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It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. And, also, the U.S. Air Force is thinking of building a few of them - unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability, armed to the robotic teeth with Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) missiles and equipped with YARA (Yet Another Rad Acronym). But, much like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Aurora Excalibur has a softer, friendlier side as well. More »
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The U.S. military wants to have robotic eyes in the sky constantly roving and watching what goes on below, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They might achieve that capability very soon, as a test vehicle called the Zephyr just obliterated the old endurance record for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), nearly tripling the previous record. How did the Zephyr stay aloft for so long? More »
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A squadron of six robot planes are now perpetually buzzing visitors to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, performing "reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition," and possibly even attacks. Or at least, they would be if they weren't part of the new exhibit celebrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This is one of the most cutting-edge displays you can see at the Smithsonian - some of the planes even have certain parts sealed because they are still classified. More »
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An RQ-4 Global Hawk broke the world record for unrefueled flight endurance by a full-scale uncrewed aircraft in a test at Edwards Air Force Base last week, staying aloft for 33.1 hours at altitudes approaching 60,000 feet. The Northrop-Grumman built plane costs $28 million each - there are currently three of them in action both in the U.S. and in the Middle East. The previous record was held by an earlier variant of the Global Hawk. More »
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Now that the military is using autonomous surveillance/combat robots created by iRobot, the company behind the Roomba robot vacuum, a strange question emerges: What do we do if a robot commits a war crime? This isn't idle speculation. An automated anti-aircraft cannon's friendly fire killed nine soldiers in South Africa last year, and computer scientists speculate that as more weapons (and aircraft) are robot-controlled that we'll need to develop new definitions of war crimes. In fact, the possibility of robot war crimes is the subject of a panel at an upcoming conference at Stanford. More »
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