Posted at ZeroHedge: “China Unveils ‘AlphaDog’ – An Affordable Alternative to the Terrifying Robo Dog” By Tyler Durden
A quote from the article: “It’s only a matter of time before these machines are outfitted with weapons for war.”
Editor’s Comment: Advances in technology are often both fascinating and terrifying.
We see within these the ways in which life can be improved, and history is replete with examples. The convenience of electricity. Life saving medicines. Travel made possible with commercial flight. In big ways, and small ways, life is more comfortably and longer lived in the presence of innovation and invention.
The danger for all of us lies in the use of these very same technologies for dreaded and dark purposes. Evil coexists with good, and its presence cannot be denied. The electricity on which we’ve become so dependent could be taken from us in a cyber attack, or with the sudden strike of an EMP. Modern life-sustaining and life-saving medicines, now produced and traded internationally, might be withheld in an act of economic retaliation, or an act of war. Organs intended for transplantation are said to be harvested in some countries from the condemned, but while these human beings – no matter their alleged crimes – remain living. In acts of terrorism, planes are hijacked and used as weapons against the very cultures and countries that made the celebration of flight possible. We should never forget the horror of September 11th even as we mark the 20th anniversary of that terrible day in 2021.
Within this context, we should consider carefully how robotics has changed our world, and will continue to do so. Some of these applications will save life. Others will extinguish it. Without so much as a moment of human hesitation, robots with the capacity to kill will do so on command, and absent any conscience. In the hands of the soulless whose decisions are made with little more than the press of a button, there will be no mercy. Distant to pain and suffering and death, robotics will make too easy the decision of one human being to end the life of another, or perhaps many millions of others.
We will need schematic’s and a determination of where the “boiler room” is located. I am guessing they won’t pack a lot of armor in order to be agile. Still, I think a belted Mag with an interlocked bullet would be the minimum to use.
Small Robots (and Drones) are never going to be that effective as Attack Systems due to the inherent Limitations of Battery Power Supplies -- it is Not Physically Possible to both Armor sufficiently and carry enough Batteries to make something like this ‘run’ for more than a few Hours, if that. Also, agin due to the inability to carry Shielding, these Devices are badly Vulnerable to Electromagnetic Jamming. The Russin Electronics company K-RHET has a Product Line of commercial and Military equipment for Detecting and ‘Neutralizing’ these types of Threats.
I would suspect that any type of Improvised EMP Weapon would take one of these things right Out. Never Mind .308 FMJ.