Robot-Cannon Kills Nine People
It's one thing to make (tasteless) jokes about exploding cell phones being the ultimate cause of human extinction, but when a robotic device seemingly goes out of its way to kill its operators, then something may be up. It seems a bug or glitch caused a robotic anti-aircraft gun In South Africa to flip out and kill nine soldiers (and injure a further 14).Details are sparse, but a jam or internal explosion caused the gun to malfunction, resulting in it "wildly swinging" as it "sprayed hundreds of high-explosive 0.5kg 35mm cannon shells around the five-gun firing position," according to the post.
The gun is designed to automatically target aircraft, helicopters, and cruise missiles and fire when any targets come into range -- all without human intervention. The gun can even reload itself automatically when its magazines are emptied. As a result, the rogue robot gun could not be stopped before it completely ran out of ammunition, despite efforts from one brave artillery officer.
A disturbing reminder that our robotic minions are not always happy with their menial tasks and can strike at any time? Keep your eyes open, Roomba owners!
From Slashdot , Wired, and the Star
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Don @ Oct 19th 2007 10:51AM
Will believe this post when confirmed.
Jim @ Oct 19th 2007 10:52AM
Cool!
daytonasun @ Oct 19th 2007 11:01AM
sounds like it went "POSTAL!"
Grey @ Oct 19th 2007 11:02AM
I wonder who created this weapon. South Africans?
daytona @ Oct 19th 2007 11:02AM
Sounds like it went "Postal!"
BILL @ Oct 19th 2007 11:02AM
WHO DESIGNED THIS GUN? NO WAY TO STOP IT. WHAT ELSE HAVE THESE GENIUSES MADE? I HOPE THEY ARE NOT ON OUR SIDE! THEIR WEAPONS COULD WIPE OUT AN ENTIRE ARMY, THAT IS THE ARMY WHO WAS GOING TO USE THEIR WEAPONS! NEXT, WHO OK'D THE ROBOT GUN.
GENERAL GENIUS I SUPPOSE!
daytonasun @ Oct 19th 2007 11:03AM
Sounds like even robots can "go POSTAL!"
Josh P @ Oct 19th 2007 11:03AM
My CPU is a neural net processor, A learning machine!
Nick @ Oct 19th 2007 11:05AM
There is no way, at this point of technology, should there be anything that is a total automated weapon. There has to be human control or able to control at all times. Electronics and computer systems are prone to failure and glitches. This is what they call acceptable losses.
ukantseeme @ Oct 19th 2007 11:06AM
Obviously a racially motivated incident...bots vs humans.
Mike @ Oct 19th 2007 11:19AM
UH.......did anyone think to UNPLUG it?
Granbury @ Oct 19th 2007 11:21AM
Confirmation is the key. If it did occur it was certainly NOT COOL.
BigBoris @ Oct 19th 2007 11:23AM
Bush did it. It's in the playbook.
Gil @ Oct 19th 2007 11:34AM
Remember your English Lit Class? R.U.R.
norm @ Oct 19th 2007 11:35AM
hmmm wonder if this was a prototype built by Cyberdyne
jIM @ Oct 19th 2007 11:47AM
Okay...who got bored and plagerized a scripted scene from RoboCop. "And yet...across the Atlantic, minds immeasurably superior to ours, regarded us with envious eyes...and slowly but surely....drew their plans against us"...See, I just plagerized H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds".
Dale Conley @ Oct 19th 2007 11:48AM
Sounds like the unit went into production before all the bugs were worked out of the system.
Afinefred @ Oct 19th 2007 11:48AM
Haven't they heard of an ON/OFF switch?
john @ Oct 19th 2007 11:56AM
make jokes but people died
Rudi @ Oct 19th 2007 11:56AM
Gee......someone surely didn't do their homework doing the basic machine language. That machine can do only as it is programmed, unless of, someone purposely sabataged the mission.