Day of robot cops nears

The collaboration between InRob Tech and Frontline Robotics is but the latest indication of growing interest in — and growing use of — unmanned vehicles of all types. Analysts say that the day is not far — some estimate it at about ten years — when we will see robots armed with lethal weaponry and a programmed determination to eliminate foes becoming a key element in global counter-terrorist and military operations. The latest example: Plans by Burlington, Massachusetts-based iRobot Corp, to arm its track-wheeled PackBot robot with a Taser X26 stun gun. Until now, the PackBot, which looks like a small first-world-war tank, has been used for remote-controlled bomb disposal, dangerous search, and surveillance missions. Now it will have the ability to “remotely engage, incapacitate and control dangerous suspects”, iRobot said. “The addition of Taser technologies on to iRobot platforms will provide a critical tool for SWAT, law enforcement and military to handle a variety of dangerous scenarios,” said Admiral Joe Dyer, president of iRobot Government & Industrial Robots. A spokesman for iRobot said the firm had no plans to equip its machines with lethal weaponry. Nor would the robots be able to decide on their own whether to open fire, without a human being in the loop.

The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall quotes John Pike of GlobalSecurity to say that development of robot cops, similar in purpose if not appearance to the crime-fighting characters in the Robocop and Terminator films, could be complete within ten years and in use by police, prisons, and military. “For sure machines could be armed with guns, for sure they could be autonomous,” Pike said. “You already have UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) with an autopilot. You tell the autopilot where to go, what altitude and speed. Then it starts making its own judgments. So with the robot, you give it an instruction like: ‘Clear the building - anybody pointing a weapon at you should be killed’. Robots are infinitely brave. They have no hesitation in killing and feel no remorse. And the great thing is you don’t have to send condolence letters to their families if you put them in harm’s way,” Pike said.

What would happen if police ordered robot soldiers to clear a building, not realizing that a child was inside? “First of all, the child had better not be pointing a weapon at you,” Pike said. “Second, people will think about that before they program them. They will have criteria for that.”