Rule #1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Remember Isaac Asimov's classic three laws of robotics? Surely thats down the drain, with this new 'toy' of the US military. You can forget about them deadly lions and rattlesnakes, these new MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) bots were made for killin'. Think of them as a very early version of the Terminator.
The robots can connect to the same GPS network as the troops, and it's got an extra fail-safe that won't allow it to fire at its control unit. Huh? Yes, you read it correctly:
The robot may not injure humans its CONTROL UNIT.
Should we interpret this as an updated 21th century version of Asimov's first law, adjusted for wild systems ethics?!
For better or worse, these deathly machines are now sent out to Iraq, giving ground troops a way of extending their presence into dangerous areas without exposing themselves to fire. I don't mean to be over-dramatic, but I am telling you: we get the nextnature we deserve.
Via Danger Room. See also: Telebombing, Roboswift.
seba
What about terrorist acceding to this tecnology for a copule of dollar at ebay. Like in 10 years?
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=A=
@ pascal; perhaps a network in the sense that the object connects to satellites to update its position to base control? (The satellites are the network).
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pascal
most amazingly, one type of killbot is already being recalled from iraq again, because it "acted strangely" and pointed its gun at some humans it shouldn't point at (it did so, it seems, of its own accord, obviously, the machines are either way further developed than anybody can imagine, having discovered evilbeing, or it's the other way around and they don't work. and I'd bet humans in the vicinity of killbots would be really pleased if they worked, or at least, wouldn't shoot humans they're not supposed to...) Besides the mobile killbots, there are some bigger weapons that can be controlled from somewhere else on the planet (or some completely other planet, if necessary), that already killed more than 30 people they shouldn't as they went mad... (And isn't GPS that passive system they use to find their position? In what way is it a network?)
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=A=
If it connects to a network, it can be hacked!
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