Core77

Robots pull the trigger

By David Womack - August 3, 2007

in Tech

The first armed robots have hit the streets of Iraq and are now hunting evil-doers with high-powered M249 machine guns. The robots are called SWORDS, which stands for "Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System". Army focus groups apparently preferred this acronym over the more obvious PUBE (Predatory Unmanned Battle Engine). The robots are currently being piloted through the streets of Bagdad using remote control. According to an interview on CNET with Chief Army Scientist Thomas Killion however, the army soon plans to make the killing machines fully automatic. "The FCS [Future Combat Systems] program is demonstrating semiautonomous vehicles where they can do a lot of planning and execution on their own and they really only have to essentially call home to a soldier that's controlling it when it needs additional guidance."

The grim-looking murder bots are likely to fill the hole left in the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people when the British withdrew their blood-thirsty badgers.

Robots are also needed to fill the ranks of a military that is desperately short of troops and facing growing criticism over civilian deaths. While flesh-and-blood troops can be subject to embarrassing prosecutions, robots have an advantage that must surely appeal to the Bush administration. Being a robot means you never have to say you're sorry. As the manufacturers of handguns have repeatedly demonstrated, just because you build a machine whose sole purpose is to kill people does not mean that you are responsible when people get killed. If a robot were to commit a crime--say opening fire on a group of unarmed civilians--who would be responsible? Of course the robots themselves cannot be prosecuted for war crimes, but can the army's roboticists and programmers? After all, as Killion states, the autonomous robots will themselves be responsible for "planning and execution." All one could hope to get out of any legal proceedings would be a verdict of "malfunction."

It's no wonder that the military regards robots as the next "killer app". We can all rest easy in the knowledge that whatever horrors killer robots may perpetrate upon the enemies of freedom--there will be nobody to blame.

o

Favorite This
Q
16

Comment

Comments

Cra

15 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I agree with david, (the david between peter and mat) These robots will always be in communication with a real human, so it will still be humans who make the critical decisions e.g. "liquifying people" What this technology is doing is giving your soldiers a second chance, taking them out of volatile situations. allot of you Americans just say "that's stupid, your dumb" to everything your military does simply for the principle of it. Stop being such hippies, you should try thinking a little more positively about things that will save lives..
!Report as spam
hank243

16 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

we neeed to keep an eye on this technology. if we arent careful we will have the government using robots against americans.
!Report as spam
juan

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

May be they kill each other when thereï¿½s no one else to kill...

!Report as spam
Matt

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

another terror machine from the world's sickest terrorists.
!Report as spam
David

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I think you're over-extending the use of "autonomy" in this case. The robot is not choosing who to kill and when to kill. All those decisions, like with any weapon in existence today, is done by a human. The human is responsible for anything that happens. And if there is a major malfunction, I believe the designer (and manufacturer) of said robot will be partly responsible. But regardless, the mission, the decision to kill, etc. will all belong to a human. So stop interjecting the usual Anti-Bush conspiracy theories into it. Would you rather a robot be killed while on patrol or one of our soldiers?
!Report as spam
peter

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Haven't these designers ever read Second Variety or seen Screamers? It's only a matter of time before all these autonomous bots scurry off and start manufacturing more of themselves to kill off the human race!
!Report as spam
David Womack

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Yes. Like a roomba. Except that this "dirty work" is liquifying people with machine guns. Although humans have shown themselves more than willing to pull the trigger, moving forward it seems unlikely to me that the selection of targets will always be subject to human approval. These are very expensive pieces of equipment and a delay of several seconds in which the soldier responds to an alert and evaluates the situation would probably be unacceptable in a combat situation. On the positive side, robots are unlikely to exhibit malice. They won't try to kill innocent people as humans sometimes do. On the negative side, in the likely event that they make a mistake there won't be any clear means of assigning responsibility. Is sending autonomous robots in to combat situations somehow worse that dropping a bomb? Not necessarily. But it does show how us humans, with the help of designed products, are gradually turning over more and more decision-making functions to automated systems...to the point where very very soon life and death decisions will be made by (shout out to Mr. Portigal) ED-209.
!Report as spam
Ben Preiss

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

SWORDS have been in the field since 2000 in Bosnia. In Iraq its standard role has been performing EOD and IED destruction missions. Its combat SWORDS version is now being used there in a guard role protecting front line buildings from attack. So, this is not new. What is new is the possibility of a future autonomous role without a human operator.

!Report as spam
david

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Here's an older but quite good article on the longer term plans and pitfalls of military uses of autonomous robots.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050216/news_1n16robot.html

!Report as spam
zippyflounder

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Oh come now, how is this different from artilry or bombers? There is always a command for weapons free and that command is issued by a human. The act will also be performed by a human, no different than a bomber or a howziter crew. The autonomous functions are limited to patrol, and sensing. The reason that robots are the next "killer app" is the same reason the roomba is successful, it does something dirty, dangerous or boring and in this case it's patrol.
!Report as spam
paul

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

i'm not sure if this has a hint of sarcasm or excitement. of all the good that design can embody, it's sad to see something that blatantly attempts to further propagate an outdated imperial ideological set.
!Report as spam
smex

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

the "terrorists" are going to have a field day stealing these and rewiring them for their own needs. Doesn't DARPA ever watch sci-fi movies?
!Report as spam
Mike Petersen

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Disgusting, but with one obvious design error - it seems very easy to blind this robot by destroying the camera and IR sensor on top.

And, funny but not:
http://www.robotuprising.com/home.htm
!Report as spam
carls

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

david, even your quite obvious snark is nonetheless nauseating. oh my. some nations do not go down in history as great. they just go down and down.
!Report as spam
Richard

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Roboethics is certainly crazy.
!Report as spam
Steve Portigal

17 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

And not even one ED-209 joke? Sigh. You have 30 seconds in which to comply.
!Report as spam