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Darpa stops trying not to be terrifying.
- tptacek 17y agoThis massively improves my opinion of what DARPA is spending my money on.
- philwelch 17y agoArticle describes a DARPA robot that powers itself by gathering and fueling itself from biomass. This is apparently an approach to energy-autonomous recon robots (harvest grasses and plants where it goes) that has amusingly terrifying connotations when you consider the mental image of a chainsaw-wielding robot capturing and devouring, say, people. It seems that DARPA, which once built things that seemed like the fevered imaginations of a 14 year old boy, is now building things that seem like the fevered imaginations of a 7 year old boy.
- BrentRitterbeck 17y ago<sarcasm> Surely any robot built by the U.S. government will be bound by Asimov's three laws of robotics. </sarcasm>
- arakyd 17y agoFrom the RTI website, a presentation they supposedly gave to the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute in April: A code of moral behavior for intelligent robots will be developed. Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws are insufficient (especially for military).
- BrentRitterbeck 17y agoI understand that. My sarcasm was apparently a failed attempt at being somewhat humorous after a long week.
- arakyd 17y agoBoth of our posts would be funnier if the project was anything other than vaporware.
- philwelch 17y agoDavid Langford's Three Laws: 1. A robot will not harm authorized Government personnel but will terminate intruders with extreme prejudice. 2. A robot will obey the orders of authorized personnel except where such orders conflict with the Third Law. 3. A robot will guard its own existence with lethal antipersonnel weaponry, because a robot is bloody expensive. (Langford is an SF writer. You might know him from his "basilisk" stories--if not, go read them sometime.)
- forsaken 17y agoIn my opinion this is a good thing. I'd much rather have the things that my younger imagination thought up, because they are almost certainly cooler. Making the things that people want who have no idea of the things they aren't supposed to want.
- chadgeidel 17y agoFrom The Register... I'm not holding my breath.
- arakyd 17y agoThey cite their sources - just follow the trail a few more steps. http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/index.php/EATR http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/index.php/EATR: At the sixth (System of Systems) level, which has not yet been implemented, the 4D/RCS serves as an overarching intelligent control and decision system for (all or part of) a manifold of distributed unmanned and manned platforms, unattended sensors and weapons, and control centers. Ambitious!
- moe 17y agoSkyNet, here we come.
- raffi 17y agoAnd this my friends is why government research is awesome. DARPA and crackpot scientists--coming to a future near you.
- onreact-com 17y agoSeems to be inspired by the latest Terminator movie. Why do we need more killer machines, are the people in charge afraid that some day humans will refuse to fight for the "just causes" they are presented?
- lispm 17y agois there any non-military research left in the US?
- digitallogic 17y agoThere's plenty, but in pales in both breadth and depth (number of sources and amount of money offered) compared to DOD funding.
- digitallogic 17y agoGetting worked up over the potential of a DARPA research project is like getting yourself worked up over a popular girl when you were in high school. There's almost no chance those ideas will come to fruition, and on the slim chance something does, it will be in the far off future and nothing like you initially thought.
- ivankirigin 17y agoThis is linkbait. Biomass can mean plant matter. I've worked on DARPA funded robots.
- 4chan4ever 17y agoI thought DARPA ceased to exist when they moved the island.