Armed ground robots

[netmouse]

remotely-operated ground vehicles (robots) with guns are being deployed in Iraq. How'd you like to face down a robot with an M-249 machine gun? Or a grenade launcher? The program calls them "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action systems" (SWORDS). So far they have not been in a firefight. Yet.

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

oh, definitely. In general, robots *ought* to increase safety for everyone. But only if they work right, and if their operators understand the limitations of the infostream they will get from them. We're working on systems to help robots to collaborate to fill in information gaps they need to effectively complete ISR missions. The ability to check for gaps in one's own knowledge and make predictions that, when they fail to come through, indicate possible issues caused by the dynamics of the situation (things are not as we expected) is actually kind of tricky to manufacture. Operational robustness issues abound with remotely-controlled observation platforms, much less weaponized ones.