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posted by FatPhil on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the Not-Skynet,-but-groundnet! dept.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-firm-unveils-autonomous-armed-robot-to-patrol-battle-zones-borders/

An Israeli defense contractor on Monday unveiled a remote-controlled armed robot it says can patrol battle zones, track infiltrators and open fire. The unmanned vehicle is the latest addition to the world of drone technology, which is rapidly reshaping the modern battlefield.

Proponents say such semi-autonomous machines allow armies to protect their soldiers, while critics fear this marks another dangerous step toward robots making life-or-death decisions.

The four-wheel-drive robot presented Monday in Lod was developed by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries’ “REX MKII.”

It is operated by an electronic tablet and can be equipped with two machine guns, cameras and sensors, said Rani Avni, deputy head of the company’s autonomous systems division. The robot can gather intelligence for ground troops, carry injured soldiers and supplies in and out of battle, and strike nearby targets.

It is the most advanced of more than half a dozen unmanned vehicles developed by Aerospace Industries’ subsidiary, ELTA Systems, over the past 15 years.

Several other sites carrying very similar stories:

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/13/israeli-firm-introduces-armed-combat-drone-to-patrol-borders
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-israeli-firm-unveils-armed-robot.html
https://slickgunsnews.com/robogrunt-israel-to-patrol-its-borders-with-armed-robots/
https://newsnationusa.com/news/usanews/washington/israeli-firm-unveils-armed-robot-to-patrol-volatile-borders/

Previously: Israel Assassinated Iranian Nuclear Scientist Using a Remote-Controlled Machine Gun


Original Submission

Related Stories

Israel Assassinated Iranian Nuclear Scientist Using a Remote-Controlled Machine Gun 66 comments

The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine

If Israel was going to kill a top Iranian official [Mohsen Fakhrizadeh[*]], an act that had the potential to start a war, it needed the assent and protection of the United States. That meant acting before Mr. Biden could take office. In Mr. Netanyahu's best-case scenario, the assassination would derail any chance of resurrecting the nuclear agreement even if Mr. Biden won.

[...] A killer robot profoundly changes the calculus for the Mossad. The organization has a longstanding rule that if there is no rescue, there is no operation, meaning a foolproof plan to get the operatives out safely is essential. Having no agents in the field tips the equation in favor of the operation.

[...] [The] machine gun, the robot, its components and accessories together weigh about a ton. So the equipment was broken down into its smallest possible parts and smuggled into the country piece by piece, in various ways, routes and times, then secretly reassembled in Iran.

The robot was built to fit in the bed of a Zamyad pickup, a common model in Iran. Cameras pointing in multiple directions were mounted on the truck to give the command room a full picture not just of the target and his security detail, but of the surrounding environment. Finally, the truck was packed with explosives so it could be blown to bits after the kill, destroying all evidence. There were further complications in firing the weapon. A machine gun mounted on a truck, even a parked one, will shake after each shot's recoil, changing the trajectory of subsequent bullets.

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  • (Score: 2) by JustNiz on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:57AM (8 children)

    by JustNiz (1573) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:57AM (#1179923)

    WTF are they thinking?. We can't even get autonomous cars to drive 100% safely yet.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:01AM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:01AM (#1179928) Journal

      Huh? When you turn a tank or gun car loose, you're not exactly worried about "driving safely". Did you think the driver buttoned up tightly in an Abrams really cares if he sideswipes that old Thunderbird parked in your garage? If he notices at all, he'll just say "oops" and keep on going.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:17AM (#1180026)

        And if he hits it square he'll yell "steamroller!"

      • (Score: 2) by JustNiz on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:07AM

        by JustNiz (1573) on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:07AM (#1182112)

        > Huh? When you turn a tank or gun car loose, you're not exactly worried about "driving safely"

        Of course you are. That is unless you don't care about it's AI detecting those guys in camo carrying guns as enemies when they are actually your own side.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:48AM (#1179944)

      Safety: a requirement?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:55AM (2 children)

      by driverless (4770) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:55AM (#1180017)

      It's for military use, anything it hits is by definition a legitimate target. For example the US military defines "military-aged males", meaning anyone from 12 to 65 years, as "combatants", therefore making it almost impossible to kill civilians (as long as they're male) because they're almost all "combatants". So this Selbstschussanlage will mostly just kill combatants.

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:51AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:51AM (#1180032)

        Biden expanded the definition to include four year olds, as long are they're located in courtyards that could be used as terrorist training grounds. And since Democrats are SJWs, four year old female mini-combatants are fair game too.

        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:51PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:51PM (#1180094) Journal

          Yes, this all suddenly just happened in the last six months and definitely hasn't been a regular occurrence for the last TWENTY YEARS.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:20PM (#1180142)

      The four-wheel-drive robot presented Monday in Lod was developed by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries’ “REX MKII.”

      Soon to be known as "REX M'Kill".

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:19AM (#1179938)

    What could possibly go wrong?

  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:05AM (#1179948)

    And what happens when humans make robots to hunt and kill israeli khazar satan-worshiping rats?

    The khazar jew rats will run and hide in holes in the ground.

    These terrorist satan-worshiping jew rats need to be put in a place with high fences and implanted with chips and tagged so they cannot even think of escaping and hurting humans.

    If anyone is capable of terror activities and killing without remorse, it is the jews. These creatures aren't even human.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:38AM (10 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:38AM (#1179950) Journal

    Israel has over-reacted to genocide, to the point of committing genocide, It is time they were removed from polite international society. Boycott worked on South Africa, eventually, and I am part of an academic movement to not participate in any Israeli conferences, journals, or other academic activities, until they get their moral house in order. We cannot say so out loud, or the forces of the Israeli state will attempt to silence us, through sockpuppets or really stupid people in Arkansas. But we are here, and we are growing stronger.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:52AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:52AM (#1179954)

      I am part of an academic movement

      We don't see much evidence of your academic parts on this forum. We do see a lot of evidence that you were part of somebody's movement. That somebody should have flushed.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:10AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:10AM (#1179960)

        BDS is immediately targeted by the AIPAC, and other Isreali agencies of influence. They really, really, do not want to face a dis-investment and social boycott movement like the one that brought down the Aparthied regime in South Africa. But, you know, the harder your fight for an unjust cause, the more opposition you create. Boycott, Disinvest, Strike. Israel will have to learn to live up to its founder's principles. Secular state, liberal state. Draft the goddamned fundies.

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:21PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:21PM (#1180116)

          And the result is that South Africa is the rape and AIDS capital of the world with murder galore. Did the "West" do black South Africans a favor by destroying white rule?

    • (Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:36AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:36AM (#1179968) Journal

      Oh, fark, there they are already! Or, it is Runaway's hidden (evangelical pro-Israel so we can kill all the jews) sockpuppet army!

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:47AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:47AM (#1180022)

      Israel has over-reacted to genocide, to the point of committing genocide, It is time they were removed from polite international society.

      Israeli-Jews are both Israeli and Jews.

      Regarding nationality, define genocide in a way that justifies boycotting only Israel and not, say, China over the Uyghurs, Russia over Ukraine or the US & the UK over whatever they've been up to lately.

      Regarding, religion/race/tribe, define... Muslims / Arabs / Christians / Blacks / Whites...

      Otherwise, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard [wikipedia.org]

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:15AM (1 child)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:15AM (#1180025) Journal

        Whataboutism regarding genocide is never a good argument. Suggests you have something to hide.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @12:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @12:52PM (#1180718)

          >Whataboutism regarding genocide is never a good argument.

          Whataboutism is relativistic morals which at least isn't inherently flawed despite its many shortcomings.

          >Suggests you have something to hide.

          Ad-hominem, on the other hand, is.

          Otherwise, redundant seeing how I'm posting as Anonymous Coward.

          Anyhow, if you want an argument about Israel committing genocide, start by showing us the evidence. Note a few blown up school buses don't make a genocide for either side. You need to demonstrate an actual methodological attempt to exterminating the civilian population of the opposition. Mass graves in the hundreds of thousands... Propaganda calling people to kill their neighbors... You know, genocide.

          Overall, this is just the usual American winning party failure talk: Couple of years after every election, people start noticing nothing is changing for the better and they start asking why. The leading party starts blaming "the others". The opposition rallies under some justice warrior banner hoping to win some of those "others". Then comes the elections, the dice rolls, and we're back at it again one way or another. Jews and most corporations figured it out and started hedging their funds between the two so they lose some money but retain their position. People feel it spoils the sport. Well, feel free to change the rules of the game. Of course, you'll have to start by changing how the game is fixed to make sure you avoid major loses when you lose... Oh wait, is that CNN mentioning another war is on the horizon? Well, how 'bout that! 300 years straight whenever the subject of reforming the elections and tax code comes up, there's a war on regardless who sits on the thrown! What are the odds? I say, hedge it.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:17PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:17PM (#1180087)

        China should be condemned for its genocide of the Uyghurs. That doesn't change the fact that Israel should be condemned for its genocide of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Both of those genocides are the explicit policies of their respective governments, and have been now for decades.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @09:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @09:12PM (#1180523)

        We absolutely be boybotting any nation or organization doing that. The problem here is that it's virtually impossible to avoid buying things that had some part sourced from China. We've shipped so much production capacity to China that it's a virtual certainty that anything you buy is supporting China in some fashion, even if it's just the tools that were used to build the thing in a different country.

    • (Score: 2) by JustNiz on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:19AM

      by JustNiz (1573) on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:19AM (#1182115)

      Definitely a case of multiple wrongs not making a right. Trouble is, it's radically religious nutjobs on both sides. It's not like radical muslims are any better.
      The world would definitely be a better place without religion.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:27AM (7 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:27AM (#1179966)

    If I was in charge of a country's military research (or a well-enough funded terrorist organization), I'd focus on developing EMP weapons, because all that newfangled electronic warfare stuff just isn't hardened for that. The more other nations equip themselves with it, the more vulnerable to that particular threat they become.

    I happen to know nobody pays attention to EMP hardening because I did some work in "soldier of the future" projects, and all the tests we did prove it's really hard to do without adding a ton of weight to shield the electronics. In the end, we ended up compromising the specs on the grounds that modern warfare is mostly against low-tech enemies, and not technologically-advanced superblocks like in the Cold War - which of course is fine until you encounter not-so-technology-backward enemies.

    Best proof? Space probes also have a weight problem, and they have to be radiation- and EM-hardened because space doesn't care if you want to cheat with the specs. And just look how expensive, long and difficult it is to create reliable space probes. But the military will sign any waiver to get their toys, and I can guarantee you none of the new AI-powered drones run on ancient hardened PowerPC CPUs, and none of the engineers who developed the control software paid any attention to fault tolerance and redundancy (because that takes years and a lot of money to do).

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:54AM (3 children)

      by Opportunist (5545) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:54AM (#1179970)

      What a conventional, all-out high tech vs. low tech war looks like is something you can learn from WW2. Germany vs. Russia was such a war. German military technology was at the pinnacle of its time. Way, way ahead of anything anyone else in the world did engineer. Russian tech was ... well, very Russian. Take a look at a Panzerkampfwagen VI and compare it to a T-34. The PkW outclassed the T-34 in any aspect. Except serviceability. A T-34 could be repaired, to quote a Russian mechanic, with a hammer, a wrench, some random parts and a lot of swearing. Most Tigers were actually lost because they simply couldn't be put back into a working order and had to be abandoned and blown to pieces by their own crew.

      Same here.

      As long as you have perfect logistics, high-tech will look great. But these things are very fragile. The more sophisticated and technologically advanced something is, the more you're dependent on perfect conditions for it to work.

      And in a real war, you very, very rarely have perfect conditions.

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:30PM (1 child)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:30PM (#1180119) Journal

        Vietnam and Afghanistan would be even more stark examples I would think.

        • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:36PM

          by Opportunist (5545) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:36PM (#1180126)

          Not quite, since they're examples of an asymmetric war, not an all-out war on both sides. The battle between Russia and Germany in WW2 had a very different makeup. There was a defined front line, where both sides may have used commando-style operations behind enemy lines but they were not only the exception, they were also still centrally planned and part of a central strategy and logistics. This is not the case in an asymmetric scenario where there is no defined front line and one side relies heavily on infiltration and clandestine operation. There was also a central command structure on both sides, something that is usually lacking, or at least lacks the strong control over the fighting powers, on one side in an asymmetric war.

          Also, in WW2 both sides had a war industry to fuel its combat effort, something that is usually missing in an asymmetric scenario where one side usually relies on material that is either bought or scavenged, with little organized war material production.

          There's more, like diverging goals, command structure and such, but I hope the difference is clear.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @09:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @09:17PM (#1180531)

        That was an issue, but a massive issue was that Hitler overreached in a few key instances as well as falling for bad intelligence at crucial moments. Had he opted to not go after the Russians when he did, or redirect the locations of the miltary along France before D-Day, it's hard to say what would have happened. At one point, the Nazis were within a few weeks of having the British tap out. At which point, it would have been incredibly difficult, if not impossible to invade from that part of the continent.

        It's often times easy to forget just how close conflicts of that scale can be at times. The South nearly won the civil war and it was largely a matter of some bad luck and bad planning at the crucial points near the end that wound up finishing them off. As well as trying to fight a conventional war when the other side had virtually all the manufacturing capacity.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:59AM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:59AM (#1180034) Journal

      If I was in charge of a country's military research (or a well-enough funded terrorist organization), I'd focus on developing EMP weapons, because all that newfangled electronic warfare stuff just isn't hardened for that.

      I guarantee you that an EMP strike will only fry the antenna circuitry when all the electrics and electronics are in a Faraday cage of 1inch+ of steel.
      You may need a nuclear explosion nearby for that EMP to overload the armour and then it will fail by melting rather than fry the electronics.

      This damn'd matter has a way to deal with energy when in enough quantities.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:13PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:13PM (#1180086)

        Killing the antennas will do the job - a blind and mute machine is far less dangerous. The faraday cage itself can be used to attack by induction, far easier when you don't need long term reliability in your anti-robot weapons.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:57PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:57PM (#1180095) Journal

          Killing the antennas will do the job - a blind and mute machine is far less dangerous.

          Not if the machine is designed to be autonomous. Computer vision is a thing, so not quite blind.
          Besides, redundancy is also thing, so deploying another antenna is not impossible.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:54AM (5 children)

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @06:54AM (#1179972)

    The easier it is to kill, the more people will be killed.

    Ever wonder why people choose to use a gun to kill someone?

    It's because you don't have to be up close to your target. You don't see the pain in their eyes as you drive the knife into them and get to watch the life leave their eyes as the blood drains from their body.

    The further you are from teh person your killing the easier it is.

    And a remote controlled kill bot drone is just one more layer of separation between the killer and the killed. It will be that much easier for the person at the controls to pull the trigger.

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:03AM

      by Opportunist (5545) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:03AM (#1179976)

      You don't see the pain in their eyes as you drive the knife into them and get to watch the life leave their eyes as the blood drains from their body.

      Yeah, really took the fun out of making war. Maybe that's why it got rather unpopular around the more civilized areas.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @12:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @12:35PM (#1180041)

      Here's a song to that topic,
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QfwhZRyrjU [youtube.com]
      Odetta singing Dylan's "Masters of War".

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 21 2021, @01:59PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @01:59PM (#1180063) Journal
      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:20PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:20PM (#1180071)

      Ever wonder why people choose to use a gun to kill someone?

      It's because you don't have to be up close to your target. You don't see the pain in their eyes as you drive the knife into them and get to watch the life leave their eyes as the blood drains from their body.

      That's part of it. The other part of it is that it makes it harder for your target to defend themselves - while you have the advantage if you're armed with a knife and they aren't, the target still can run away and thus get out of the range of your weapon, pick up something and hit you with it, grab your knife hand, punch you in the face, etc. They may still lose, of course, but the odds are significantly less bad for them.

      But I will say, my experience in chatting with veterans is that there are basically two reactions to killing people you can see dying:
      1. Horror at what you've done.
      2. Delight in what you've done.
      Militaries really really don't want the first reaction, because that will convince your soldier to switch from destroying the enemy to pretending to fight as much as they can get away with without getting caught by their superiors and (sometimes) without getting killed by the enemy. They tend to solve that problem by either trying to keep the troops from seeing the effects of what they're doing as much as possible, and by rewarding the second reaction as much as they can. And to make matters even more complicated, nobody knows which way somebody is going to react until they're actually in the middle of things.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:24PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:24PM (#1180073) Journal

      It's because you don't have to be up close to your target. You don't see the pain in their eyes as you drive the knife into them and get to watch the life leave their eyes as the blood drains from their body.

      We passed that point thousands of years ago. Command someone else to do it and you don't have to see that, unless you want to.

      Well I see that you will not have power to wage war against Xerxes forever. If I saw such power in you, I would never have come to you with such language as this, for the king's might is greater than human, and his arm is long. - Alexander son of Amyntas, according to Herodotus

      Moving on:

      And a remote controlled kill bot drone is just one more layer of separation between the killer and the killed. It will be that much easier for the person at the controls to pull the trigger.

      The problem with this narrative is that it's not ease, but the potential deaths of millions of Israelis in a nuclear exchange with Iran that drives this particular assassination. No one has a solution to this except glib assurances of "nuclear agreements", and of course, the murder and sabotage that has worked so far.

      Keep in mind that there is considerable ease in destroying entire countries with nuclear weapons.

  • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:12AM (1 child)

    by Mykl (1112) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:12AM (#1179981)

    It is operated by an electronic tablet

    Pfft. Wake me when you can use a game controller.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:17AM (#1180027)

      An Ender's Game controller! Ah, we bring back in the Destroying Angels, and the White Horse's Ass Prophecy!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:54AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:54AM (#1180033)

    Now we just need to get the Israeli R&D team to start working on overpopulation in general.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @12:40PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @12:40PM (#1180044)

      The orthodox Jews in my neighborhood all seem to drive 8-seater Toyotas.

      underpopulation isn't a goal.

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 21 2021, @01:17PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @01:17PM (#1180054) Journal

        GP said working on overpopulation, not working against it. ;-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:57PM (#1180081)

      There is an overpopulation of generals .... and admirals.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:07PM (2 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:07PM (#1180066)

    I really really hope these killbots come with a built-in kill limit. That way, if humanity ever really needs to defeat them, they can win by sending wave after wave of men at them until they reach that kill limit and shut down.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:08PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:08PM (#1180106)

      Hey that was the British strategy in WW1 - well it worked didn't it? Your welcome, conscripts.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:07PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:07PM (#1180127)

        Well, it was also a major strategy of the French, Germans, Austrians, Ottomans, Russians, and just about everybody else in that war. Until the whole "tank" thing had been figured out, at least.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:00PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @03:00PM (#1180084)

    unless

    The descent into war, she continued, could only be prevented by mobilising the international working class on a revolutionary socialist program to put an end to the capitalist system now threatening the very existence of mankind.

    • (Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:18PM (1 child)

      by Rich (945) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @04:18PM (#1180099) Journal

      Well yes, but when the capitalist oppressors resort to violence that the revolution has to be defended against, wouldn't Comrade Tankist be much safer with his/her tank in the battle against the fascist Panzers, if Comrade Academic could make it autonomous?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @05:10PM (#1180109)

        socialists.... oppressors... descent into war.... oooh I'm getting a woody. Gotta go visit my ammo stockpile?!!!1

  • (Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:52PM

    by Username (4557) on Tuesday September 21 2021, @07:52PM (#1180137)

    When they finally come up with an autonomous footed robot.

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