While it's always bittersweet to report on the latest advancements in autonomous military
killbots, the one upside to Foster-Miller's most recent heavily-armed robotic platform is that it possesses enhanced safeguards to minimize incidences of friendly fire or civilian casualties. That being said, QinetiQ's
SWORDS-smith is still touting the improved "lethality" of its new MAARS chassis (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System), a 350-pound
PackBot-type unit that, unlike its predecessor, was built from the ground up with murder in its heart. Its M240B Medium Machine Gun is more powerful than SWORDS' M249, although redesigned software and a mechanical range fan are said to bolster safety by delineating live fire zones and keeping barrels pointed away from allied positions, respectively. A final precaution precludes the bots from firing directly at their control units -- a feature that will provide little solace to the MAARS controller whose charge has just pulled a 180 after being hacked by enemy forces. For a short video of the new bot still under friendly control, keep reading after the break...
[Via
Danger Room and
The Raw Feed]
posted Oct 8th 2007 5:57PM
is that a usb port at the front?
does it run doom?
Nope, that is where you feed it the blood of the unclean, which is its fuel.
i loled.
I think it's safe to say that this thing "runs Doom" better then any computer has before.
These things would probably kill anything alive in the "live fire" zone. Sounds like a great way to get war crimes laws updated. There is no way use of this thing wouldn't coincide with clear-cut massacre of the local population.
And didn't the alien creators of Doomsday stop when they realized their "machine" couldn't distinguish friend from foe. And he ended up killing superman. Is that what we want?
What? Live fire zone? This thing isn't automated. A human still has to aim and pull the trigger. However, instead of having dust in your eyes, ringing in your ears, sweat all over, and your buddy's blood all over you and dying next to you, a human driver for this robot can much much better decisions in battle.
I for one welcome our robotic,machine-gun wielding overlords.
Such robots are a violation of Asmimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Although if a fourth law were to be written, it might say "A robot will defend the innocent from evil". But Isaaic Asimov was a fiction writer and like works of fiction, I suppose they should be taken lightly. Or maybe not...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
The insurgents who murder innocent people are not human beings so this does not violate Asmimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
@david
You are right and those animals should not be considered human, not even cavemen..
only john connor can save us now
Hey this thing can not think for its self
i only thought of one thing when i read the enhanced friendly fire avoidance. from counter-strike: TEAM KILLER.
Now we know for sure one thing that not a single republican has seen the Terminator(well ok except for Arnold).
maybe he didn't see them either. If he had he wouldn't have made that cinematic abortion that is, Terminator 3
Can it not aim forward then? Bit worried about it only pointing at the floor and the sky.
Let's stick to news about cell phones and other cool stuff, OK?
La la la la....
At least until they announce the new Apple iKillbot. It will be able to automatically download Flight of the Valkyries from iTunes and play it as it lays waste to enemy camps.
I wonder how long it will be before we see setups like this replacing human security guards at retailers and banks etc.
A very, very long time.
Most security guards aren't even armed, so I don't even see how you could correlate the two.
More wasted tax dollars to support unnecessary American-provoked violence.
You're right. Training and putting soldiers with families on the ground is a lot cheaper for the US taxpayer than a disposable robot.
Your joking right? It is far cheaper to develop and deploy remote controlled robotic kill-bots. Do you know how much it costs per marine or ranger to train? How much to keep up an individual marines medical benefit, payment of service, and funeral service if he/she dies? Not to mention the fact that a human soldiers life is not expendable. These robots are disposable! Things like this are not only cost effective to develop and deploy vs the complete upkeep of a single marine, but it is also better than sacrificing American lives.
Get your sarcasm detector checked. I was obviously joking at the original statement that these things are a burden on the American taxpayer, more so than the status quo.
I wasn't replying to you, I was replying to the original poster. I know yours was sarcasm! I was merely trying to put my point out there.
The 1st generation SWORDS robot costs less than 1 soldiers insurance policy
My whole point is that there shouldn't be war at all. I never said I would agree to putting any solider on the ground because any politician who would do so wouldn't consider the same for their children. Money should go to inter-city school education. Making it way more comparable to suburban education. Separate but equal was ruled out a long time ago but it looks like separate but unequal still exists.
BTW when countries get fed up of our cocky super-power actions and invade, let me know how you like one of these things being used on your home.
@JAmerican
You're absolutely right. There shouldn't be any war. Just as soon as you convince the Islamic extremists, African warlords, and countless others to stop killing innocent people, then the organized militaries of the world can withdraw and disband without leaving a state of total anarchy after they leave. (Yes militaries...believe it or not, other militaries besides ours and the UK occupy parts of foreign countries to prevent senseless violence. And believe it or not, this happens in places other than Iraq/Afghanistan.)
Now with your regards to money spent on schools: most inner-city schools have more problems than simply needing money. Actually if you dig around, you'll find that tax income for inner-city schools is often higher than suburban/rural schools (look at the per-student income, and this does vary by region, so if you live in an area where it's the other way around, don't get in my face about it). A large part of the problem is unfortunately the children who live in the city, that come from underprivledges/broken homes with less discipline. And this of course leads to a plethora of other issues, which cannot be solved by simply throwing money at them.
So for now, I'd rather see money spent in saving lives, both American and foreign. Technology likes this puts soldiers out of harms way, but more importantly, allows them to assess a situation with a cool head, out of harms way, and not be forced to make split-second, instinctive reactions. And that leads to fewer civillian casualties.
You guys gotta admit owning one of these things would be awesome...
I'm looking for Wooldoor Sockbat.
Perfect! Now that's out, and Microsoft has staged a hostile takeover of Cyberdyne, all we have to wait for is their forthcoming launch of SkyNET (Pronounced: Vista SP2)
Microsoft® Sky.net™ Framework
Sweet, so all we have to do once the robots take over is for them to blue screen! Wouldn't make near as cool of a movie plot though... Pretty sweet tech though. Send one of these little guys through the door first. Beats the hell out of a human going through first.
These Terminator jokes are already old.
okay did we not learn anything from robocop? this is ED-209 baby.
Apple would do it better...
I JUST HAD TO DO IT! haah
i think the apple version would have a disabled gun
but it would look really nice
youd have to hack it to make the gun work
plus i can see steve jobs with a universal remote to make the kill bots eradicate the windows users so that he may become the overlord of computing
just had to say it
HAHA
HAHA naw man.. steve jobs would go on record saying they wont support but wont hinder hackers either.. then a new firmware would roll around and kill everyone who attempted to fuck with it. haahhaha
is not on windows, right?!
Hey laser-lips, your mama was a snow blower!
Number 5 is ALIVE, bitches!
I heard about these earlier today. Apparently, the bullets they fire don't actually cause any harm. They just turn the enemy into flaming, pissed-off homosexuals, which actually doubles their lethality on the battlefield.
Seriously, as far as I'm concerned, it's only a robot if it's automated and sentient enough to make decisions and movements without a human's input.
Yeah, this is no more a robot than any other radio-controlled car, really...
As a Programmer, I wonder what goes through the minds of the guys who wrote code for this.
You are writing code that will KILL people.
That would really bother me. I don't think I could do it.
No one is writing code to kill people for this thing. Its 100% human operated.
The only code this thing has is to _prevent_ it from killing teammates. The common misconception with these is that they have AI. They don't. It's a soldier with a box that contains a monitor, and a few buttons and joysticks. He's pulling the trigger, not the code.
Um....
Who Would Jesus Kill??
Never mind Terminator's "rise of the machines" threat. What section of government will control these guys? I'm more fearful of a Democrat/Republican minded Kill-Bot, making decisions based upon whatever politically correct society happens to be in control of the "button". Say what you will about the average GI's intelligence, or possible lack there of. But at least GI's share a certain affinity with their targets, being both human/mortal and all. And if that isn't there, there's at least some level accountability for their actions. But with these robot killers, an entire town or protesting group could be killed with nothing but lame finger-pointing following, and firm promises to "hold those responsible accountable for this grave injustice".
This would be nice to send down those alleyways ahead of the squad to help lower casualties from fear of the robotic gun alone. Enemies would be less inclined to step out from the shadowy doorways with this thing leading the pack just from the simple fact that it would impose a colder presence as to what it’s directives are and what its capabilities are.
Needs to have the following features...
- Onboard GPS with direct links to assigned squad at all times (by the way soldiers should get implanted GPS before Alzheimer patients.)
- Onboard FLIR, infrared, night vision, etc…
- Ability to distinguish threat levels by scanning enemy body position i.e. holding weapon, hands over head, white flag, etc… and be able to act accordingly.
- Slap on an auto reload M203 grenade launcher for fun.
- And lastly a self destruct just like Predator if its wounded and the GPS link is still up let the enemy wheel it home and BLAM!
It doesn't think for itself there is a Joe driving it at all times and watching through its (many) cameras. I'm pretty sure revealing what those cameras do would violate OPsec to a high degree so i'll leave that out but lets put it this way. These things have had people running them for a long time troubleshooting and coming up with ideas for what they need. They have a great deal of non-classified military crap on them.
And Land Warrior provides individual soldiers with GPS. It goes way beyond that too. All your Starship Troopers/Ghost Recon ideas of the military are already under development.
does anyone else think that shot looks kinda like a darlek from Dr. Who?
Wow, Metal Gear Solid's utopia of "Metal Gear" and proxie wars and controlled battlefields is becoming a bigger and bigger reality..
I can just imagine this thing rolling around shouting "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
yeah, that'd be awesome...
What a disgusting machine. Mankind is truly stupid.
This is probably a good time for people to start developing really powerful EMP munitions.
I like how they're putting higher powered machine guns on these. The older generation used M16-style guns, which made them less combat effective than a soldier. Now that they've got vehicle-type weapons they can see some real use in heavy combat.