created its own laws of robotics by @drcrypt

Fear of robots as “electronic persons” in Europe wildly exaggerated

Les militaires américains "envisagent" les robots guerriers autonomes

Are robots capable of moral or ethical reasoning? It’s no longer just a question for tenured philosophy professors or Hollywood directors. This week, it’s a question being put to the United Nations

Darpa has become one of the biggest backers of robotics research. Yet autonomous robots bring their own powerful ethical dilemmas. If machines are given guns, it opens profound moral and legal questions about war .. “As a colleague of mine likes to say, robots are assholes,”. Researchers also argue that the more dystopian predictions about machines and war underestimate the affinity between humans and robots.

A 21 year old external contractor was installing the robot together with a colleague when he was struck in the chest by the robot and pressed against a metal plate. He later died of his injuries, reports Chris Bryant, the FT's Frankfurt correspondent. Prosecutors have opened an investigation into how the accident occurred. Robot-related fatalities are rare in western production plants as robots are kept behind safety cages to prevent accidental contact with humans.

They’re not Terminators, but they sure resemble those iconic killer robots from the big screen. Think C-3PO, not T-1000. That’s the more appropriate pop-culture reference, according to Brian Lattimer, another Virginia Tech researcher working on a bipedal humanoid robot with funding from DARPA. "If I could sit down with Google people, I would want them to make a public pledge to not become involved with autonomous killer robots". DARPA, Boston Dynamics, and Google all declined interviews for this story.

Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), often called “killer robots,” are theoretically able to target and fire with neither human supervision nor interference. Their development corresponds to a widespread and inevitable trend of military robotization.

We believe that humans should not delegate the responsibility of making lethal decisions in conflict to machines.

Fire Department Called After Robot Vacuum Attacks Sleeping Owner's Head