REMARKABLE BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBOT
First uploaded Feb. 27, 2016. First updated July 12, 2016.
R.U.R. is a 1920 science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. R.U.R. stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots). However, the English phrase Rossum’s Universal Robots had been used as the subtitle in the Czech original. It premiered on January 25, 1921 and introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole.
The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people, called roboti (robots), out of synthetic organic matter. They are not exactly robots by the current definition of the term; these creatures are closer to the modern idea of cyborgs, androids or even clones, as they may be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans at first, but that changes, and a hostile robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race. (Wikipedia)
And in the middling 2004 film I, Robot starring Will Smith, a technophobic cop in 2035 investigates a crime that may have been perpetrated by a robot, which leads to a larger threat to humanity.
Want to see something truly frightening and real? See: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35648918
That's because it could just as easily have been armed in any number of ways and programmed to kill, then mass-produced and controlled from a keyboard and screen anywhere.
And then we have the possibility of artificial intelligence to allow the robots a degree of independence in action.
A nightmare foreseen long ago in science fiction.
And where else but in Boston would a robot be assaulted with a hockey stick?
To add to the debate, the New York Times published this editorial on July 12, 2016:
"Did you know that police departments across the country had armed themselves with killer robots? Micah Johnson, the gunman suspected of fatally shooting five police officers in Dallas last Thursday, was killed by one such machine, a remote-controlled robot carrying a one-pound charge of the explosive C4.
This appears to have been the first time the police have sent a robot to kill someone in this country. It may not be the last time.
With little public scrutiny, much less public debate, police departments in most major cities and even many smaller ones have equipped themselves with robots.
The Dallas police chief, David Brown, has said that using the robot was the only viable choice and that “other options would have exposed the officers to grave danger.” From a legal perspective, a choice by the police to use a robot to kill a dangerous suspect is most likely no different from a choice to use a gun. And we’d applaud any advance that would help the police act more safely, and hence more calmly. Yet the ability to kill remotely — and Dallas’s success in doing so — could encourage other police departments to use lethal remote-controlled devices, with potentially alarming consequences. A bomb could kill innocent bystanders and might be more likely than a police sniper to maim rather than kill a suspect.
While the military’s use of drones to kill enemy combatants abroad has been the subject of widespread debate, until last week there had been little public conversation about the use of robots by law enforcement to kill Americans at home. At the very least, police departments and experts have a duty to inform that conversation by being more forthright about the capabilities, benefits and risks of robotics technology.
There are also regulatory questions. Who, for instance, should be held accountable if something goes wrong — the officer operating the device, the officer commanding the operation or the manufacturer? And is there a need for regulation at some level governing what kind of weapons law enforcement robots may carry and what situations warrant their use?
It may well be that Chief Brown is right and that in this situation more patient and time-tested alternatives — starving Mr. Johnson out, for instance — carried too great a risk, especially since Mr. Johnson had begun shooting again and had warned of other explosives planted nearby.
Even so, this seems an ideal time to define the limits on armed robots, before another department has the occasion to use one."
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
Calgary
403-281-2156
