iRobot poised to unveil Warrior and SUGV military bots - Engadget

These are truly terrifying times. There is a reason why you can find movies like "Terminator" and "Robocop" in horror or sci-fi sections at movie rental stores. They were meant to be fictional, and something to scare the kiddies.

I understand the positive benefits to this, namely that of humans not having to be on the battlefield, just the guns. That's where the guns should be, but they don't need to have their own automated targeting system.

As long as we never make a robot capable of firing a weapon without human intervention I'm all for it.

So when we have robots fighting robots, will wars ever really end? No ones' spirit will ever be broken, so why declare a loser? I see armed robots as one more step towards the wonderfully Orwellian scenario of permanent war- perpetually blowing up each others' robots simply to keep the proles in a constant state of red alert.

"it's like CES, except everyone is packing heat and telling glorified war stories" (Under 35 alert: It's a play on John Lennon's famous phrase. He was a musician of a form called Bug Music, spent a lot of time in bed, married an artist, broke up the band and was gunned down in New York -- no, human not robot. Imagine.

)

Is'nt it interesting how American companies and researches on robotics tend to focus on military use (ie: killing), while other countries like Japan tend to focus on robots that assist and help humans?
People follow money. In America, the only "company" willing to pay hundreds of thousands per piece is the "company" of war.

In Japan, where entertainment is probably more lucrative (also since they don't feel the need to "police the world") it's easy to see how Japanese research money goes into things like "helper" bots. Besides, why would they waste money on military endeavors when the US will most likely have to defend Japan?

We know who lennon was, gramps.

We're working on robots that will go after you SUV driving, environment destroying, job outsourcing baby boomers. It will be beautiful.

Jesus.

9 comments and no "I for one, welcome our...

overlords."?!

Well, I for one, welcome our 250 pound, dual-purpose-functioning, gun/missile firing weapons platform and carpet vacuuming robotic overlords.

Yes! there it is!

The obligatory "I, for one...

" meme. I was waiting for it. Lol

What's that sonny-boy?

You're too young to have an opinion, why I oughta re-boot you. Now git back to your Mc-job I'm gonna need a lot of health care and you are going to pay for it, you and your robot over-lords. Gawl-dern new fangled robot over-lords, can't make no sense out of those manuals no how.

If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they -- oh, wait a minute, this generation can't put a man on the moon. Dag-num, threaten me will yeah, why when I was young we knew how to threaten the oldies, I tell you. Listen up, we grew hair and had music without drum machines and it had melody, weren't just some stupe talking into a microphone, and code too, we did code, real code, not new fangled C+, why in my day that was what they drank on the moon.

Call me old, will yeah...

what were you saying? Never mind..

. young people and robots, no respect, I tell you, just no respect!

Don't forget the robots that South Korea is planning to use to patrol it's borders.

The're 200k a piece, and fully capable of killing you without any human confirmation / intervention. Kinda scary; but after taking a philosophy of the mind course, I doubt these `guys will ever be as intelligent as us. You never know though!

A big problem that I forsee is that if wars are mostly fought with robots, wars might gain super-popularity. More like a game than reality.

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