Bots: The New Mobile Infantry. Who was that guy in camouflage running around with grad students and robots at Ground Zero in the days following the terrorist attacks? It was a former Army lieutenant colonel, using the new mechanical dogs of war. By Michael Behar of Wired magazine. [Wired News]
There is a wealth of information in here for anyone that is interested in the state of robot technology.
Counterpoints:
...An onboard sensor tracks the HMTM's heading and wheel rotation. If the network fails, the robot can play back its movements in reverse, retracing its steps until communication is reestablished. "This will save the robot if the communication link with the operator drops out or is jammed," says Larsen. "It could spell the difference between mission success and failure."
Or, a sufficiently advanced enemy can send out a jamming signal that pulses every five minutes or so, so the robot keeps doing the cha cha, making it easier to isolate and destroy.
...There are plenty of critics who doubt that software solutions like ATAC will match the decisionmaking power of the human brain anytime soon. "Autonomous robotic weapons won't demonstrate human intelligence until machines pass the Turing test," says Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual Machines.
Thrown in a modified version of the creature AI from Black and White, and you have your solution. Get a hundred of them out int he field and running, and "breed" the 80th percentile and ina few generations, you'll have a pretty smart 'bot tearing around. Given that it can be reproduced (just copy the code base) you'll have a ready supply of robot intelligences. Something like the semi autonomous tanks from Ghost In The Shell.
