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The Military

Submission + - Human Rights Watch: Petition Against Robots on the Battle Field (hrw.org) 1

Submitted by
KublaCant
KublaCant writes: ""At this very moment, researchers around the world – including in the United States – are working to develop fully autonomous war machines: killer robots. This is not science fiction. It is a real and powerful threat to humanity". These are the first words of a Human Rights Watch Petition to Presdient Obama to keep robots from the battlefield. The argument is that robots possess neither common sense, "real" reason, any sense of mercy nor — most important — the option to not obey illegal commands. What with the fast-spreading use of drones et al. , we are allegedly a long way off from Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics being implanted in autonomous fighting machines, or into any ( semi- ) autonomous robot. A "Stop the Killer Robots" campaign will also be launched in April at the British House of Commons and includes many of the groups that successfully campaigned to have international action taken against cluster bombs and landmines. They hope to get a similar global treaty against autonomous weapons. The Guardian has more about this, including quotes from well-known robotics researcher Noel Sharkey from Sheffield University."

Comment Macquarie Uni been there done that '12 (Score 1) 46

by mindfullygreen (#42270759) Attached to: Australian Uni's Underground, Robot-Staffed Library
Macquarie Uni - also in Sydney - completed a 70m new university library March 2012 with automated book retrieval. And just to get competitive, It's got heaps of space with whiteboards, projectors and even a million litres of water on the roof for aircon (five green star rating). NB I'm not a Macquarie staff but former student who goes to the library any chance I can get. http://youtu.be/_4If8xFSDgg

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