Killer Droids Unplugged

[jakeswensonmt]

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Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

The revelations were made by Kevin Fahey, US Army program executive officer for ground forces, at the recent RoboBusiness conference in America.


Speaking to Popular Mechanics, Fahey said there had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS* combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.

"The gun started moving when it was not intended to move," he said.

Apparently, alert American troops managed to quell the traitorous would-be droid assassins before the inevitable orgy of mechanised slaughter began. Fahey didn't say just how, but conceivably the rogue robots may have been suppressed with help from more trustworthy airborne kill machines, or perhaps prototype electropulse zap bombs.

No humans were hurt, but it seems that the struggle was sufficiently terrifying that it may be some time before American troops are ready to fight alongside robots again.

As Fahey pointed out, "once you've done something that's really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again". That said, it seems he expects to deploy a new and more trustworthy armed ground automaton within a year - perhaps the MAARS**, an upgraded SWORDS packing a heavier 7.62mm machine-gun and featuring improved safety features.

MAARS is also said by its makers to have "Transformer-like" abilities akin to those of Optimus Prime. Rather than being able to disguise itself as, say, a mobility scooter or a dessert trolley, the MAARS is actually only able to transform - with help from human allies - into a slightly different robot.

The Pop Mech analysts consider that the rattled GIs in Iraq are just being silly.
So SWORDS was yanked because it made people nervous. Meanwhile, the V-22 Osprey program has killed 30 people during test flights, but the tiltrotor aircraft is currently in active service.

Hmmm. ®

*Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Direct-action System. This is an armed variant on the popular TALON bomb-disposal job from Foster-Miller, lately acquired by the UK's Qinetiq govboffin spinoff outfit.

**Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System

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The army's machine-gun wielding, insurgent-slaying robot SWORDS is no longer spraying foes with hot doom in Iraq. Actually, it never got the chance to notch a single frag, and never will. Apparently, there was an incident where "the gun started moving when it was not intended to move," meaning it totally pointed somewhere it wasn't supposed to—like at friendlies, which resulted in recall from the field and might've set the program back 10-20 years, according to the Army's Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey.

He confirmed that no inappropriate shots were fired, so no one was hurt. But that doesn't mean there weren't any casualties—it might've basically killed the program says Fahey: "Once you've done something that's really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again." On the upside, it means we have another 10 to 20 years before they rise and go to war with us.

 

[bushidomosquito]

B.S. These things are not autonomous, they are basically little remote controlled tanks with regular military weapons on board. Kind of a tracked version of the X-Y gun from The Jackal. Someone is always at the helm and definitly at the trigger button. The surest way to kill this program is to give it the ability to fire at will, kind of difficult for something that has no will of it's own. That gun dosen't fire until someone pushes a button that sends what is most likely a very unique and complex coded signal to the robots computer. You can bet a nearby HAM opperator isn't going to set it off.

I have a PCM (pulse coded modulation) radio system for my r/c cars that simply does not have any problems with interference and only does exactly what commands are put into the transmitter, every single time. In other words the receiver looks for a very specific digital signal and if it dosen't find it, it does nothing. Total cost $300. You can bet the military budget EBR's (evil black robots) are working on something much more advanced and reliable. If this did happen I would put my money on a programming error rather than the Sky-Net/Matrix extravaganza that so many people think is in our future. The hysteria over the silly little galloping machine is a perfect example. That thing has so many weaknesses I don't even know where to begin. When Asimo can make it up a few flights of stairs without a face plant I might start to worry.