[extropy-chat] IHT: 'GI, Robot' rolls toward the battlefield

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

The robot soldier is coming. The Pentagon predicts that robots will be
a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade,
hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of
the U.S. Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting
force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the
biggest military contract in American history.
The military plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in automated
armed forces. The costs of that transformation will help drive the
Defense Department's budget up almost 20 percent, from a requested
$419.3 billion for next year to $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the
costs of war. The annual cost of buying new weapons is scheduled to
rise 52 percent, to $118.6 billion from $78 billion.
Military planners say robot soldiers will think, see and react
increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be
remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the
technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their
intelligence grows, so will their autonomy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/16/business/robot.html