Killer Robots: Now, I’m Really Scared

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Wednesday, 5 of December , 2007 at 4:21 am

Most of the time, armed military robots don’t phase me that much. I mean, I can understand why they’re useful and important and generally a great idea when it comes to protecting living people. But, I’m starting to wonder if I’m deluding myself after watching this video of a concept armed rover from Robotex:

The video makes it quite obvious that this robot is designed to kill people, and do it efficiently. It’s pretty scary, if you ask me. Of course, robots like TALON SWORDS are designed to do the same thing, but the designers of those robots have chosen to emphasize both versatility and safety, while the Robotex bots do only one thing. This, incidentally, makes them about 1/6 the cost of the TALON system at between $30,000 and $50,000 each. The Robotex system currently on the market (in the pics above) mounts an $8,000 Atchisson Assault-12 shotgun, which “delivers the lead equivalent of 132 M16s. … [The robot is] two feet tall, travels ten miles an hour, and spins on a dime. Remote-controlled over an encrypted frequency that jams nearby radios and cellphones, it’ll blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.”

As if that wasn’t enough, part of the system includes semi-autonomous Neural Robotics miniature helicopters, also outfitted with automatic shotguns:

I think what bothers me about all this is not the robots themselves; rather, it’s the fact that the people marketing these robots have one thing on their minds: selling armed robots to kill people and make money. Whether or not this is (in general) a good thing or not is debatable, and whether or not other companies developing armed robots are doing effectively the same thing (just less bluntly) is also debatable.

Like it or not, I can’t help but be certain that this is the future of the military.

[ Robotex and Neural Robotics ] VIA [ CNN / Fortune ]

Comments (4)

Category: Military

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4 Comments

Comment by Phyreblade

Made Wednesday, 5 of December , 2007 at 10:58 pm

These are absolutely awesome. The catchphrases “Mobile Autonomous Sword”, and, of course “Hunter Killer” come to mind…

Let’s really hope we don’t make a big mess out of the final missing component, the AI, ’cause that could really ruin mankinds millennium…

Comment by chainsaw

Made Tuesday, 11 of December , 2007 at 1:40 pm

One of the things the robot army does is either – eliminate any amount of human dedication/inspiration/fanaticism from the equation, producing a “the most wealthy warrior wins” system – or – it forces defenders to attack the infrastructure PRODUCING the robots, i.e. terrorism and sabotage.

Comment by Eric Ivers

Made Wednesday, 18 of February , 2009 at 12:48 pm

Armed robots save the lives of our soldiers. Making them efficient only makes sense. In the end, there will be less lives lost on each side. The “heat of battle” and the need to shoot anything that moves are removed. The person (and there is a person) pulling the trigger does so without fear of being shot himself, and can take the extra second or three to make a better decision as to whether to shoot or not. Also, the fear of being killed by a robot will make people much more wary of arraying themselves against us.

As to making money, a company can’t stay in business through good intentions. Of course RoboteX intends to make money selling these.

Comment by me

Made Tuesday, 14 of July , 2009 at 1:09 am

On the more fun side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxBa5bQfTGc

Auto-targeting paintball gun!