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UnknownX
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 Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 11:38 am Post subject: First robotic strike against humanity, 9 dead |
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Robot-Cannon Kills Nine People
Posted Oct 19th 2007 8:46AM by Tim Stevens
Filed under: Computers
It's one thing to make (tasteless) jokes about exploding cell phones being the ultimate cause of human extinction, but when a robotic device seemingly goes out of its way to kill its operators, then something may be up. It seems a bug or glitch caused a robotic anti-aircraft gun In South Africa to flip out and kill nine soldiers (and injure a further 14).
Details are sparse, but a jam or internal explosion caused the gun to malfunction, resulting in it "wildly swinging" as it "sprayed hundreds of high-explosive 0.5kg 35mm cannon shells around the five-gun firing position," according to the post.
The gun is designed to automatically target aircraft, helicopters, and cruise missiles and fire when any targets come into range -- all without human intervention. The gun can even reload itself automatically when its magazines are emptied. As a result, the rogue robot gun could not be stopped before it completely ran out of ammunition, despite efforts from one brave artillery officer.
A disturbing reminder that our robotic minions are not always happy with their menial tasks and can strike at any time? Keep your eyes open, Roomba owners!
http://www.switched.com/2007/10/19/nine-killed-when-robot-cannon-flips-out/?ncid=NWS00010000000001
By Graeme Hosken, Michael Schmidt and Johan du Plessis
A female artillery officer risked her life on Friday in a desperate bid to prevent members of her battery dying from their own anti-aircraft gun.
But the brave, as yet unnamed officer was unable to stop the wildly swinging computerised Swiss/German Oerlikon 35mm MK5 anti-aircraft twin-barrelled gun. It sprayed hundreds of high-explosive 0,5kg 35mm cannon shells around the five-gun firing position.
By the time the gun had emptied its twin 250-round auto-loader magazines, nine soldiers were dead and 11 injured.
A ninth soldier, a woman, died moments after landing in Bloemfontein, after being airlifted by a South African Air Force helicopter to Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein
The accident occurred just before 9am when a battery from 10 Anti-Aircraft Regiment in Kimberley began a live-fire exercise at the Army Combat Training Centre at Lohatlha as part of the SANDF's Exercise Seboka - an annual joint conventional military exercise involving 5 000 soldiers from 18 army units, plus members of the SA Air Force, SA Navy and SA Military Health Service.
It is believed the soldiers were killed when the gun jammed moments after the exercise began.
When the female officer went forward to help the gunner clear the blockage, another shell was accidentally fired, causing some of the unspent ammunition in nearly-full magazines to explode.
This, in turn, caused a "runaway". There was nowhere to hide.
The rogue gun began firing wildly, spraying high-explosive shells at a rate of 550 a minute, swinging around through 360 degrees like a high-pressure hose.
The unknown officer tried to shut the gun down but she couldn't because the computer gremlin had taken over. Her fate was unknown at the time of going to press.
The injured, five of whom were female soldiers, were airlifted by SAAF choppers to various hospitals in Bloemfontein.
Three were in a critical condition last night.
Defence Ministry spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi said the "friendly-fire" tragedy was the worst he could remember.
"Without hesitation I can say it is very rare; I can't even think of one - I can't remember when last an accident of this magnitude happened."
Many of the gunners were volunteers, having joined the defence force through its military skills development programme.
SANDF spokesperson Brigadier-General Kwena Mangope said Exercise Seboka was aimed at preparing troops for battle.
"It is assumed that there was a mechanical problem, which led to the accident.
"The gun, which was fully loaded, did not fire as it normally should have," he said.
"It appears as though the gun, which is computerised, jammed before there was some sort of explosion and then it opened fire uncontrollably, killing and injuring the soldiers."
He said the South African Police Service and the military police had begun an investigation to determine the cause of the accident. Preparations for a top-level board of inquiry involving the military, police and the government were well under way last night.
"Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and SANDF chief General Godfrey Ngwenya have extended their sincerest sympathies and condolences to the families of the dead and injured," Mangope said.
He declined to divulge the names of the dead or injured until their next of kin had been informed.
Last night, welfare officers were counselling the traumatised survivors and their colleagues, while the chaplain service was informing the next of kin.
The general officer commanding the Army's Air Defence Artillery (ADA), Brigadier-General Stephen Marumo, could not be reached for comment.
The SANDF is in the middle of a R3-billion programme to upgrade its ADA, adding gunner-toted short-range missile systems, longer-range vehicle-mounted systems and a new fire-control system.
Jane's defence analyst Helmoed-Römer Heitman said the last military accident of this magnitude was the accidental ramming and sinking of the frigate SAS President Kruger in 1982, in which 16 sailors were killed.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20071013080449804C939465 |
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dangermite
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:53 am Post subject: |
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| Its the Terminator all over again. |
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. . . et in Arcadia ego . . . |
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Neal51
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| Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 9:36 am Post subject: |
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Bad Kill Switch Computer Code
Not enough Fail Safes
Empty the Magazine is a lousy Fail Safe |
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dangermite
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| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:46 am Post subject: |
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| I would go a step further and say "Empty the Magazine" is not a fail safe at all! |
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mr_headshot
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| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| So are you suggesting this thing intentionally flew off the handle and started killing troops or that it was simply a malfunction which resulted in the death of people? |
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UnknownX
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| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:49 am Post subject: |
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Its probably just a glitch in the system but we've reached the stage where robots have the ability to learn. So from our perception it may just be malfunctions but to a robot it could be choice 
You'd think a power down fail safe on a robotic weapon would be fairly obvious to include. |
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Le_Bishop
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Joined: Nov 26, 2007
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe I should cease my AI programming. |
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wafflesauce
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| Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 4:16 am Post subject: |
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IMP-INC
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| Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 2:31 am Post subject: |
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Moors law: The guy that founded intel said every two years the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles.
In due time technoilgy will become awesome. But i dont belive it will be this terminator style stuff you see in the movies. IF the AI has the idea of killing and wants to kill. wouldnt have also have looked into what "life" is about. Being happy, having friends, music, love, The cold winter morning when you wake up and your all warm in your bed. Surely that if this ever does happen and AI has been reborn, I personally think the ammount of knowledge it would obtain would make it understand we could, can and most likely will co-exist with AI.
Really ust means we "humans" as a race developed our own life "ai"
thats my 2 cents |
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SRO
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 3:33 am Post subject: |
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Well I dare say that the AI on any sort of weapon (Like AAA for instance) should be simple. Target, friend or foe, engage or disengage. I wouldn't incorporate the ability to learn and make decisions for itself.
I dare say this is probably an unfortunate example of not making proper preperations. Remote off switch or something... Or Hardware failure=system termination.
It seems we put more care into the machine exploring Mars than they did in the machine designed to fire HE ammunition at a rate of 550 a minute... 
Faith in human judgement would be misplaced in this matter. |
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wafflesauce
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 6:30 am Post subject: |
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| SRO wrote: |
Well I dare say that the AI on any sort of weapon (Like AAA for instance) should be simple. Target, friend or foe, engage or disengage. I wouldn't incorporate the ability to learn and make decisions for itself.
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SRO
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:59 am Post subject: |
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| Huh. I said "I dare say" twice in that little post. Should proof-read I guess, that sounds horribly unnatural. |
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martiandrifter01
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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Something in need of clearing up, (a) was the gun firing or (b) was the ammo exploding? Big difference, one way it's the gun doing it, the other way it's a tragic accident, like the turret on the Iowa.
Assuming it was condition A, above: I wonder why none of the soldiers thought to pull the plug on the Oerlikon before working on it. No power=no shoot, computerized control or no.
I guess they should be glad it wasn't the latest from Bofors, there wouldn't have been any survivors or witnesses. |
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Just for fun, and maybe a chance to learn a little solar system astronomy...
martiandrifter.com |
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SRO
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:40 am Post subject: |
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Both, A was firing B.
The ammunition they used featured, along with most AAA or "Triple A", an explosive head. Doing substantially more damage than simple impact. |
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Aquarian
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| I would love for AI to be a reality. This of course requires reasonable regulation, but the robotics industry, with the exception of the weapons sector (since they only serve to cause turmoil), is an industry that needs to be encouraged, in my opinion. We need to give more attention and funds to both present technologies, like genetic engineering (modulation and advancement of the Human Genome Project) and information technology, and anticipated future ones, such as molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. |
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