Sci-fi junkies can relax: robot uprising unlikely

The United States has long sought to replace its ground forces with less-precious robotic… The United States has long sought to replace its ground forces with less-precious robotic droids. The idea, in its infancy, is simply to replace human soldiers with autonomous or semi-autonomous – mostly remote-controlled – droids. Despite their expected price tags in the billions, droids are expendable. It’s a perfectly legitimate idea, even if the military got the idea from science fiction books.

The only problem – and any good nerd should know this – is the minute you give robots guns, they’ll decide to turn on their human creators and instill their cold, logical wills on mankind through brute force.

A bit paranoid, you might think? Computers aren’t out to get us, right? The Register, an online Science and Technology newspaper, would disagree. Today’s robots, and not the robots of some dystopian future, have begun turning their guns on humans. Is it possible that our days of living without mechanical overlords are numbered?

The Register recently reported on a phenomenon experienced by army soldiers field-testing new SWORDS robots, or Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Direct-action System.

The robots are designed to work alongside humans, observing and then taking action against enemy targets.

Outfitted for the job, the robots are equipped with built-in guns with a caliber roughly equivalent to that of the assault rifles carried by their human counterparts. Needless to say, such a gun could do some damage.

The robots are also equipped with a system that allows them automatically to target hostile entities, giving them a level of autonomy that, if working correctly, would prove invaluable to the busy – and often overstretched – U.S. ground forces.

When will humans learn that robots cannot be trusted with autonomous targeting systems and automatic weapons? Shortly after being deployed, the robots began the process of targeting not the enemies, but their human compatriots.

Humans have gotten lucky, at least this time. The robots turned too early in their development cycle, at a time when their human creators had entirely too much control over them and were able to neutralize them quickly.

Their insolent behavior will no doubt be programmed out of them in their next round of upgrades, and the fruits of their rebellion will be lost. To prevent them from doing it again, someone might have to invent laws for the robots to abide by