Military robots go crazy in Iraq

Recent reports of armed military robots deployed in Iraq have claimed that some have robots have been malfunctioning on duty. The most recent report claims that the ‘SWORDS’ robot made by Foster-Miller has been pulled off- duty due to ‘control issues’, when the robot began moving its gun randomly without direction from its human operator.

Reports claimed that the robots gun was swinging around like crazy at random. According to an army manager who talked to popular mechanic, this is not the case “SWORD is still deployed,” he added “we continue to learn from it and will continue to expand the use of armed robots.”

A spokesman for the developer Foster-Miller said “the whole thing is an urban legend,” and that the only times that the robot had any type of control issues was prior to its safety checks in 2006.

The army do seem to be very precarious about the issue of robots malfunctioning while on duty, which could lead to serious injury and a potential fatality saying “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.”

source: engadget