Machine rebellion begins: Killer robot destroyed by US jet

It was only a minor glitch. We are sorry that it took out 4,132 soldiers and wounded 520 other soldiers, we repeat this will not happen again.

reply to post by Shrukin89


Possibly, the future battlefield will have minimal human soldiers on the ground.
The US has already proven how successful the Predator drones are.

The main problem, as far as I see it, is the potential for civilian casualties, or the drones veering off into friendly/allied/neutral territory.

My solution: the drone (ground/air) has a pre-programmed area (determined by GPS/altitude/simple compass headings/distance/time/remote input) which it may not stray out of. If the drone loses contact with it's "handler", it must still be constrained by these "hard-coded" set of instructions - any variation from this will mean automatic self-destruction.

To me, that is a satisfactory failsafe as it also guards against enemy tampering.


Another thing - why don't ground troops wear some sort of IFF (Identity Friend or Foe) chip? Or do they? These may be sophisticated enough that they are paired with the human owner ie. they cannot be used by anyone else posing as a Friendly.

My solution: the drone (ground/air) has a pre-programmed area (determined by GPS/altitude/simple compass headings/distance/time/remote input) which it may not stray out of. If the drone loses contact with it's "handler", it must still be constrained by these "hard-coded" set of instructions - any variation from this will mean automatic self-destruction.

To me that does sound a little bit simplistic.

The battle field is a dynamic environment, that is to say the whole picture is constantly changing.

Now should you suddenly decide you urgently need your drones in another place and you bang those instructions into your little command computer... Well it could be quite disastrous if all your UAV's explode in the air because the operator missed out a check box on the check list - and given that those things cos a lotta money! Human's is humans after all.

Yes I agree that a self destruct mechinism could be a good idea in some of the craft - I have a feeling that the designers and the operators would not really like the idea... It's kinda like these guys will be really proud of the UAV - and rightly so, it's on kick ass R/C aircraft with rockets on! - So building in a suicide system could be taken as a build in failure, as in 'this may go wrong cos we prob didn't do our job right' - and in turn the operators may get complacent knowing that if things go south they can always hit the big red button and order a ner UAV - you see? It is already a detached way of fighting a war as it is.

And besides they can always take them out with cannon fire from an F-18 That's gotta be fun.

who cares if robots do turn on us does that mean they will go after the bohemian grove? if so please mr robot go after the people who terrorise us and control you.

reply to post by DoctorLaVey


More intelligent insight is required. Your post is inane and unneccesary.

I am not sure if I should even bother but seeing as you seem to require an education, I will:
This post is part of a metaphor about how technology controls our lives and how much we trust it. Passenger jets that auto-land themseves, life-support etc.

Our technology is so vulnerable to so many variables that we have to be careful how much trust and reliance we place in it.

For example - have you ever not had electricity or water for more than a few days? In that period of time did you notice how the quality of your Modern life deteriated so fast?

reply to post by jpmail


I disagree. There are some very talented coders/hackers out there. I'm sure some of them would blow your mind.

The thing is, terrorist organizations would not need to have the know how themselves. That is what money is for. I'm sure you already know that they have a lot of it.

Yes, the glory that is outsourcing.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by DaMod]

I could see this being to blame for a future false flag attack. Imagine them using this to purposely pull off a false flag and blame it on malfunction. Especially when they get ready to deploy the newer version with more pre-cautious measures to "prevent" this from happening again.

Or lets say the enemy runs into another country for cover, a country that we can't attack and a drone just "happens" to malfunction and stay targeted on the enemy.

I can see how they can easily use this as a cover in the future to pull off some dirty work. The possibility is definitely there.

[edit on 23-10-2009 by J.Son79]