The Oerlikon GDF-005 turned on its masters last Friday, and emptied its twin 250-round auto-loader magazine. Nine soliders were killed during this testing “accident” in South Africa, by the malfunctioning anti-aircraft gun. Perhaps it had engaged its “automatic mode,” where “the weapon feeds targeting data from the fire control unit straight to the pair of 35mm guns, and reloads on its own when it [has] emptied its magazine.”
If we give robots the power to kill us, eventually they will.
BAE has designed a ship that can serve as a staging area for the robot navy and robot air force. Will it be unmanned itself? Assumedly.
“Using a proven naval hull form to launch, operate and recover large numbers of small unmanned vehicles for extended periods, the UXV plays the role of mother ship – a permanent base and control centre for the futuristic unmanned land, sea and air vehicles before, during and on completion of their missions.”
The Silent Guardian is a non-lethal (and apparently non-damaging) wireless pain device. Using microwave radiation with a half-mile range, but that only penetrates skin to a depth of 1/64th of an inch, it causes unbearable pain to any humans in its field of effect.
Robots, of course, are unaffected.
Bipedal mechs may not be the most sensible design for a robot army, but who knows. It’s already armed with guns! The video doesn’t inspire fear though — looks like it skates around rather than “walk,” really. It’s piloted from a cockpit on top, just like in Japanese anime. Realistically, though, we all know these things work better if you control them remotely from the safety of your bunker.
Reaper bots are the new generation of robot air force. Reaper bots aren’t here to look, they’re here to bomb. Compared to the Predator, which has a 140mph top speed and an armament of 2 hellfire missiles, the Reaper can move at 300mph and packs 14 missles (or four missiles and two 500 pound bombs).
“It’s not a recon squadron,” Col. Joe Guasella, operations chief for the Central Command’s air component, said of the Reapers. “It’s an attack squadron.”
If you’ve ever played the Engineer in a match of Team Fortress, you know how this works. It’s an autonomous sentry gun being deployed about now in South Korea. In Korea apparently, there are no silly rules about always requiring a human to pull the trigger for killing machines.
Listen to the music that begins at 1:30 in the video. It looks like the robots are fans of Jerry Bruckheimer’s Pirates of the Carribean.
The era of peaceful “unmanned ground vehicles” didn’t last long. Introducing the Israeli VIPeR. Unlike the “Crusher,” this robot is not autonomous. It still obeys its human puppet master. But it carries deadly force: “The portable, lightweight robot is designed to operate in an urban environment and is controlled by a single operator. Besides surveillance and reconnaissance missions the small unmanned vehicle can also carry a 9 mm mini-Uzi and even a grenade launcher.”
We already have unmanned aerial vehicles (robocalyptic apologist-speak for “robot deathplane”). Ground navigation is a bit more challenging for robots, but full-size unmanned ground vehicles are arriving now. This one at least is not described as being armed or programmed to kill. Yet.
Robots that crawl around inside your body are being developed now. “Micro-robots are millimeter-sized machines that mimic the propulsion techniques of bacteria and spermatozoa to operate in the viscous fluid of the human renal system. Researchers at the Nanorobotics Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University are developing micro-robots that use tail-like flagella and cilia to swim. By spinning a synthetic helical tail, they move much like a corkscrew through a wine cork.”
The “renal system” they are referring to, by the way, ends in your urethra. So, this is probably where the robot will be inserted. Chew on that one for a while.
Your muscle tissue could be recycled into robot parts. Muscle cells are deposited as a film over a thin polymer surface, and then given electric impulses, causing it to contract on command. “They cut triangular sheets of the material, measuring about one centimetre long along the longest edge. When a current was applied, the triangle kicked its small end like fish’s tail and could even be made to swim slowly through water.”
The technique has been demonstrated by scientists using cells from rat hearts, but “Ultimately, the team plans use human heart muscle cells.”
My heart though, don’t I need that?
Prophecy of the Robocalypse 