Free Republic

June 19, 2008 -- IRobot, best known for their cute Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, has teamed up with Metal Storm, purveyors of the million-rounds-per-minute electric gun, to create a slick, Terminator-like war robot for the U.S. military. The as yet unnamed war bot is being marketed for "border patrol" and "crowd control" scenarios, although other military situations are also under consideration. "We want our soldiers to have the option of controlling a robot that could go ahead and investigate, engage or deter an enemy and not put human soldiers at risk," said a spokesman for Metal Storm who wished to...

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...