US Army Colonel Issues Warning About Remorseless “Killer Robots”

Source: InfoWars 


Drones are the “start of the rise of the machines”
Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

March 14, 2013

Award-winning military writer and former intelligence officer Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer has penned an essay warning of the threat posed by remorseless “killer robots” that will be used to stalk and slaughter human targets in the near future.

Rise of the Machines. Image: YouTube

Pryer worked in military intelligence after joining the US Army in 1992 and has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. He has won several prestigious awards since he began writing in 2009.

In an essay published by the United States Army Combined Arms Center, Pryer laments how the use of unmanned drones – which kill 50 innocent civilian for every suspected terrorist – are perpetuating wars and endangering America’s global reputation. He then makes a stark warning that the drone strike program is merely a pre-cursor to the kind of nightmare technocracy depicted in the Terminator movies.

“It seems heart-breakingly obvious that future generations will someday look back upon the last decade as the start of the rise of the machines,” writes Pryer, adding that the US government is developing, “robots so advanced that they make today’s Predators and Reapers look positively impotent and antique. These killer robots, though, will share one thing in common with their primitive progenitors: with remorseless purpose, they will stalk and kill any human deemed “a legitimate target” by their controllers and programmers.”

Pryer’s comments echo those of Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, who has repeatedly warned that the robots currently being developed under the auspices of DARPA will eventually be used to kill.

Sharkey described the DARPA robots as “an incredible technical achievement, but it’s unfortunate that it’s going to be used to kill people.”

“It’s going to be used for chasing people across the desert, I would imagine. I can’t think of many civilian applications – maybe for hunting, or farming, for rounding up sheep.” Sharkey added.

“But of course if it’s used for combat, it would be killing civilians as well as it’s not going to be able to discriminate between civilians and soldiers.”

In a 50-page report published last year, Human Rights Watch also warned that artificially intelligent robots let loose on the battlefield would inevitably commit war crimes.

“Giving machines the power to decide who lives and dies on the battlefield would take technology too far. Human control of robotic warfare is essential to minimizing civilian deaths and injuries. It is essential to stop the development of killer robots before they show up in national arsenal. As countries become more invested in this technology, it will become harder to persuade them to give it up,” said, HRW’s Steve Goose, calling for a ban on the technology.

Last year, experts at the prestigious University of Cambridge announced a project to conduct research into the “extinction-level risks” posed to humanity by artificially intelligent robots.

Take a look at DARPA’s current array of robots in the video below.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

New DARPA Robot Can Autonomously Track People

*Source: InfoWars

Professor warns machines will be used to “kill people”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Following Professor Noel Sharkey’s warning that the fleet of robots being developed for DARPA will ultimately be used to “kill people,” Boston Dynamics has released a new video showcasing how its LS3 robot is able to autonomously track humans over rugged terrain.

The video clip shows a field test of the DARPA Legged Squad Support System autonomously following a man through a forest. The robot is also able to interpret visual and verbal commands.

“We’ve refined the LS3 platform and have begun field testing against requirements of the Marine Corps,” Army Lt. Col. Joe Hitt, DARPA program manager told Fox News. “The vision for LS3 is to combine the capabilities of a pack mule with the intelligence of a trained animal.”

Although Boston Dynamics and DARPA claim the robots are ostensibly being designed to help conduct humanitarian and relief missions, Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, recently warned that the true purpose of the machines is less benign.

Speaking about the Cheetah, a similar robot currently being perfected by Boston Dynamics, Sharkey said the device represented, “an incredible technical achievement, but it’s unfortunate that it’s going to be used to kill people.”

“It’s going to be used for chasing people across the desert, I would imagine. I can’t think of many civilian applications – maybe for hunting, or farming, for rounding up sheep.” Sharkey added.

“But of course if it’s used for combat, it would be killing civilians as well as it’s not going to be able to discriminate between civilians and soldiers.”

As we reported last week, the Cheetah recently broke the human world speed record set by Usain Bolt in 2009 by achieving a running speed of 28.3 miles per hour.

Sharkey has previously warned that the world may be sleepwalking into a potentially lethal technocracy and has called for safeguards on such technology to be put into place.

In 2008, Professor Sharkey told the Alex Jones Show:

“If you have an autonomous robot then it’s going to make decisions who to kill, when to kill and where to kill them. The scary thing is that the reason this has to happen is because of mission complexity and also so that when there’s a problem with communications you can send a robot in with no communication and it will decide who to kill, and that is really worrying to me.”

The professor also warned that such autonomous weapons could easily be used in the future by law enforcement officials in cites, pointing out that South Korean authorities are already planning to have a fully armed autonomous robot police force in their cities.

Paul Marks at the New Scientist pointed out such proposals are somewhat concerning, because they inevitably will be adapted for domestic purposes such as policing and crowd control.

“…how long before we see packs of droids hunting down pesky demonstrators with paralysing weapons? Or could the packs even be lethally armed?” Marks asked.

In 2008, the Pentagon issued a request to contractors to develop a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” designed to search for, detect and track “non-cooperative” humans in “pursuit/evasion scenarios”.

This again illustrates how behind the veneer of relief missions and humanitarianism, the true purpose that the robots are eventually designed to fulfil is based around tracking, pursuing and even killing humans – in the context of both law enforcement and combat.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.