Slashdot Mirror
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."
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."
Because the press gave a big yawn when they announced this
Prelude to hurling rocks from space?
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.
...now cosmonauts have to worry about FEDOR's attitude and software glitches ?
What century are you living in ? Cruise missiles (which result in no casualties for their user) have been used without hesitation for decades in situations in which ground troops would not have been sent. Similarly bombing missions are carried out against ISIS precisely because they don't have the necessary anti-aircraft defenses. Same with the more modern UCAVs. Arms manufacturers invest heavily in the development of unmanned weapons because there are expensive and useful to politicians who want to be able to do something without having to deal with the families of dead soldiers. War has been easy for a long time. If troops are indispensable then it is a bit harder but not that much given the ridiculously disproportionate casualty numbers between sophisticated and unsophisticated armies.
Everything about that video looks fake. The "robot" doesn't even appear to move at all as targets fall at significant angles relative to it. And what's up with those bullet casings falling at the end which don't appear to correspond with anything actually happening at the time?
Very well; let this abomination unto the Lord begin!
Cruise missiles and drone bombings do not substitute for ground troops. The GP is clearly talking about a robotic substitute for ground troops.
Very well; let this abomination unto the Lord begin!
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.
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
The ethical issue however is mostly the same. It push button warfare. One side can kill the other without facing death themselves. Machines still do the killing (whether a gun toting robot or shell on the end of a guided missile with an altitude trigger) at a remote site where there isn't a human been to look the other guy in the eyes and possible change its mind.
Consider the MOAB. We killed 36 ISIS 'fighters' were they all fighters or were two of them just guys ISIS grabbed and said "you'll be cooking our meals or we kill your family" those two hypothetical individuals are men who might have surrendered to ground troops when the position was eventually over run. Those are lives that might have been spared, instead they got incinerated like everyone else! Again this just my imagination it is probably more likely everyone of the guys hold up in those caves were committed Islamists determined to kill anyone standing in the way of their caliphate.
Maybe one day our or Russian 'terminators' will have capacity to capture or kill, hopefully by the time these are deployed in the field they will have enough visual recognition to see if someone is carrying what appears to be a firearm and shoot them and maybe not kill the the little girl carrying a bucket of water. That kind of target recognition is far from simple however. Maybe that isn't a bucket of water, maybe is a bucket of acid? Humans are somewhat good and figuring that stuff out, machines have a ways to go yet.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
We must actually be pretty close to being able to deploy remotely controlled ground infantry
I doubt it, I don't think we have anything that comes close to passing a military obstacle course. If you think of say an urban area and the task of the robot(s) is to secure a building it has to execute so many practical little details, just using a door handle is challenging outside the lab. The other big deal is stealth, if you look at the robots today most of them are quite loud with hydraulics and such so they couldn't sneak up on anyone. There's a reason all soldiers do hand signals and all that shit, if they just trampled in they'd be easy targets. Also jamming would be a big issue, it's not that hard to create a big noise generator that could be triggered by a trip wire or such. Outdoors a jamming device trying to bring down a drone makes you a big target to shoot at but in the basement of a building your robo-soldiers would be cut off without any easy means to restore contact. For sure robots could do more but I think we're dependent on humans in close proximity for quite some time to come.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There are basically three kinds of military robot which are useful today, walking bombs, flying drones, and cruise missiles. We are only building two out of three of these today. The kind we're not building (walking bomb) is not particularly susceptible to jamming; if you jam it, it just blows up. Once it's safely away from the operator, you can arm that functionality.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What I take away from that video is that they're not-so-subtly courting further investment from the military in order to develop a way more lethal 'version 2'. And the military is going to jump on this .. expect them to succeed in getting further funding and ultimately, bulk orders. This trend is worrying and likely inevitable ... scoff now, I would not want to be facing down an army of these invading my jurisdiction after another decade or two's advancement of the tech (this will happen in our lifetimes). The 2nd Amendment could become an important defense against robot armies.
The ethical issue however is mostly the same.
The ethical issues are exactly the same in every situation, and it does not matter if the killing is done with a rock in your hand, remotely by pulling the trigger on a gun, or remotely by pressing a button on a joystick.
Notice that the automation added by a robot is the same automation that was already added by a gun!
Airplanes and bombs are also the exact same type of automation.
A person decides to kill another person, and acts on it. That is the entire moral and ethical issue, and the technology used makes no difference.
When you read about a robot firing a gun, there is no change. Nobody said the robot is going to decide when the gun gets fired, that's like saying the string of a bow will decide when the arrow is released. Stop blaming the bow and take responsibility for your actions.