2,100 page CENTCOM report on Afghan casualties of US drone strikes

A report released by US Central Command on 22 March 2012 – an excerpt of 5 pages can be found here – contains interesting and unsettling insights into the targeting practice of drone pilots, with one Captain supposed to act as a safety observer noting the “Top Gun” mentality of some drone pilots, and Predator [...]

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DARPA Cheetah Sets Speed Record for Legged Robots

DARPA Cheetah Sets Speed Record for Legged Robots

This video released by DARPA, the far-out Pentagon’s research agency, shows “Cheetah” breaking the speed record for legged robots. Cheetah is made by Boston Dynamics, the company that developed BigDog, AlphaDog, and PETMAN. This is what ICRAC’s Noel Sharkey has to say about it on the BBC website: “With faster than human speed, this is [...]

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US Navy Developing Pilotless Drones

From the January 26, 2012 Los Angeles Times, “New drone has no pilot anywhere, so who’s accountable?” by W.J. Hennigan The X-47B marks a paradigm shift in warfare, one that is likely to have far-reaching consequences. With the drone’s ability to be flown autonomously by onboard computers, it could usher in an era when death [...]

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“Robot Wars” Documentary

From Aljazeera’s series “Fault Lines”, an in-depth look at the adoption and use of drones and robotic weaponry by the U.S. military.

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AP report: 30% of Pakistan drone strike dead not “militants”

The Associated Press reports  that an “on-the-ground investigation” it conducted in North Waziristan of “10 of the deadliest [drone] attacks in the past 18 months”  found that  “of at least 194 people killed in the attacks, about 70 percent – at least 138 – were militants.  The remaining 56 were either civilians or tribal police,” [...]

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Guardian: Attack of the drones

On Sunday 16 January 2011, the Guardian reports on the multi-purpose use of drones, from police enforcement to paparazzi and, obviously, in war zones. In this regard… Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at Sheffield University, told the Royal Society meeting there are credible estimates that one in three casualties from drone attacks [...]

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Popular Science: The Terminator Scenario

Are We Giving Our Military Machines Too Much Power?, Popular science asks, quoting ICRAC’s Noel Sharkey: As quickly as countries build these systems, they want to deploy them, says Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield in England: “There’s been absolutely no international discussion. It’s all going forward [...]

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Observer: Rise of the Robots and the Future of War

Sunday 21 November 2010, the Observer reports on the technological development in unmanned systems, quoting ICARC’s Noel Sharkey. He … … says it is impossible for autonomous robots today to distinguish reliably between civilians and combatants, a cornerstone of international humanitarian law. He also believes robots lack the subtle judgment to adhere to another humanitarian [...]

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Guardian: Campaigners call for tighter controls of deadly drones

On Thursday 16 September 2010, the Guardian reports on ICRAC’s meeting in Berlin on the rapid proliferation of military drone planes and armed robots and possible arms control measures to curb this development, quoting ICRAC’s Steve Wright: “We need a new treaty to limit proliferation. All the arms fairs now are selling UAVs. It’s naive [...]

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heise online: Verbot autonomer Kampfroboter gefordert

The German technology website “heise online” reports on ICRAC’s meeting in Berlin. The full text – in German – of the article can be found here. ICRAC’s Berlin Statement can be found here.

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