DARPA job posting talks of developing an autonomous, grenade-wielding robot
By Laura June 
posted February 4th 2010 8:05PM
posted February 4th 2010 8:05PM
DARPA's just put up a pretty interesting job posting... if you're the wary-of-our-future-being-controlled-by-robots type, anyway. The call involves a new research and development program called ARM. Basically, DARPA's looking to build a robot that can use its arms to dexterously and autonomously grasp objects. The quote from the job posting which is raising eyebrows around here says that the bot should be able to "hold an inert grenade with one hand, and pull the pin with the other hand" without any direction from humans. Now, we're not really trying to hit the alarmist angle, and we're all for advancements in robot tech... but it seems to us we'd have less to worry about if the job posting had said "should be able to hold a kitten in one hand, and pet it with the other." Right guys?
where do i sign!?
@iroq d mullet You and me, we're f*ckin' done professionally.
@iroq d mullet
What about throwing the grenade or does that require another job posting. Or maybe its the model Al Qaeda requested
@3rdsun
The brief talks about the robot being able to find a "ball", pick it up, and throw it.
Military
Autonomous
Robot
Inert
Nade
Explosion
@3rdsun Knowing our government, grenade throwing would require us building three robots:
One to take the grenade out of its container, one to pull the pin, and one to aim and throw it. Plus since these are separate projects, they would give them out as separate government contracts which require separate advertisements, separate bids, and separate awards. Now, since these three robots will all be designed by different entities, after they finish, we get to spend even more money tweaking them so that they can operate in unison...or put out new contracts to design new robots to act as intermediaries between the other three.
@One Love
Nade explosion- Nice.
This has my vote for best comment ever
No worries - "grenade" and "pull the pin" are just euphemisms. DARPA's boffins are just looking for a little of that robot touch.
@(Unverified) well its top secret so when they say pull the pin on a grenade they are really looking to research kitten-petting robots; you had it right engadget
With the changes in war tech. I'm thinking that someday we won't even need someone (some robot?) to chuck grenades. Maybe we could MIND BULLETS!!
sorry.....I was just listening to Tenacious D
@DAATMAN
Don't apologize for JB and KG- Now we're talking double team. SUPREME! :)
It is the beginning of SKYNET. Rhut Rho Raggy
Or maybe the Clone Wars?
Why do we (USA) ALWAYS want to make a weapon out of something? I mean don't we spend enough on the military...it consumes 50% of our freaking GDP!!!
@idwebmedia
Why wouldn't you want to make a weapon out of something?
@idwebmedia
Just about all major scientific advancements have been funded with government money. And yes, a lot of them had military applications. Everything does!
@ErrorBorn
I don't mind somethings, just not everything. It's like if a scientist came up with a cure for cancer everyone would say "YAY!". The military would say "How can we weaponize it".
@ErrorBorn See: Bioshock.
@Peteman100
Look at NASA's recently unveiled Robonaut2 (posted on Engadget earlier today). Not all Gov't spending needs to be militarized.
@idwebmedia
Really? 50% of U.S. GDP you say? So... how come the U.S. with it's 7 trillion dollar military budget... doesn't own the world by now???
P.S. 2010 proposed defense budget: 534 billion.
divide by U.S. GDP: 14 trillion
roughly 4% of the U.S. GDP is spent on its military.
@Eliphion
Ever since Cain killed his brother, the human race has sought to make the task easier... Soon, humans won't even have to do it, the "toasters" will.
@think before you react
If the USA was going to war with France or Australia, I would find this really disturbing because robot soldiers will make warfare more palatable. But if we're at war with, say the Taliban, or Al Qaida, those who would suicide bomb and suicide bomb and are mainly just trying to be as bloody as possible with no realistic end game, this is actually a rational response. Let them blow up a toaster instead of a person, and their tactics don't work as well.
The real solution is to have as many democracies (actual) as possible, because such countries rarely war against eachother. I don't want to judge the Islamist countries as inferior, but they do present a long term problem if we're going to stabilize the region. You could argue that it's not our place to do it, but it's been decided (because of 9/11 for example) that it is our place to do it. Might may not make right, but it makes real.
Let them find a way to deal with us other than suicide bombing our troops. Toaster-troops might help in that regard.
... but it seems to us we'd have less to worry about if the job posting had said "should be able to hold a kitten in one hand, and pet it with the other."
I'm pretty sure our enemies would laugh us to scorn if we threw kittens at them.
*facepalm*
@Steve2000 Yeah, don't be afraid of the kittens. But notice how they behave when they can't haz cheeseburguerz, kiling machines I tell you!
@Steve2000 You've obviously never heard of meowcenaries.
One word Terminator, EMP. That whole movie could have been ended with one emp
@jasev01
Not if the robot has shielding like in Airforce One.
@Robotbling wait really its shielded. I figure you can shield some but a powerful enough emp must be able to know these things out or at least a portion. The whole thing can't be shielded. What able the weapons systems shielded too.
@jasev01
Not once some laboratory figures out how to make biological computing with viruses etc.
@jasev01 True True
I don't know, if they said kittens, we'd all probably think Terminators with laser cats...
Now THAT'S scary.
Why don't they just equip it with a grenade launcher? Or... a tactical nuke. Just sayin'.
@ErrorBorn
Exactly. It makes no sense to develop a robot that has to pick up a grenade, pull the pin, and throw it if your goal is just to make a grenade-wielding robot weapon. Why all of the restrictive humanoid physics? An autonomous grenade launcher on tracks would make much more sense. All I can think of to explain this is that it would be used to detonate unexploded grenades on a range somewhere, but that still seems like a grossly inefficient use of DARPA.
@ErrorBorn
Johnny 5!!!
@NickA they have to blend in with us humans
@ErrorBorn
Because they want the versatility of human hands.
They don't actually want a way to merely blow people up. We already have a robot that can launch thousands of grenades at targets many miles away with grenade relevant accuracy. But it can't do the unexpected in a way a robo-hand might.
@(Unverified) Love the term "Grenade Relevant Accuracy"
I'm more worried about the "without any direction from humans" part. Does this mean they want a robot that see's a grenade and picks it up and pulls the pin? Might just be a dangerous job to take when it comes to field testing.
@dennisheadley
That is exactly what bothers me with this sort of thing.
I understand the desire to make unmanned drones and such, in order to make killing people "safer" and more efficient, but is there really any need to pursue the whole 'totally autonomous angle'.
Surely it would be more effective to have the geek equivalent of a grunt controlling it remotely, thus cutting out the whole skynet/literal BSOD problem.
DARPA CHIEF!!!
@yode
SNAKE?
SNAKE!
SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now we just need Google to invest and the start of Skynet is born.
crush kill destroy
crush kill destroy
crush kill destroy
Next up...researching liquid metal polymetal alloy robots.
MATRIX ???? :D
PRESENT HALL PASS!
Isn't that what the army already is doing? Trainning people into grenade wielding robots?
Skynet
So DARPA is trying to learn from Call of Duty? Automated Martyrdom robots?