[Caucasian Hammer]

Arnold will save us

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.

Military leaders "are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war," he said.

Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.

South Korea and Israel both deploy armed robot border guards, while China, India, Russia and Britain have all increased the use of military robots.

Washington plans to spend four billion dollars by 2010 on unmanned technology systems, with total spending expected rise to 24 billion, according to the Department of Defense's Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, released in December.

[smirnoff]

Robots that guard a designated area and shoot and designated targets are one thng... robots undertaking tasks outside their own programming is something else. I don't see any indication here that control has left the hands of the programmer.

[hans5849]

Originally Posted by smirnoff

Robots that guard a designated area and shoot and designated targets are one thng... robots undertaking tasks outside their own programming is something else. I don't see any indication here that control has left the hands of the programmer.

Didn't they invent batteries that run on blood? So now we will have blood thirsty heavily armed robots after us. Hopefully they are smart and segregate out the stupid people to breeding facilities and drink their blood after they have served their usefulness.

[mistawiskas]

Remember, skynet is not a place.

[Torx]

books, movies, and futurist's ideas stem our future.

[mistawiskas]

futurist's ideas? In that case, let's all head over to carl sagan's place....he's got the right visions for my tastes. He's not a "futurist" by title, but I like some of the possibilities he shines light on when he narates cosmos.