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Monday, May 8, 2006

Death by flying robot?

Posted by on May 8 at 14:29 PM

Experts call it inevitable—the ones who aren’t too busy pissing on Isaac Asimov’s grave. Sigh. If only we’d built scruples for our robots when we had the chance.

…thanks to satellite positioning systems, [robots!] can now be programmed to hit targets some distance away with just a few metres (yards) short of pinpoint accuracy.


Japanese company Yamaha, meanwhile, has produced 95-kilogram (209-pound) robot helicopter that is 3.6 metres (11.8 feet) long and has a 256 cc engine.

It flies close to the ground at about 20 kilometres per hour (12 miles per hour), nothing but an incredible stroke of luck could stop it if it suddenly appeared in the sky above the White House — and it is already on the market.


“We are observing an increasing threat from such things as remote-controlled aircraft used as small flying bombs against soft targets,” the head of the Canadian secret services, Michel Gauthier, said at a conference in Calgary recently.

On another note, fuck Will Smith.


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Our own military is developing a slew of new killer robots. Congress passed a resolution in 2000 which called for one-third of ground vehicles and a third of the deep-strike aircraft to become robotic by 2015. Death by remote-control robot has already been visited upon several suspected Al Queda operatives (and a bunch of people who happened to be standing near them when the missiles hit.) Predator aircraft equipped with Hellfire missiles have been flying missions over Afghanistan and Iraq throughout those conflicts.

A recent Pentagon study showed that the lifetime cost of one soldier from enlistment through burial is about $4 million. Robots don't need pensions or medical benefits. Killer robots are the future of warfare!

And yes, Isaac Asimov is whirring in his grave like a gyroscope.

Cienna, the 3 Laws were a nifty literary device but utterly impossible to devise. Asimov knew this and dodged that problem by dreaming up positronic brains.

No grave spinning - those were stories, fiction, money in the bank for Asimov not something to take seriously.

Thanks for the lesson, brian. I've made a note of that on the back of my hand: "Science Fiction is fiction, not real life."

I suppose that's why they don't call it "Science Real-Life."

I won't forget again.

Hey, you were the one talking about scruples and silicon circuits.

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