Armed robots pulled out of Iraq
Last August, three gun-totting robots were deployed to Iraq — the first such deployment in military history; the armed robots had a short career as soldiers, though: For reasons yet to be determined, the robots kept training their guns on their operators; no shots were fired, but the military decided more work was required
Last August we wrote that three “special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system” (or SWORDS) robots had deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns - the first such deployment of armed robots in a theater of battle. The robots stumbled out of the gate, though. The SWORDS units were almost immediately pulled off the battlefield, before firing a single shot at the enemy. The Army’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey, speaking at the RoboBusiness Conference in Pittsburgh the other day, was asked what happened to SWORDS. Fahey’s answer was vague, but he confirmed that the robots never opened fire when they were not supposed to. His understanding is that “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move.” In other words, the SWORDS swung around in the wrong direction, and the plug was pulled fast. No humans were hurt, but as Fahey pointed out, “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.”
