[yarcob]

As soon as they make a usable remote control for that robot the US military is going to buy a bunch of them and attach machine guns and use them to shoot up "suspected terrorists".

Looking at what the US military has been doing with drones, that scenario doesn't seem that far fetched.

[qayxc]

> Looking at what the US military has been doing with drones, that scenario doesn't seem that far fetched.

This scenario will remain science fiction until we invent a compact power source with an energy density (by both mass- and volume) matching fossil fuels.

The military has no use for loud and cumbersome petrol-powered monstrosities like Big Dog (which is why the project was axed) or underpowered robots with an endurance that's measured in minutes (like Spot) in combat scenarios.

Once such power source is available, though, the independence and versatility of a human in power armour would still be far superior to a remote controlled robot that can be hacked or have its comms jammed with COTS equipment...

[exikyut]

Wait, Spot's power source only lasts minutes?

Ah, its battery runs for 90 minutes.

[qayxc]

> Ah, its battery runs for 90 minutes.

Yep, and that's best case, too (e.g. not running Lidar or complex processing for autonomous function at the same time).

Minutes sounds a bit shorter than it is, but nevertheless anything with an endurance under 2 hours cannot run for hours pretty much by definition ;)

[jackhack]

It's about perspective. Imagine being pinned down by a squad of these things for "only" 60 minutes. Or being pursued through the forest or an urban environment. That 60 minutes would feel like a very long time.

For a glimpse of this, check out the videogame Generation Zero (1980's Sweden overtaken by armed robots, including robot dogs).

[brlewis]

That would be terrifying, but a squad of trained humans is still more terrifying. If you're worried about what a military is going to do, robots are mostly a distraction.

[qayxc]

> Imagine being pinned down by a squad of these things for "only" 60 minutes. Or being pursued through the forest or an urban environment.

Given the current state of these machines, both these environments would favour humans. Even a fairly untrained average Jane or Joe would have no problems outrunning these things in forests or urban environments, let alone a trained soldier. Not to mention the lack of autonomy.

Everything you see in these promotional videos is carefully choreographed, prepared and pre-programmed in advance for days, and edited:

"There were definitely some failures in the hardware that required maintenance, and our robots stumbled and fell down sometimes." - they shot the first part several times and kept the one that worked best. That's not something you can do in the field outside of a controlled environment.

These robots are still long ways away from posing more of a thread to a soldier than much simpler solution, e.g. a Humvee with a mounted machine gun.

> For a glimpse of this, check out the videogame Generation Zero

The game is based on fiction, not fact, though. The required autonomy just isn't there yet and the video game robots clearly run on magic, not electricity or petrol. They never overheat, they are maintenance free, and they move faster than is currently possible w.r.t. motion planning and image recognition.

It's your typical AM/FM affair: BD is actual machines - pre-programmed or remote controlled, very limited endurance and still impractical for most military applications.

The robots in video games and cinema on the other hand are for the most part in the domain of fucking magic - capable of "120 years of continuous operation on a single power cell" like the Cyberdyne Systems series 800 v2.4 (Terminator), turning themselves from "autonomous swords" into screaming humans (Screamers), are nearly indestructible like Vision (Marvel's Avengers) or strange spiky flying thingamabobs like the Sentinels (Matrix trilogy).

[latencyloser]

Perhaps enough time to drop a few in with a parachute, hit a target, then possibly "self destruct" somehow, if I'm being imaginative I suppose.

[XorNot]

Conversely an army of non-sapient robots would have a lot more options for dealing with belligerents. A human has to fire back when threatened because they don't want to die. A robot can take the hit, and risk being destroyed, because we can build another one.

[eeZah7Ux]

Judging by the use of drones for "extrajudicial" assassination, the narrative of robots as merciful weapons sounds dubious at best.

[bradyd]

Police in the US have already used a robot to execute a suspect after a sniper killed 5 police officers.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/8/12129348/dallas-shooting-b...

[XorNot]

A drone at 2 miles up isn't arresting anyone.

[eeZah7Ux]

Interesting comparison, in times of militarized trigger-happy police...

[XorNot]

Which again, a robot has no need or ability to be.

[Notorious_BLT]

Given the success (inasmuch as one can call it that) they've had with drones, why bother with mounting a gun on a robot that can barely run for longer than an hour? Wouldn't a remotely-piloted/autonomous vehicle with guns mounted on it be much more efficient than a robot walking around on 2 legs?

I guess I just struggle with understanding how this changes anything.

[tandr]

Weight of what it can carry might be an important factor.