I didn't post about this originally, because it was so obviously wrong. (Maybe I should have posted for that reason?) But Popular Mechanics and Danger Room have debunked stories prompted by inaccurate and increasingly breathless web reports of the context of what robotics chief Kevin Fahey said at last week's Robobusiness conference. (That's the danger of blogs, isn't it? One false but sexy and breathless tidbit: "ARMY PULLS ARMED ROBOTS AFTER IT POINTS GUN AT HUMANS, SAYS NO MORE ARMED ROBOTS FOR 10-20 YEARS" can get repeated very quickly and be seen as gospel, because after all, it was on the Internets, as it were. (Never mind that the article that prompted some of this breathless reporting quoted Fahey saying that they were about to deploy MORE armed robots to Iraq!)
Nevertheless, here is Popular Mechanics' follow on their poorly worded original story, featuring must-read quotes from the military and Foster-Miller, who are none too happy with how SWORDS has been portrayed, and Danger Room's follow, also featuring more comment.
Bottom line: The three SWORDS robots are still in Iraq and have not been used to fire their weapons, the actual reasons for which are still a mystery, but appear to be due to the reluctance of commanders to deploy it. (Ed: Perhaps wanting to avoid bad headlines, such as "TERMINATOR ROBOTS POINT AT SOLDIERS"?) More armed robots are going to Iraq, and it seems only a matter of time before we have many, many armed robots supplementing soldiers in dangerous situations. It seems like it would only take one "mouth of the cave moment" where a soldier's life is clearly on the line and an armed robot is available to take his place on the point, to prove invaluable.
I also note that iRobot has an armed variant of its iRobot Warrior project coming on line soon, but is dependent on funding which is not available yet even for SWORDS. I can see the warrior being a near-perfect Sniper-Killer. Send it into a building with a sniper, and it can climb the stairs and then use its twin shotguns to full effect.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if the potential headline risk ("SHOCKING: MILITARY HARDWARE CAN BE DEADLY") results in the first heavily deployed units being something more like the Taser, which is also teaming with iRobot, although that capability may see its first deployment by domestic police forces.
Tags: iRobot, robot, iRobot, SWORDS, Foster-Miller, terminator
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