Robots Take Over

WORLD-Imagine what warfare would be like if it were all controlled by a joy stick in a bunker safely removed from the volatile circumstances of war. What if, instead of sending our men and women off to distant countries, we send robots armed and programmed to think and react like highly-trained Navy Seals? They would exclude two crucial elements; they lack feelings and emotions. If you can imagine all of this, then you may be able to grasp the US Military’s revolutionary idea of sending robots instead of soldiers to the battle lines. According to the US Military, they plan on making these robots fully functional American Soldiers within ten years.”They’re not afraid.” Said General Gordon Johnson, part of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon to a reporter for the Philadelphia Enquirer. “They don’t forget their orders. They don’t care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.” PSU student Steven Tremblay commented with dismay, “So the Terminator movies weren’t as far-fetched as I thought.” With the furious force in which technology took over the past decades in the US, most Americans seemed indifferent to this news. If this plan is accepted, these robots will be fully functioning soldiers in less than a decade, making them a vital weapon by both eliminating the amount of casualties, while also lowering the amount of money put towards soldier’s pensions. More soldiers will stay home. According to The New York Times, Congress ordered in 2000 that a third of the ground vehicles and a third of deep-strike aircraft in the military must become robotic within a decade. This raises the bar and the priorities a leap ahead in both technology and spending, further explaining the major increase in the Military’s spending budget. The new warrior robot was dubbed SWORDS, after the acronym for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems. SWORDS is based on the Talon robot, which is being used in Iraq as a safer way for tracking and disarming enemy bombs. While the proto-type for this new soldier is controlled by a soldier now, the plans for the future are to have a fully operational unit, meaning it thinks and acts upon it’s own thought. At the moment, SWORDS are to be controlled by soldiers who use a joystick to operate the unit. They are capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute. In June of 2003, after the first introduction of robotic aircrafts, an article in Newsweek asked, “when will similar robot warriors relieve our foot soldiers as well?” The answer (two years later) is short and simple. Soon