16.9.09

The emergence of Skynet - Part (what part am I up to now?)



The language is slightly sensationalistic (but we are talking about killer robots here so can you blame them?) but this story in The Register offers just one more sign of our impending robotic overlords.

An American "Reaper" flying hunter-killer robot assassin rebelled against its human controllers above Afghanistan on Sunday, and a manned US fighter jet was forced to shoot the rogue machine down before it unilaterally invaded a neighbouring country...
It wasn't clear from the US military announcement whether the erratic death-bot had turned on its masters and was planning an attack on critical US logistics bases located north of the Afghan border, or whether it had sickened of reaping hapless fleshies like corn and was hoping merely to escape. Alternatively the machine assassin may merely have succumbed to boredom or - just possibly - a mundane, non-anthropomorphic technical fault of some kind.
 (Originally tweeted by William Gibson)