Justin Blanton | US war robots in Iraq turned on American troops

I currently practice IP law in Silicon Valley and have an unhealthy obsession with coding, photography, Apple, gadgets, artificial intelligence, and all things Internet.

More than anything, this space is an outlet for sharing and commenting on things I'm currently involved in, infatuated with, or annoyed by, and it just so happens that a lot of those things have to do with computers.

Twitter: late breakfast with the girl and then heading to the office. bleh. 55 mins ago

This feature is currently disabled, and will remain so until the plugin author (or myself) fixes the WP v2.3 incompatibility.

Have my witty, sarcastic, and thoughtful pieces left you chomping at the bit for the next installment? If yes (or no), you may wish to subscribe (RSS). If you have no idea what RSS is, but still want an invitation to the daily syndication party, you can receive updates by e-mail instead.

This is a bit and not a regular weblog entry

US war robots in Iraq turned on American troops.

[T]here had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.

Last August, I linked to an article discussing the deployment of the SWORDS bots to Iraq, which, in light of these events, now reads even creepier than before. From that piece:

[Though declared ready for duty in 2004,] concerns about safety kept the robots from being sent [to the] battlefield. The machines had a tendency to spin out of control from time to time.

[…]

So the radio-controlled robots were retooled, for greater safety. […] A three-part arming process — with both physical and electronic safeties — is required before firing. Most importantly, the machines now come with kill switches, in case there’s any odd behavior.