Russia Wants To Send A Gun-Shooting Robot To The ISS (mashable.com)

"Just in time for the rise in global military tensions, Russian officials have released video that's sure to calm fears all around: a death dealing humanoid robot that shoots handguns." An anonymous reader quotes Mashable: Posted to Twitter on Friday by Russia's deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, the video shows the country's space robot FEDOR (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research) accurately shooting twin pistols in a scene chillingly similar to images from The Terminator. But rather than being displayed as a not-so-subtle warning to the entire human population of the planet, Rogozin instead claims via Facebook that it's just a demonstration of the robot's dexterity and use of algorithms to execute tasks.
CNET quotes Russia's deputy prime minister as saying "We are not creating a Terminator, but artificial intelligence that will be of great practical significance in a lot of spheres." Russia plans to deploy the robot on the International Space Station by 2021, Mashable reports, adding "Hopefully, the robot's arrival on the ISS will come sans life-snuffing weaponry, which is pretty much the opposite of the intent behind creating a peaceful international space station shared by the world's super powers in the first place."

Comments

Sorry not that impressive

[wisebabo]

In the video it was just shown holding some pistols and shooting them at some targets. Very little body movement, didn't walk anywhere. Looked like a locked down animatronic (hydraulic powered robot) from a theme park (I should know, I used to design them - theme parks).

While the reality of it might be much more impressive, I didn't see it on (this) video. However, there was a link on the page which led me to some official footage (after there was a leak) of Boston Dynamics' fantastic (and scary!) wheeled/legged robot. You've really got to see it:

http://mashable.com/2017/02/28...

Since Boston Dynamic's robot can apparently easily handle a 100lb. object, it wouldn't be too hard for it to wield a really serious gun. When A.I. becomes sentient we'd better hope that they're friendly. Anyway, if they could adapt this robot for zero-gee (replace the wheels with grappling hands? A tail? Like Doc Oc?) I would imagine it would be much more useful (and terrifying) on the ISS.

Re:Sorry not that impressive

[Rei]

I agree, that video looked rigged as hell. I've seen a lot more convincing animatronics in theme parks.

What exactly were the Hollywood-style "explosions" supposed to be anyway? Were we supposed to believe that they were something that that "robotic tank" was shooting, were they supposed to be smoke screens, or were they just added for ambiance?

Seriously, I've seen better robotic gun platforms made by Syrian rebels living in rubble.

Why humanoid?

[Henriok]

Can someone explain to me why a humanoid configuration would be the best form such a robot would come in? Seems so me that this form we have has some pretty severe downsides that can be accounted for if we had the opportunity to redesign us for military purposes. We fall over easily, have a hard time getting up, have limited locomotion options, have limited FOV, only two tool manipulating appendages with limited articulation and action range, don't float, can't jump good or fly, exposed compute/sensory hub, etc.. I'd go with a more octopus like configuration with for example six appendages with independent compute/sensory complexes, and that can be used for locomotion, recon, tool manipulation or just as backup looks nothing like a bipedal humanoid.