[rikkir]

Physicist Michio Kaku says we are 50 years away from the technology you’re talking about.

They just ran a contest worldwide to build a rescue/firefighting robot, and not only could they not think, they all fell over.

He said this in response to all those scientist last week calling for a ban on autonomous weapons.

He says we are a couple of generations away from having to worry about that.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

They run that contest every year(ish(?)) and every time the robots perform better. The current goal of making robots with the critical thinking abilities of a toddler is still a long way off, but that doesn't really matter. The technology that allows robots to perform complex tasks and to "learn" new skills is already available, even if the robot is dumb outside of its specific task.

Both the US and Israel (and maybe Russia) already have autonomy-capable weapon-systems (various drones and turrets), but between the horrendous PR and the fairly primitive capabilities of the systems ("is that a border-jumper or a goat-herder or a tumbleweed"), they aren't used as such. I think it will be sooner than a couple generations that they are deployed.