Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert

AFP via breitbart.com ^ | Feb 27 | Unknown

[Ignatz]

Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP. "They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

...

[Ignatz]

If war morphs into robots fighting robots, wouldn't that be a GOOD thing? Fewer people dying, and all?
And I think that would eventually lead to fewer wars because there would be no point to it.

Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Terminator 2 comes to mind....

These things could be networked... and hacked. Or they could be autonomous. Brave New World.

[TheRobb7]

[KarlInOhio]

Someone needs his subscription to the SciFi channel cut off.

[cripplecreek]

If war morphs into robots fighting robots, wouldn't that be a GOOD thing?

You would think so but I suspect it would become a perpetual thing. After all, wars end when people get tired of dying or there's no one left to kill.

Perpetual robot war would do nothing but drain treasuries and I'm not sure even that would end war in a global economy.

[Sam's Army]

Zombies, giant pythons, killer robots.

Pick your poison.

[steve-b]

[BibChr]

Well, yeah.

[BibChr]

grr

[Friend_from_the_Frozen_North]

"If war morphs into robots fighting robots, wouldn't that be a GOOD thing?

There are certainly dangers involved but if it helps "keep the lid on" the Radical Raghead Islamic Fundamentalists who want to kill everything on earth that does not subscribe to their twisted, perverted, false god, false religion, and false prophet, it may not be such a bad thing...

[Tijeras_Slim]

Warbots could be retrained and put to work “building many houses.”

[BibChr]

[J40000]

“..Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots...”

I immediately thought of Yul Brenner in Westworld!
-The killer robot who just keeps on coming after you!

[mad_as_he$$]

In this time line Skynet goes online April 19, 2011. it becomes self aware on April 21 - Judgment Day.

[pabianice]

England consistently and proudly produces some of the world’s worst science fiction.

[50sDad]

Fire from the skies, dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria!

[Vaquero]

[Vaquero]

England consistently and proudly produces some of the world’s worst science fiction.

agreed.....

[3Lean]

So should I skip paying my taxes on April 15, 2011?

[wally_bert]