We here at SB like to champion robots for their uses as tools of innovation; helping people like widowers and orphaned kittens lead fuller and more productive lives.

These uses of robots are fun and educational, and provide for the shiny, optimistic Star Trek future that everyone someday hopes will come to pass.

However, in honor of Halloween, we’d like to direct your attention to robots whose powers are used for evil (and not even in a funny way):

Submitted for your approval:
The SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System) is a scary-ass modular insert for a TALON robot chassis that can carry anything from an M16 to a grenade launcher. It climbs stairs, has (ahem) killer battery life, can maneuver quickly through snow and surf, and allegedly was once retrieved from the bottom of a river by simply driving the thing out from under water. That’s tough building.

Hey Kids! All we need is some really great AI and all our problems will be solved (*cough*skynet*cough*)!

Luckily, AI hasn’t gotten to that point where it can be deployed sentiently or in such a compact package, but when it does, we are pretty sure Karel Capek will have had it right all along.

There have been four TALON/SWORDS units in the field since 2005, and order for 18 total as far as we can tell. The TALON/SWORDS unit joins iRobot’s Packbot, a robot that is well suited for rough terrain and reconnaissance and disarming IEDS, but so far has no real plans for mounting weaponry. Wikipedia has a nice and exhaustive entry on military robots here.

Is this a good use of robotics? Perhaps it’s inevitable. Countless arguments can be made that it saves more of our guys in the field. On the other hand it can also dehumanize the horror of war and make the battle seem like nothing more than a really rockin’ game of Quake II.

Much is made of the ease with which on of these things can be piloted by a member of the video-game generation.

Ah well, we realize we are opening ourselves up to a whole can of shrapnel, but tell us what you think.

In the meantime it’s good to know that the same people who are building the future robot army also make sure we have plenty of chewy delicious fruit-flavored treats. This thought just invites horrible visions of a possible dilemma:

[SCENE: Happy Trick or Treating Kids go up to a door, Ding-Dong!
Door is answered by a chewy-fruit-candy-basket laden TALON/SWORDS unit]

Kids: Trick Or Treat!

TALON: //DESTROY//

Kids: AIIIIEEEE!!!!!!!!

[Robot goes on bloodthirsty, flesh-singing rampage, kids scatter, REMFs in command daintily nibble on candy and congratulate themselves on a job well done, etc etc]

Some hoo-ra about the TALON/SWORDS unit here.

And to restore a little bit of your faith in humanity, a few videos from The Discovery Channel about robots used in various difficult fields, and the success thereof.

[Thanks Alexander Rose for the original tip. . . ]

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IN OTHER NEWS:
While we are still kind of on the subject of scary situations, please note that in our Lovely Sidebar we have a brand-spanking new Suicidebots YahooIM ID.

Poke us with your gripper arms, or rack-mounted amphibious sharks-with-lasers-on-their-heads, or whatever, and give us tips!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Bill Joy Might Be Right, Robot Combat, Robot Overlords. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.