trying to make some money by working.
3. The business and people complain about it but they like the sub minimal wage lawn maintenance people and maids they hire.

Really what we need to do is reform our immigration. What people don't get is we asked for this. Back in WWII the US asked Mexicans to come to the US to work in our fields. That program didn't end until the 60s then we just tried to cut it off.
Of course we really didn't try to cut it off. We just made it illegal but looked the other way. Hey if they are illegal they will not run the police if you cheat them.
Frankly what we need to do is reform immigration to make it easy for honest people to come here to work legally.
Then close the boarder to keep out the scumbags that hide in the mass of of illegal but basically good people.

Doing anything else will just not work. It is like trying to stop a flood.

Re:when can we get these?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100707/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_war_agriculture
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/01/violent-mexican-drug-gangs-pose-rising-risk-to-ame/
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15405948

There's been a war going on for quite some time. Apparently, either willful ignorance or your politics have blinded you to reality.

Re:when can we get these?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a hate-filled little prick, aren't you?

Re:when can we get these?

[JustNiz]

>> 1. We are not at war with Mexico.

No but they are at war with us. I live in AZ. You should see what they do to US farmers and ranchers living on the US side of the border. You should see what the hispanic gangs and drug lords are doing all over AZ.

>> 2. Most Mexicans that cross our boarder are honest but poor people that are just trying to make some money by working.

Total contradiction. Honest people don't break laws. There's a hispanic neighborhood near mine thats a hot spot for illegals. Crime all around that neighborhood is at an epidemic level and is increasingly spreading out from there into other neighborhoods.

>> 3. The business and people complain about it but they like the sub minimal wage lawn maintenance people and maids they hire.

Most people I know don't hire illegals because the legitimate businesses here have to have very low pricing too, just so they can compete in this economy. Also most people don't want to encourage illegals, they just want them to go back to Mexico and take their crime and drugs with them.

I'm fed up with all the peecee liberalists that live miles away from AZ and have no actual experience of whats going on here, but still feel qualified to sit in judgement of us trying to defend our homes and families.
 

Re:when can we get these?

[geminidomino]

Total contradiction. Honest people don't break laws

Bullshit. Honest people break laws all the time. Moreso as more laws are created prohibiting harmless activities that don't require any sort of dishonesty nor intent to harm others.

"Honest" != "blindly obedient to authority"

Re:when can we get these?

[LWATCDR]

"Total contradiction. Honest people don't break laws."
Do you speed? Download music? Videos?
Are you an honest person?
Truth is that a good person may break the law out of need. They are not bad people just desperate.
"Most people I know don't hire illegals because the legitimate businesses here have to have very low pricing too, just so they can compete in this economy."
Really what about five years ago? Ten?
Dude I am no PeeCee liberal. And I live in Florida where we have people washing up on the beach and coming in by sea.
We also have problems with drugs and gangs.

I want to stop the drugs and gangs but here is something for you to think about.

Yes a lot of the illegals are just people tomming here to try and work. If we make it easier for them to come to the us legally then.
1. They would pay the proper taxes.
2. They would have the same legal protection under the law so they would report the businesses that pay under minimum wage or have unsafe working conditions.
3. They would not be sneaking across the boarder any more.

The benefits would be.
1. Taxes == revenue for your local governments.
2. Protections under the labor laws means that they compete on a level playing field with US workers.
3. With no reason to cross the boarder illegally there wouldn't a human tidal wave for the gangs and drug dealers to hid in. It will be easier to secure our boarders and the legal immigrants will help us stop drugs and gangs because they will no long be criminals themselves and the drugs and gangs hurt them as much as they hurt us.
I am no peecee liberalist. I see a problem and try to find the best way to solve it.

Unfortunately for South Korea

[sconeu]

North Korea has Old Glory Robot Insurance

Everything you need to know from Star Trek

[worldthinker]

In the everything you need to know you can learn from Star Trek department our gallant crew on a mission to establish diplomatic ties with a planet discover that this planet has been at war with their neighbor for 500 years. No visible damage to the planet is observed. Then the kicker is revealed that they have been fighting this war by computer game. The casualties voluntarily walk into disintegration chambers.

Kirk in his weekly quest to disregard the prime directive arranges to show his captors what real war is about. They either suffer the destruction and horror of real war or sue for peace.

The danger here is that by deploying battlefield robots like these, we take the inherent danger and horror of war down to an antiseptic alternative that is palatable.

Re:Everything you need to know from Star Trek

[idontgno]

The episode in question was more about the balance of terror, with the terror taken out. (Yes, I know, "Balance of Terror" was a different, and IMHO far superior episode. Try to keep on topic.)

A few killbots on a hostile border aren't Armageddon's heralds. Talk to me about Dead Hand or other launch-on-warning or guaranteed retaliation automata and we'll have a good analogy to "A Taste of Armageddon".

Re:Everything you need to know from Star Trek

[arkane1234]

The danger here is that by deploying battlefield robots like these, we take the inherent danger and horror of war down to an antiseptic alternative that is palatable.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if antiseptic is a bad thing lol) the prime goal is to get to the other side for war, when going through the DMZ.
The end result is not war entirely within the DMZ. Essentially the end result is the DMZ being a doorway, in the case of military action.

Robots at the edge of DMZ, or in it?

[captainpanic]

DMZ = Demilitarized Zone... right? So, how is it still demilitarized if you place robots with tracking skills and guns in it? (I think it's already full of landmines anyway, but I'm just asking).

i need one of those

[smash]

in my DMZ...

I'm not sure why you thought that

[sean.peters]

The military forces of the world have been using systems way more automated than this for a very long time. Examples:

• Mk 46, 48, 50 homing torpedoes
• Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles
• Mk 15 Phalanx CIWS

The first two are given an approximate target location, launched, and told to kill any ship (submarine) they find there. The Phalanx is turned on and told to shoot any airborne object that meets certain threat criteria. All done completely autonomously, with no ability for a human to even countermand an attack decision.

By comparison, the South Korean system is actually remote controlled - it's not especially remarkable in any way, nor does it violate any particular law of war. This is old news.

Erectin' a dispenser!

[ZorinLynx]

Unfortunately they forgot to build a dispenser, so now their team has no way of getting health and ammo as they move forward.

Damn incompetent engineers. They're nearly as bad as W+M1 pyros.

Right

[sean.peters]

Because I'm sure they're controlling these things via the Internet. Let's think about this a little bit - obviously these things would have to be controlled via encrypted comm links... or the North Koreans would root the bots. If J. Random Hacker wanted to play this game, he'd have to be... in the DMZ, which I doubt too many JRH's have the capability or interest to do.

Re:Right

[JBrandonS]

> or the North Koreans would root the bots.

The north koreans have computers?

Re:Right

[Krneki]

Since when hackers are limited to the Internet?

Coincidence...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else notice this coincides with the TF2 Engineer Update? And everyone knows how serious gamers are in South Korea..

"Detect" vs. "identify"

[sean.peters]

In military parlance, the terms are not equivalent. You "detect" contacts all the time, but frequently you don't know who they are. This is really about ROE - they're saying that the system is going to capable/allowed to shoot at targets it's detected even if it can't "identify" them.

Re:"Detect" vs. "identify"

[dangitman]

This is really about ROE - they're saying that the system is going to capable/allowed to shoot at targets it's detected even if it can't "identify" them.

But it doesn't say that. It implies it can only fire on unidentified targets.

Oh boy...

[wiroly]

If the ROK government ever discovers the potential of combining this technology with the talents of an entire generation of Starcraft geniuses, the DPRK is screwed. Or, at the very least, ROK mineral production will go through the fucking roof.

best of luck

[JThaddeus]

Best of luck to the ROK on this: They face a dangerous, implacable foe. The North has about half the South's population, but twice as many men under arms. The North also has a huge number of long range artillery pieces, some that can reach the northern suburbs of Seoul from north of the DMZ. The sinking of the South Korea ship is nothing new, except perhaps scale. I spent 2 1/2 years in Korea as a contractor with the ROK-US Combined Forces Command. It seemed not a week went by when there wasn't some provocation, from firing shots across the DMZ to exploding a bomb at Kimpo Airport.

Can we get these for the US-Mexico border?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of Yankee liberal apologists who have no clue about what life is really like along the US-Mexico border telling the rest of us that we must look the other way while armed caravans of Mexican drug gangs ferry drugs and people across the border. I'm tired of politicians from both parties whoring for the latino vote. It's time we act like the Mexicans and shoot at people crossing the southern border illegally. The Mexican police are routinely implicated by human rights groups in shaking down illegal immigrants from central and south America, and then they have the nerve to lecture us on being racist for not wanting them to take jobs from Americans at a time when real unemployment is over 15%.

Re:Can we get these for the US-Mexico border?

[tarogue]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_en_tv/us_immigration_take_our_jobs

Re:But what about the 3 laws!

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that these things aim automatically, but require a command to fire. So technically they are partially autonomous.

Yes, they apparently just need a human to give authorization to fire. It would probably only take a few changes to the design to make them purely autonomous, but I understand that there are reasons the SK military might not want that. The term "fatal error" takes on a whole new meaning when a fully autonomous robot equipped with a machine gun and a 40 mm grenade launcher gets a glitch in its friend-or-foe identification system!

can we try something different?

[nimbius]

I dont mean to be a party pooper, but it does not seem as though armed conflict between north korea and south korea has solved anything in the last 30 years. Perhaps if we still weren't falling lock-step in line with the reagan administrations heritage foundation doctrines toward communism, we might get a chance at a civil multilateral discussion between both parties that could, in the long term, evolve into diplomatic relationships the likes of the industrial exchange that until recently had been a major step forward for both parties.

Re:can we try something different?

[ralfmuschall]

It doesn't really matter what the west thinks about communism - NK is a theocracy now, with a god-king at the top and a caste system below. They started replacing marxism with the artificial Chuche-religion (more weird than Scientology, and probably as evil) in the seventies.
The only chance for NK is IMHO a internal enlightenment in parts of the leading junta (the only people there who know that there is a different world outside, and probably don't believe in the Chuche crap they made up for the ordinary people). All the world can do is to offer the leaders a retirement without being killed; and an efficient, friendly madhouse for the deprogramming of the population.

Re:can we try something different?

[Anonymous Coward]

We could, but nobody in the west had the balls to nuke north Korea, and Bush spend so much time fellating Iraq that he let NK develop nuclear capability.

Re:can we try something different?

[painandgreed]

I dont mean to be a party pooper, but it does not seem as though armed conflict between north korea and south korea has solved anything in the last 30 years. Perhaps if we still weren't falling lock-step in line with the reagan administrations heritage foundation doctrines toward communism, we might get a chance at a civil multilateral discussion between both parties that could, in the long term, evolve into diplomatic relationships the likes of the industrial exchange that until recently had been a major step forward for both parties.

You haven't read much on North Korea, have you? Go get a book on their history, read it, and then see what you think. The US and even more so the South Koreans have been trying to evolve diplomatic relationships with the north quite a bit. The North continues to simply milk all these for whatever money they can get, not both to honor their side, and break off relations. They have an ongoing policy of breaking agreements, only so they can get perks for agreeing to adhere to them again, so they can break them again for more perks, all the while never actually holding up there side. No, really, we'd probably be happy if they were just a dictatorship, but they are a crazy dictatorship. We might have been able to be diplomatic with Kim Il-Sung. He was just your typical commie dictator. His son is quite a bit crazier. However, at this point, it looks like we're just a few years max from getting to deal with somebody else when Kim Jung-Il dies.

Still, the situation is fucked even if the North Koreans were to honestly and in good faith surrender and join under South Koreas government. It would be much, much worse than when Germany was reunified. Their economy can't even support themselves. Most of their people are pretty much unskilled and incapable of performing anything but the basic manual labor. Their view of the world is a bizarre mix of what the NK government tells them and what they see on smuggled SK TV show tapes. The border is fairly porous right now and SK is having a hard time just trying to assimilate the few North Koreans that manage to sneak across the border because they can't handle the culture, use of money, the idea they don't need permission to leave their house, etc.

Been working on it a long time

[b1ng0]

Slashdot has covered previous stories related to this from 2005 and 2006:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/14/0132216
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/09/2319209

Yes but...

[Kildjean]

how many days till Skynet becomes self-aware...

Of course they do

[Revotron]

After all, they achieved nuclear fusion and made an energy drink that cures cancer.

This is all unfolding like a very, very bad NationStates roleplay.

Predator Drones

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, ground-based. We've had robotic killing machines around for awhile now, and ours fly and can launch hellfire missiles. They've killed lots of people.

Different?

[lumpenprole]

Is this vastly different than the Predator drones we use in AfPak? Or are we just freaked out because someone else is doing it?

If drones are ok to kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't these just ground versions of predator drones?

In unrelated news

[Scareduck]

Lindsay Lohan has deployed a killer robot against TMZ.

I'm worried

[obarthelemy]

War has always been somewhat kept in control by the fact that people died on both sides. Granted, people who actually decide about going to war have been known to make sure no-one close to them actually got in the thick of it, and incumbent-favouring wars have a way to start towards the end of election cycles, and other politicos have been known to xerox condolences letters, but still...

Turning war into a video game feels not right.

Re:But what about the 3 laws!

[Chris Burke]

And this is where some fucking idiot chimes in about the 3 laws of robotics.

I love these little self-fulfilling prophecies.

Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

SkyNet anyone?

This is when they'll need them...

[Entropius]

If DPRK is going to pull anything, it's going to be on the release date of Starcraft II, when *nobody* in ROK is paying attention.

Thus the present need for the auto-sentries -- otherwise they'll be oblivious when Kim Jong-Il is in their base, killin their doods.

What's after robots?

[Anonymous Coward]

As people rely more and more on remote controlled robots to do their military work, the only logical defense will be to broad-spectrum frequency jam all radio transmissions. This will suck ass for a number of reasons.

bond

[zogger]

After going rogue, they finally nabbed him in the bahamas when the cops shot the motor out on his stolen speed boat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris-Moore

Really, I think if they offered him immunity for his past crimes, just for offing fearless glorious leader..he might could pull it off. Maybe if they taunted him first and bet him he couldn't do it...

I ,for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

...welcome South Korea's new robotic overlords.

Not as scary as Portal

[bar-agent]

Sentry mode activated. Who's there?
...
Are you still there?
...
There you are!
takkatakkatakkatakkatakkatakkatakkatakkatakkatakka

Searching... Target lost.
Good night!

Going back a few years, but ...

[Kittenman]

"Kill the humanoid"

"Kill the intruder"

In Soviet Russia, Waldo finds you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now someone will surely be Punnished for their crimes.

PS: Image is from USA Hollywood movie "The Punnisher" (best movie ever made, right next to They Live (Duke Nukem fame) and Sin City.

Robot wars.

[Ibetthisisvalid]

I recon Sir Kill-a-lot would still have it in a fight.