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South Korea has placed robots with machine guns along the North Korean border. The most interesting/troubling quote:

 “Techwin spokesman Huh Kwang-hak was quoted as saying by Stars and Stripes: ‘But these robots have automatic surveillance, which doesn’t leave room for anything resembling human laziness. They also won’t have any fear (of) enemy attackers on the front lines.'”

 Yes, can’t leave that sort of thing up to the meatbags, can we?

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So, it sounds like robots might not be the future of the military after all. At least, that’s what this guy Fred Kaplan says. He claims there isn’t going to be much demand for armed ground robots, contrary to conventional wisdom.  I’m inclined to disagree with him, though. I think it’s inevitable, but it will probably take longer than anyone thinks.

More generally, I have mixed feelings about this stuff. I’ve praised President Obama for his increased use of drones to fight terrorists, but at the same time, it does raise some troubling legal issues. And the ground robots they have now do look pretty pathetic, to be honest. I imagine it’s harder to control a thing that has to maneuver on the ground than in the air, in some ways.

The major leap, of course, is going to be when the military decides to have autonomous robot soldiers. I know, I know, it sounds insane, but I think that A.I. will ultimately reach a point where we trust limited combat programs more than we’ll trust a human being to be able to make decisions in the heat of battle.

After all, they’ll say, it’s much too serious to leave that up to an emotional meatbag.

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Well, that’s not good. And more bad news: Hurricane season starts on Tuesday.

UPDATE: This reminds me of why weather control is so important. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Whoever figures it out first will rule the planet. Alas, the Chinese government is making progress on this, while we can’t even plug a damn pipe.

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This is bizarre. He claims to have been doing this for 70 years.

I assume that it’s some sort of hoax, though it’s hard to see how he’s pulling it off.

On the other hand, if it isn’t a hoax and everyone learned how to do it, the decrease in demand for food would probably cripple the economy, so I figure the Indian government will probably hush it all up,send the guy somewhere secret, and hide all the relevant studies in a giant warehouse; like at the end of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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This is pretty cool. The article concludes:

“The X-37B might lack a flashy name, a made-for-the-movies mission and public hoopla, but this space plane’s low profile might be just the thing that helps it beat the long odds and become a success.” 

Actually, “X-37B” sounds exactly like the sort of name that Secret Projects have in science fiction. Perhaps it will be our first line of defense against The Reapers.

(Hat Tip to Huffington Post)