I'm guessing the times they are speaking of is when someone with a controller either swapped with someone else so it made it look like it was un-commanded, or possibly they can yune the controllers to the same freq, and mess w/ people.

"a heck of a sequence of malfunctions" Hey, that's the title of Terminator 4!!! Oh god, they're actually making one... sad.

April 15, 2008: SkyNet becomes self-aware...

Apparently, SkyNet had a "word" with them.

@OMG! Ponies!: ... realizes global warming will kill off humanity, bides its time.

"There's one more fact that squashes the "Terminator" label the robots have been given: they can't fire their weapon without direct orders"

That's not comforting at all. I mean, it's better than the alternative but um... I'm pretty sure people have fucked up giving all kinds of orders - this thing obeys blindly, eliminating the last possible fuck-up filter this side of 'whoops'. At least a soldier can thinkto himself, "Hey, woah, what? Shoot who? I dunno sarge. I'm pretty sure those guys are us."

... or even more frightening:

"Hey, woah, what? Shoot who? I dunno sarge. I'm pretty sure those guys are unarmed civilians protesting peacefully."

@nutbastard: At least you can still blame good ol' fashion humans for all the killings.

Base on my years of dealing with computer, "a heck of a sequence of malfunctions" does happen and it happens quite often. These are usually call bugs.

@Darrone:
except the giving of an order to fire is simply the key to activating some lines of code - and like Aleung pointed out, often lines of code run when they shouldn't.

@nutbastard: Never stopped em before. Sometimes the soldier can't even tell who he is shooting at.

Its inevitable that a friendly gets shot by one of these. The truth is that they save lives. I really don't see the difference between this and a tank. Both have people running the controls, neither can shoot by themselves. The only difference is that one has way more killing power and is called a tank, the other is called a robot. People are scared of robots because of movies. I would be more scared of the tank.

It's the "nothing much anyone can do about" the robot sliding down a hill, that worries me. There's any number of external environmental factors, like plain old mud, as well as enemy action, that can cause the think to move wrong. But maybe it won't fire unless it's told to . . . or thinks it's told to.

@Abnormal: Actually, you make a very valid point.

Cool, I was just correcting false info that GadgetPlay was spreading in the older posting, and now this pops. Go Wall-E, Go!

I can't stand this solution for one very obvious reason...ACCOUNTABILITY! When a solder shoots someone, it's very obvious who is accountable. When one of these things shoot someone, it will be the simplest of things to obscure who is accountable. Blame it on software bugs, hackers, Demo's/Repub's, the weather, sunspots, whatever. We'll be able to shoot a whole group of people rioting for food, and then "Appoint a Blue-Ribbon Fact Finding Task Force to Get-to-the-Bottom of this tragedy!"

@Abnormal: from Jericho, Season 1: "Its always good to have a spare tank hanging around. You never know when you might need it."

...Slashdot had a nice write-up on this device when it first appeared. One of the comments in particular caught my attention. It had to do with the after effects of this kind of weapon. It asked the question "Why would an enemy bother to fight a robot?" Whatever their chance of success is, they should just run because there's no possible victory from trashing a bunch of enemy equipment. No, they should run and try to take the fight to those who will actually care, i.e. Civilians. It's very similar to what we see in Iraq with Road Side Bombs. There's nothing to be gained from conventional warfare, so insurgents turn to gorilla style warfare with IED's

hooray for fact-checking journalism!

@Darrone: Blame it on Tibor.

@trippysmurf: Realizes Global warming is a hoax, begins stalking Algore.

@thechansen:I don't recall spreading any "false information." Would you be so kind as to refresh my memory?

What we really need to do is send some of the Giz staff over with a universal remote, and then just watch the fun!

@newgalactic:Please, outside of Tarzan, the warriors are guerillas (little soldiers) not "gorillas". Also, while I'm on my soapbox, "militia" is plural, as in the Afghan militia were armed with RPGs. It is not a singular noun, and the usage "An Iraqi militia was killed on his post today" is not only unlikely, it is poor grammar.
Thank you.

how useful is this thing anyway?? feels like if i drop a large rock on it it'll loose a couple more wires and start shooting the wrong people...

Or, a well trained lab rat can probably disable one of these "robots" with ease.

I can't believe how many people here think that this robot is making ira own decisions. This thing is in lament terms a romote controlled car with a camera and gun. A human is dirctly controlling it much like how modern remote controlled cars are controlled. The human operator will be pressing a button to fire the gin while looking at a screen showing what the gun is pointed at without having to worry about being killed and all the other nastiness of actually being where the robot is. Hence IMO, these robots will allow soldiers to make clearer decisions being in the saftey and comfort rather than rash ones when on the stress of the actual battlefield.

You said Iraq harbored and funded terrorist during Saddam's reign. I corrected that. Read the old article comments. Its been known since 2002 that their was no ties to terror organizations, chiefly Bin Laden and friends, and that Iraq did not have the infrastructure to build WMDs. Both assumptions in 2002 have been proven namely by not finding weapons and the Pentagon's report saying there is no link between Iraq ( pre war) with terrorist. This report was released last month and similar statements had been made in public by officials since 2004.
So I was talking about those false statements you made, and I corrected. I won't get into it but I'm extremely well read on the subject, I know what I am talking about with this. I support our troops with this war and like with any war its a real shame that it even started. This is a war with no real purpose except to flex our muscle in the region, secure our intrests in the region, and dump money into companies that have countless friends in govt that pushed for the war. This isn't conspriacy theory, tin foil hat garbage, this is fact.

@SavannahJack: ...woops. Thanks SavannahJack, sorry about the slip-up. And I'd like to apologize to all gorillas, and Jane Goodall for my insensitive remarks. Gorillas aren't mean, Guerrillas are, ...or wait, they are mean. Just not political.

@newgalactic: accountability is still a part of war, no matter what the weapon. i carry an M4 on patrol every day. if i pull the trigger, i'm responsible for every round that comes out of my barrel. now if some pogue is sitting on the base and fires a hellfire from a predator, he's still responsible for that hellfire. the same would apply to the SWORDS system. you can't just kill random civilians, you're held responsible.

@thechansen: I stand by my comments, they are not false. If you choose to believe Left Wing Political Propaganda, that is your business. That is all.

The United States Government, Pentagon officials, CIA, FBI, and NSA put out left wing political propaganda? I think Ive proven my point here. The report released by the Pentagon, which I would assume has no invested interest in lying about this information, completely debunks your argument. This isn't the liberal mass media talking, this is the very same people who are in charge of protecting us, the very heart of military and intel of our country. So I stand by my statements being correct and Im going out on a limb and putting my faith in this government document. I think you are allowing partisan politics blind you from the truth. This isn't a matter of me trying to prove you wrong at this point, I just want to understand why/how you believe your stance on this.

Man I dunno about what you guys think but personally this thing seems pretty useless to me. Like someone else said insurgents wont waste time trying to fight this thing they will simply run away, or set traps to disable them, which could be as simple as digging a hole. About the only thing its good for is recon, and to be honest its not very good for that either. This will simply terrify people, and have far worse consequences than contact with a n actual human being (soldier). Anyway its a waste of money because we just dont fight wars with guns anymore, its all about cultural and economic warfare now, but for some reason we havnt caught on to this.

@pevans34: I think they act more as shock troops. But you right about economic and cultural warfare its more effective today.

@GadgetPlay: First off, you're calling into question the Pentagon's own released research on terrorist ties to pre-9/11 Iraq. Which mean's you're calling the Pentagon's information "Left Wing Propaganda". I think we can all dismiss that as self-contradictory and ludicrous.
Second, your detractors have cited plenty of facts, you merely make unsupported assertions and use political name-calling. Your arguments lack both facts and integrity, regardless of anyone's political ties.
Third, you stated "[the troops] are fighting for the "right-wing objectives" of victory, freedom, and democracy. (As opposed to the left-wing objectives of defeat, personal political power, and socialism.)"
Could you please explain how and why it is the US's job to fight for Iraq's democracy and freedom? Can you reconcile that argument with why we chose Iraq as opposed to any other country that currently lacks freedom and democracy? After Iraq are we going to continue down that list of countries and invade from now until every one of them is democratic? Or is it more likely that this war is about the US interests in Iraq?
I don't expect you will have a reasoned response. I also expect you'll call me some political terms with no knowledge of my beliefs or affiliations. And you'll think it somehow proves something.
Giz readers are GEEKS, you idiot. We bow to superior LOGIC in arguments, not who can call who a Tory or a Wig.

@GadgetPlay: What the hell did you actually say?

@bigMoneyMIKE:
read comments here [gizmodo.com]

@thechansen: Thanx

Official response from PopMech: [www.popularmechanics.com]

Noone with any knowledge said Saddam didn't support terrorists.
They said he didn't support the terrorists who are responsible for the 9-11 attack.
He did support terrorists.

@bigMoneyMIKE:
Apparently something highly inflammatory that contradicts certain world views. I don't believe I called anyone any names, though I did use certain political shorthand terms that, again, appear to be threatening to some. There have been conflicting reports from our own agencies on these matters, but foreign intelligence (the Brits and the Israelis primarily) have been much more straight forward. While far from my favorite president, Bushes enemies are so blinded by hate and the quest for personal power that bad-mouthing him has become more important than national security or victory in Iraq. I'm not speaking of our good Gizmodo readers, but I am speaking of the sources of their information, such as NPR and the network news and the New York Times and the Democratic leadership in congress. They have created such a concerted negative drumbeat over the last 5 years, that I do not blame anyone for their negative opinions, even If I feel them to be wrong. Again, I stand by my remarks, however threatening to whomever they may be. Thanks for asking.

@GadgetPlay: OOPS! "Bush's enemies," not "Bushes enemies." Sorry.

@GadgetPlay: "though I did use certain political shorthand terms that, again, appear to be threatening to some."
No one feels threatened but you sure like to toss out terms as if you had any idea of what those people's beliefs actually are. Interesting how most everyone else manages to make an argument without political name calling. Why is it you feel the need to label everyone? You label someone as "Left" and then declare their argument null for that reason. Your next step is then to say "I stand by my remarks" but you haven't supported your remarks with any sources.
Also you called the Pentagon's security report "Left Wing Propaganda". How does that even make sense?
"Bushes enemies are so blinded by hate and the quest for personal power"
You've now mentioned this 'leftist quest for personal power' twice. You're casually ignoring the fact that Bush is responsible for a larger increase in executive power and lack of oversight than just about any other president. The moral relativism argument of "but President Whoever was worse!" doesn't make his actions irrelevant or OK.
"I'm not speaking of our good Gizmodo readers, but I am speaking of the sources of their information, such as NPR and the network news and the New York Times and the Democratic leadership in congress."
So you again claim to know where all of us get our information, and label it all as 'Left' sources. You have no idea what other sources people get their info from. But that's your M.O. Call your opponent a leftist liberal, directly or indirectly, ignore anything they say because they're lefty liberal hippies, then say "I stand by my remarks" for which you provide no basis.
And yes, in the context that you toss out these political labels at others you're name-calling.
What I'm sick of is boards full of trolls from ANY political party who have deiced they are Correct and never need to explain themselves. Also making sweeping generalizations about incredibly complex issues does nothing to further discussion or do anything other than set yourself up to label someone and attach their comments to broad stereotypes that mostly aren't even relevant.
You do realize Democrats voted to fund the war, yes? I mean, the way you keep saying they're all about defeat and socialism and whatnot I'd expect the President to have had to veto every single funding bill because the Dems would have cut the funding by now. And yet, the funding has all gone through despite a Democratic majority. How do you reconcile that fact? Isn't it amazing that the world is not black and white like you portray it.
Are you going to ignore this post too? Nah, you'll probably respond and claim moral superiority and say something like you won't waste your time with me because I'm just whining or whatever excuse you want to make. I'm calling out logical holes in your reasoning and asking you to support your arguments. If you can't address those issues then you're not fit to debate any subject. By the way, I MAKE the TALON robots. You know, the ones that help protect our boys over there. Sorry to ruin your he-must-be-a-lefty-hates-the-troops-and-victory argument.

@jtheletter: I'm sorry you're in such a vile mood. I have never called you or anyone on this site any name what-so-ever. If you would read what I have said all the way through and carefully, you might be able to see that. Just a few points, as I don't have the time that you apparently do.

1. If you're not threatened, why respond with a fully two foot long post.

2. I did not "label" any individual as "left." Again, it would be good if you read precisely what I wrote, because that is how I write. I did label some sources of information in that manner. If you can tell me with a straight face that NPR and the NYT are not of a leftward leaning bent, then no further conversation will be possible. (Probably the best outcome.)

3. I never made an equivalency argument, but I will now. Check out the wartime practices of Washington, Lincoln, and FDR and you'll see that Bush is a piker when it comes to executive powers in war time.

4. Who told you that I am a Troll? (Speaking of name calling.) That is (was) a closely guarded secret.

5. Congressional Dems did indeed vote to fund the war (because they'd have been voted out if they didn't), but only after trying to insure defeat by putting in time tables for withdrawal and other surrender equivalents.

6. Last item, I am not claiming any "moral superiority," and I did gladly waste my time to respond. If there are any "logical holes" in my arguments you have certainly not pointed them out. Do you viciously attack every post you disagree with? I must be special.

Thank you for your work with the Talon robots and your support of the troops. I never said you hated them.

Prediction: If a Democrat assumes the Presidency in'09, we will see a tremendous turnaround both in political rhetoric on the war and a much more positive slant in the press coverage as well. A defeat in Iraq only serves them if it's on Bush's watch.