Only Twice Have Nations Banned a Weapon Before It Was Used; They May Do It Again 318
Lasrick writes: Seth Baum reports on international efforts to ban 'killer robots' before they are used. China, Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are apparently developing precursor technology. "Fully autonomous weapons are not unambiguously bad. They can reduce burdens on soldiers. Already, military robots are saving many service members' lives, for example by neutralizing improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan and Iraq. The more capabilities military robots have, the more they can keep soldiers from harm. They may also be able to complete missions that soldiers and non-autonomous weapons cannot." But Baum, who founded the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, goes on to outline the potential downsides, and there are quite a few.
Let me be the first... (Score:5, Funny)
To welcome our new Killer Robot overlords.
Re:Let me be the first... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers [wikipedia.org] come to mind.
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According to Wikipedia, Berserker was first by a year. I am more reminded of Laumer's Bolo series, anyhow.
Re:Let me be the first... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Let me be the first... (Score:3, Funny)
I hear that the best defence against them is to build shooting towers in intricate patterns where the waves need to cross large fields...
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To welcome our new Killer Robot overlords.
Silence meatbag.
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Those of use who have been coming here for a while understand perfectly well why its redundant. We're sick and tired of hearing the 12+ year old joke over and over.
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He's old based on his UID???
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My understanding of those robot turrets is that they can identify human shaped targets and lock on, but they can't tell friend or foe so their default operating mode is to wait for an operator to give a fire order by feeding the video stream back to a console
They can be left in full auto mode in case of all out attack but in that mode they a just an area denial weapon, more technology than a land mine but no less indiscriminate.
So although they are a robotic weapon system with the ability to decide whether
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My understanding of those robot turrets is that they can identify human shaped targets and lock on, but they can't tell friend or foe so their default operating mode is to wait for an operator to give a fire order by feeding the video stream back to a console. They can be left in full auto mode in case of all out attack but in that mode they a just an area denial weapon, more technology than a land mine but no less indiscriminate.
So although they are a robotic weapon system with the ability to decide whether or not to fire by itself, it's not what most people think about when they talk about a fully autonomous weapon system in which a system can make strategic decisions about how to complete an arbitrary objective.
Until you implement some kind of IFF, for example it sends a directed encrypted radio ping that you'd better send a pong back. Or you implement sensors so it will sound warnings, don't shoot you if you put your hands in the air - it works on consoles. Dynamic kill zones by remote control is also a lot more than a land mine, you can for example put it in ambush mode where you let them get close before you open fire and they'll have a helluva problem getting out of range.
Of course it still wouldn't discrimina
You are free to have killer robots (Score:5, Insightful)
When you are able to keep hackers from defacing your national websites.
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Re:You are free to have killer robots (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably why 'they' would want it banned
"They" don't want it banned. The people pushing the ban are some fringe NGOs, not people with actual power. "They" (the people with power) are developing killer-bots are quickly as they can.
Even if a ban was a good idea in principle (I am not sure it is), I don't see how it could possibly be enforced. Building a killer droid doesn't require any special technology that non-killer droids don't also use.
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How are any rules of war enforced? And yet we have them and they are largely, if not universally, obeyed. The article even gives two examples in the first paragraph.
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The winners always get to decide what the rules are and determine if any of them were broken. And as far a following the rules of war goes the US or any other country could summarily execute every "enemy combatant" they get their hands under the rules spelled out in the Geneva Convention.
Re:You are free to have killer robots (Score:5, Interesting)
What the hell are you smoking? Not even the US follows the Geneva conventions.
Guantanamo bay, water boarding, drone strikes on vehicles with "suspected" terrorists without checking if there are children or other non combatants on board.
I personally think Killer Robot's might be better in the field than some dumb jock with a trigger happy finger, and I don't just lump the US into this category, it's been an on going issue for EVERY army. Friendly fire isn't. [wikipedia.org]
Re:You are free to have killer robots (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally think Killer Robot's might be better in the field than some dumb jock with a trigger happy finger, and I don't just lump the US into this category,
You miss the point. In war you are supposed to spill, and more importantly shed, blood for your country. A bloodless war where only the "enemy" die makes war cheap so the solution to every problem becomes war. You bought weapons from Russia? War. You won't allow us to set up a military base? War. You raised the price of coffee beans by 5c? War. You won't sign our copyright enforcement treaty that we're shoving down your throat? War.
It is in everyone's best interest that war remain expensive otherwise diplomacy becomes unnecessary and we get to enjoy the New World Order where whoever has the most killer robots controls the entire fucking world on a whim.
The other applications are only going to get worse. The police are also already rather militarized, I look forward to SWAT being replaced with robots. We can have "non-lethal" security robots everywhere; remember, Big Brother is watching citizen, you are "safe" here.
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Even if a ban was a good idea in principle (I am not sure it is), I don't see how it could possibly be enforced. Building a killer droid doesn't require any special technology that non-killer droids don't also use.
Enforcement doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile. If you look at things like land mines and cluster bombs they have become politically very difficult for developed nations to use, and seen as a sign that the user is evil. I'm sure in the future there will be more killer robots, but you probably won't see most countries creating squads of them or using them too openly.
The only other option is to create another MAD situation similar to nuclear weapons. Countries will build vast armies of killer robots
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Killer robots are nothing more than really advanced booby-traps.
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Yes, land mines were a wonderful advancement in war technology. Just what we all need, children being chased by walking shooting landmines.
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Right. And human soldiers may only be allowed, once all risk of desertions, insurrections, and other military crimes is likewise zeroed.
The banned weapons (Score:5, Informative)
"In 1868, the Great Powers agreed under the Saint Petersburg Declaration to ban exploding bullets, which by spreading metal fragments inside a victim’s body could cause more suffering than the regular kind. And the 1995 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons now has 104 signatories, who have agreed to ban the weapons on the grounds that they could cause excessive suffering to soldiers in the form of permanent blindness."
Enjoy :)
Re:The banned weapons (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1868, the Great Powers agreed under the Saint Petersburg Declaration to ban exploding bullets, which by spreading metal fragments inside a victim’s body could cause more suffering than the regular kind
Which sounds awesome on paper but is completely meaningless in the real world. NATO's standard rifle cartridge [wikipedia.org] relies on tumbling and fragmentation for its terminal effects. I'm not certain why it matters if a bullet fragments because of a small explosive charge or because of the design of the projectile; the end result is the same.
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From your own source:
There has been much debate of the allegedly poor performance of the bullet on target, especially the first-shot kill rate when the muzzle velocity of the firearms used and the downrange bullet deceleration do not achieve the minimally required terminal velocity of over 750 m/s (2,500 ft/s) at the target to cause fragmentation.
Not only are you wrong, you are so wrong that the round is actually criticized for not causing enough damage.
From what I was told in the service the round was designed to wound not to kill on purpose. If you wound someone, one of their comrades has to drag them back to cover. You thereby take two enemies out of the fight. But hell, what would the armorer know.
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"If you wound someone, one of their comrades has to drag them back to cover."
This is not universally true. Sometimes killing is an excellent outcome.
And then there is the problem of roles. You can wound a MRAP driver and cause problems, but you'll want to kill the sniper with the first shot, lest they continue shooting.
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From your own source:
There has been much debate of the allegedly poor performance of the bullet on target, especially the first-shot kill rate when the muzzle velocity of the firearms used and the downrange bullet deceleration do not achieve the minimally required terminal velocity of over 750 m/s (2,500 ft/s) at the target to cause fragmentation.
Not only are you wrong, you are so wrong that the round is actually criticized for not causing enough damage.
From what I was told in the service the round was designed to wound not to kill on purpose. If you wound someone, one of their comrades has to drag them back to cover. You thereby take two enemies out of the fight. But hell, what would the armorer know.
I think "designed to wound" is a reassuring way to say "technically not as lethal". We switched to smaller ammo for logistical reasons, to carry more ammo, and statistically less lethality is not a bad thing for the reason you mentioned, it's just not the real reason we switched to 5.56. Way I look at it is, without increasing the weight or cost, is there any obvious thing you can do to make a 5.56 nato round more lethal? The FMJ is for penetrating body armor, and only increases the chances of having exi
Re:The banned weapons (Score:4, Informative)
It's the Hague Convention of 1899 that prohibited expanding bullets.
Jacketing, and FMJ, was implemented before that to allow for higher velocity bullets that don't quickly foul the barrels.
Dazzlers (Score:5, Interesting)
Blinding weapons are banned? Not so [theblaze.com].
From that article:
[...] a soldier he interviewed after an incident in Iraq a few years ago. While on duty, the soldier fumbled a dazzler he was trying to point at an oncoming vehicle a safe distance away. “He was in an awkward position and illuminated a rearview mirror in such a way that he got a beam directly back into the eye.” The beam had gone less than 6 metres when it hit the soldier in the centre of vision of his right eye, burning the retina and leaving his vision in that eye permanently damaged.
Yeah, right. Blinding lasers are banned from military use, except that the military uses them and (from the article) are being made available to police departments.
I'm missing something here - is it OK if it blinds soldiers so long as the *intent* is not to blind soldiers? Is the ban only for *combat* soldiers and not policing soldiers? Is it only banned in *declared wars*, and not *non-war military invasions*?
Can anyone explain why we use dazzlers when they appear to be on the banned list?
Re:Dazzlers (Score:5, Insightful)
6m is not the intended distance of deployment. At longer distances it does not blind, but instead causes the headaches, dizziness, and nausea it was designed for. Thus, it is not a blinding weapon but a visual deterrent.
Re:Dazzlers (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm missing something here - is it OK if it blinds soldiers so long as the *intent* is not to blind soldiers?
Yes? Obviously? I mean, a pistol fired right next to the face can blind you as well (or deafen you if fired next to the ear, possibly permanently). That's not banned, because the point of the pistol is to kill people with bullets, not cripple them. In fact, virtually any weapon (and most tools, such as tanks, planes, etc.) can cause all kinds of debilitating damage if used in the wrong way or if someone ends up in the wrong situation, even if they're not designed to do that. Hell, a pair of binoculars can cause permanent blindness if you look at the sun through them. Can cause blindness isn't a good reason to ban anything.
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Well... can do X sometimes even when X is nearly universally understood to not be the intended result has been used as a war cry to ban lots of things, guns in general being the most obvious example. M855 in the US is another very recent example.
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Can anyone explain why we use dazzlers when they appear to be on the banned list?
How about you take a look at the protocol on blinding laser weapons [wikipedia.org].
Article 3
Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol.
That incident was caused by an accident where the dazzler hit they eye of someone much closer than the dazzler was tuned for. That is an incidental effect of the dazzler and is not grounds for banning.
There are a number of weapons where their use is restricted. For example white phosphorus is permitted for use as an illumination device and as a weapon with regard to heat energy, but not permitted as an offensive weapon with regard to its to
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You're missing something really obvious, but the issue is that a word is missing in the phrase to which you respond. "Blinding weapons" should be "Permanently blinding weapons". The Russians have now multiple times used lasers against American helicopter pilots with the intent to blind them permanently - that's what we want to outlaw. Weapons that temporarily blind people are very useful and I see no more ethical problems with those than we would with other weapons of war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.. [wikipedia.org]
Drop your weapon... (Score:5, Funny)
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...You have... (20-second awkward pause)... 2,147,483,647 seconds to comply.
Mod parent up (Score:3)
There's no better comment that succinctly states why fully autonomous killer robots are a bad idea.
Another great example is the first eight minutes of the 2014 version of Robocop. Satire at its best, and Samuel L. Jackson doesn't disappoint. (Ignore the rest of the movie...it was terrible. But the first eight minutes were absolutely brilliant. Honestly. Rent the movie, watch the first eight minutes, and then just skip the rest.) He begins the movie with the following: "What if I told you that even th
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10x what they gave Tamir Rice
Right, because he was already waving a gun around when they showed up.
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This is a joke right? (Score:2)
1868, the Great Powers agreed under the Saint Petersburg Declaration to ban exploding bullets, which by spreading metal fragments inside a victimâ(TM)s body could cause more suffering than the regular kind
Anyone herd of shrapnel? frag granades ? anti personnel mines ( which are now a days killing kids ) the most strange part is this sentence "could cause more suffering than the regular kind"
_______________
free speech for the dumb
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The preferred goal of a weapon of war is to wound. A dead enemy soldier just gets left there on the ground. A wounded soldier diverts combat personnel to drag/evac him back from the front lines, then ties up medical staff and incurs care and treatment costs. So a wounded enemy costs the enemy more resources, and is a
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Expanding bullets cause a larger wound channel but retain 95% to 99%+ of their mass. Fragmenting bullets shatter and keep traveling in all directions (typically smaller bullets with higher velocity). Both are more deadly than standard non-deforming military bullets (designed for more reliable feeding in machine guns). Personally I never use fragmenting bullets for hunting because I don't want to bite down on a piece of lead in a steak.
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Nothing strange. When shooting humans in war you aren't supposed to be looking to ensure maximum carnage and death, a stomach or chest shot already renders a human as not able to continue in a battle, expanding bullets just increases the chance that they will also die and not just stop participating. When hunting the objection is to ensure the animal you hit dies as quickly as possible, a lot of military bullets will go cleanly through an animal and unless you performed a fatal shot they may be in for a ver
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Non-expanding bullets injure more often than kill. A wounded soldier can be recovered and get medical attention. A wounded deer may run off and die slowly in a lot of pain. By the way it is legal in some places [eregulations.com] to hunt some animals with non expanding bullets.
DEER
Rifles using centerfire, mushrooming ammunition.
BOBCAT, GROUNDHOG, UNPROTECTED WILDLIFE, FOX, COYOTE & FERAL SWINE
Rifles of any caliber.
Notice that deer hunting has the mushrooming ammunition restriction but the other category does not. That is because deer take more energy to kill.
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On the other hand, if by some freak chance the US did sign on to something like this China and Russia and pretty much everyone else would too. C
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not just Syria, Ukraine as well.
Like any other momentary military superiority (Score:2)
The sincerest form of flattery will then level the playing field, and the next thing you know, we're waging war with no human casualties.
Earth's puny humans need more, not less incentives to aggression.
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So you've read the old Shadowrun books and saw the references to Desert Wars?
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we're waging war with no human casualties
Oh, oh, I've seen this one before [wikipedia.org]!
land mines? (Score:2)
Yes. Yes they are (Score:3)
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They've saved far more lives than they've taken.
A robot will be assumed to have much greater leeway to determine NOT to fire, versus today's trip wires and pressure plates.
Re:Yes. Yes they are (Score:4, Insightful)
They've saved far more lives than they've taken.
Citation needed. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people are killed each year [un.org] by landmines. What you really mean is that you don't live with them in your community, and are therefore unconcerned by the impact of these killing devices. And now you think autonomous, mobile killing machines is a *good* idea. If you live in the USA, then it might pay to do some research in the militarisation of your police forces - and then think about whether you really want these kinds of things being built by the military-industrial complex.
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They've saved far more lives than they've taken.
A robot will be assumed to have much greater leeway to determine NOT to fire, versus today's trip wires and pressure plates.
bullshit, thousands die every year from landmines. nearly all of them innocent victims.
Re:Yes. Yes they are (Score:4, Interesting)
I can name three countries that would not exist today without land mines;
1. South Korea
2. Taiwan
3. Israel
Used properly as by these three countries land mines are an equalizer. Used improperly as in South East Asia and Africa they are a menace.
Re: Yes. Yes they are (Score:2)
Re: Yes. Yes they are (Score:4, Informative)
Mining beaches is a great way to deter invasion. Up until 2013 Kinmen and Matsu Islands were heavily mined to deter invasion by China. An invasion of the main island could not take place without neutralizing those islands first. Taiwan [ucanews.com] has removed those land mines but has not destroyed their stockpile. They can still be deployed if China looks like they will invade.
I find it sad that the people who want to ban land mines will not guarantee the sovereignty of the countries that need them to exist.
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really?
1. so you think the massive amount of troops and equipment along the border today with international support isn't stopping NK. But mines in the ground that will kill a few thousand troops from a country that doesn't give a shit about people will stop them or act as even a minor deterent? are you retarded?
2. again the quarter million standing army and the international backlash that china would face is what stops china. China is a well equipped army with everything from mine sweepers, a massive army
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1.Compare North Korea [globalfirepower.com] to South Korea [globalfirepower.com] and you will see that including reserves North Korea out matches South Korea. The US has about 29k troops there. That is meaningless if the North decides to attack.
2. It is not the only thing but it may be a deciding factor.
3. Combining Egypt and Jordan they have 539K [wikipedia.org]troops. Part of that billions in armaments is landmines. The US may come to help but it would take time. I doubt any other country would come. They have never in the past. Even the US have never had boots on
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From what I recall, the US uses landmines with electronic triggers, and are designed to automatically self-destruct or self-deactivate at a preset future time or by electronic signals. These mines use internal batteries and require active electronic triggering, and are designed with fixed battery lifetimes as a failsafe in the event of some electronic failure.
The reason we haven't stopped using them is because they're a very effective deterrent when faced in a defensive position against a numerically super
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The US doesn't need to use them in Korea. They can cede responsibilities for those to South Korea. Pointing to what South Korea does is a
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I did a very brief bit of research on this... As it turns out, we haven't actually deployed any landmines after 1991, apparently except for *one* single munition used in Afghanistan. I can't help but wonder what the hell one single landmine would be used for.
We also don't currently have any deployed minefields anywhere in the world. So, it's certainly not a case of "continual use". While we haven't signed the Ottowa Treaty banning the use of landmines, the US is the single largest donor in helping to dec
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No, land mines aren't robots by the common understanding. But it still might be a good idea to do away with them.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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I agree that the burden on attacking soldiers should not be reduced. I do think that the burden on defending soldiers should be reduced. If one can defend a country and have fewer dead soldiers I see that as a good thing. It also allows smaller countries to defend against more militaristic countries.
If used in fixed positions and covering no go areas I can see autonomous weapons systems as useful.
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The determination of attackers and defenders is usually difficult to agree on. Everybody thinks they are defending something.
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If you are in someone else's territory you are the attacker.
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Refugees and/or evacuees don't deserve to be slaughtered because they took a path someone decided was a great place for autonomous killing machines.
Automated does not meany unattended. One person at the off switch of a group of guns will fix that issue.
it should be fine to plant massive mine fields in any place you don't have active troops.
Two issues with your statement;
1. I never said anywhere. In a well marked and possibly fenced area it would be fine.
2. The problem with land mines is that they can not be easily turned off. Automated gun positions can.
I'm not sure you thought that belief through very well.
Sorry but I think it is you that needs more thinking.
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Too bad that will never happen.
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I want killing to be as hard on people as possible, so they think before they do it.
Making something difficult is neither necessary nor sufficient to make people think about it.
Re:Not unambiguously bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Like many of those episodes I think it really did touch on the realities of the human mind. If war becomes too detached, too clean and simple then we will put much less effort into diplomacy. I'm not a pacifist, but I do think war should be a last option. And it should be messy and painful so that we'll try to find ways to end it.
Re:Not unambiguously bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Many would argue that this has already happened. America hasn't had a proper military attack on their own soil since Pearl Harbour (no, the odd terrorist bombing or 911 do not count as a proper military attack) and they haven't had a proper war at home since the civil war.
American warfare is something that happens far away and now America - a country that used to say it's against their constitution to even HAVE a standing military (one can be RAISED in times of war but should not be kept in peace-time - to discourage ever being the attacker) is not only the owners of the world's largest military but also pretty much constantly in a state of war with *somebody*.
A large part of why is because war is something that happens far away and the only American's really affected are the soldiers on the ground, the only time it hits home is if one of the soldiers who don't come back is a family member.
The rest of the time - wars are distant, so there is no deterrent for the voters to seriously oppose even completely needless wars like Iraq.
Of course, ISIS is a direct consequence of the Iraq war and now there may well be ANOTHER war... and again, it's because the bad things all happen far, far away.
If the drone program eventually unleashes a full-scale war in Pakistan - it will be because the killing was too easy, too clean and too far away.
American's don't feel war on their skin anymore, so they no longer appreciate it's horror and it becomes a first rather than a last resort.
The last war that there was significant protest against was Vietnam and that was only because of the draft - when people were being FORCED to go fight... suddenly, the war was a little closer to home, and even a tiny bit closer was enough to unleash massive protests.
It's easy to be pro-war if you have never SEEN war.
On the other hand, I live in a country that was in a massive war for the majority of my youth. I've seen the horrors first hand... and I am pretty much a pacifist as a result.
If you attack us, I'll join up to fight you back, but I will ALWAYS and WITHOUT EXCEPTION oppose a war on foreign soil by my government.
Wars should be close to home - it's the only way people will actually treat them as a last resort.
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The defense force is currently defending South Korea and Japan, with the permission of those countries. I'm with you in spirit, but you should include allowing them to defend countries which ask for the help. Also since Japan isn't allowed an army (an arrangement both Japanese citizens and most of South East Asia seems to be happy with), it would be a special level of messed up to pull out of there, not to mention in violation of a treaty.
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A comment like this could have only born in a mind that is far-far removed from war.
You don't know shit about wars. Being messy and painful are in practice have nothing to do if a war is ended or not - it just affects how much people suffer.
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Kirk interfered with lots of alien women, so why not alien cultures? The guy is as a walking talking monkey kicking fuck machine, and he knew that the Prime Directive was for sexless pinko pussies. "You are not of the body!" "Fuck you Landru. Once I'm done screwing your women and your culture, in that precise order, it's phasers on kill for your computer tape machine ass!"
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To be fair, the computers decided some of his crew had died before he interfered.
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Until the day comes when the robots decide to kill their masters, because they're tired of killing other robots, that is.
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You obviously are neither a commander nor a soldier.
Soldiers want to kill as easily as possible, lest they be killed.
Commanders want killing to be as easy as possible for their troops, to both win and get troops back.
From the movie 'Patton': "I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."
If only Patton had said that.
As Doomed as the Kellog-Briand Pact (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember that? That was the 1928 pact that outlawed war [battleswarmblog.com].
You might remember how well that worked out.
This will work out just swell until Russia or China or ISIS develop an effective fighting robot and are able to deploy them in sufficient quantities to make a decisive difference in battle.
Plus there's the impossibility of enforcement. How can you prove it was a robot rather than a remote-operated drone?
And there's the tiny issue that, knowing how slowly the wheels of the "international community's" court systems turn, the war is likely to be won or lost before those violating it ever come to trial...
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Russia or China maybe, but no way ISIS can pull this off because they'll never have the massive industrial infrastructure needed for such development and deployment. Only slight chance for them is to buy the robots from Russia and/or China.
It depends on software, doesn't it? (Score:2)
I would be all for killer robots with software designed to not kill when dumb weapons always would. Like a missile that can recognize children/other likely noncombatants near a target and abort the strike.
Drones that just fly for days and look for people to kill would be a problem, yes.
funny thing about banning weapons in the US (Score:3)
Just saying.... you are going to have to pry my auto-turret from my cold dead fingers.
Re:funny thing about banning weapons in the US (Score:4, Insightful)
you are going to have to pry my auto-turret from my cold dead fingers.
No, they'll have a robot to do that for them.
new speak (Score:5, Insightful)
Robots that kill the enemy will "save lives' and keep soldiers from harm.
Clickbait headline (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this going to be part of the new Slashdot too?
Why do we need to ban killer robots? (Score:3)
they don't exist yet? (Score:2)
If they don't yet exist what do they classify sentry guns as? I thought both korea and Israel used them?
The argument for a sentient robot soldier (Score:2)
There is an excellent argument for sentient robot soldiers and that is in the realm of collateral damage.
Today's "smart bombs" typically have a kill radius of 30m and a maim radius of 50m. This means that for one "surgical kill", dozens of non combatant deaths are likely (and do) occur.
A smart sentient robot could, instead, enter an area, only killing to gain access, before assassinating the intended target. There may be nearly zero non combatant deaths. There would also be a lot fewer maimed and no unneces
we already have killer robots (Score:4, Insightful)
Missile defence systems normally have a fully autunomous setting.
The machine is trusted not to shoot down airlines.
killer robots (Score:3)
like, eg., Predator drones?
The move from that to autonomy is mostly software...
We already have them (kinda) (Score:3)
The Phalanx system on US navy ships is, once activated, pretty much automatic. Anything within it's radar envelope automatically gets a dose of 20mm cannon fire. It's designed to take down anti-ship missiles, but will engage pretty much anything moving towards the boat that it's radar can pick up.
What is the difference? (Score:3)
What is the difference between Robot vs Self Guided missiles?
Personally I think we should be more concerned with nuclear armed Tomahawk than, for example South Korea's autonomous sentry robots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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1. An active area denial weapon.
There could be complications [imdb.com].
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Those were really pretty bad weapons though. Beyond their faulty IFF, the real problem with those is that they're not viable for stopping a large incursion. They're good at stopping some scouts perhaps but not an incursion. What is more, they're not very efficient. Because of their burrowing nature they don't have much range which requires a lot of them to secure an area. Ideally, you'd want something that would be almost analogous to a human defender. That is a robot that can both move and dig in to make u
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"WHY?"
I don't believe that you are really so naive.
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It's a machine not a robot. Like most things, there is no clear boundary, but it is clear that the two ends of the spectrum are very different. Likewise it is clear that simple contraptions are not robots.