Hunting for guerillas, handling roadside bombs, crawling across the caves and crumbling towns of Afghanistan and Iraq -- all of that was just a start. Now, the Army is prepping its squad of robotic vehicles for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns.I'm sure, somwhere in the fever swamp, there is an objection to this..."No Oil for Oil" or something...
As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon -- a model armed with automatic weapons -- are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. Around the same time, the first prototypes of a new, unmanned ambulance should be ready for the Army to start testing. In a warren of hangar-sized hotel ballrooms in Orlando, military engineers this week showed off their next generation of robots, as they got the machines ready for the war zone.
"Putting something like this into the field, we're about to start something that's never been done before," said Staff Sgt. Santiago Tordillos, waving to the black, 2-foot-six-inch robot rolling around the carpeted floor on twin treads, an M249 machine gun cradled in its mechanical grip.
The Challenge: Come up with an anti-war slogan for not using robots...the funnier, the better...
Mark's Remarks
No Tinker Toys for Oil?
My Erector Set Should Not Die for Bush?
Seriously, this idea is most interesting, but of course, there are the negative scenarios, such as a Terminator type scenario where artificial sentient intelligence is achieved, then we get into theological discussions of do they have a soul, etc? Which also could to the Matrix reality, so who knows?
I think it is an interesting development, but I don't believe robots will replace human ingenuity on the battlefield or in life...
