Robotic Scorpions?

Mike Wilson writes: "New Scientist has an article about a 'dim-witted' robot which may survive in circumstances where smarter devices would fail." Hope you're not paranoid about a 50cm metal scorpion sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I know I'm not, those are good folks with good intentions and robot slaves.

What I want...

[MustardMan]

Is one of those remote controlled dragonflies like they had in The 5th Element, so I could spy on people and know what my boss is saying about me in that meeting. I'd build in some kinda compressor/limiter on the audio end tho, so when it gets smashed my eardrums don't get blown out.

Re:wouldn't it be nice...

[nublord]

Tisk. Tisk. With that attitude you're not going to get very far in life.

The project is sponsored by DARPA, the same people that brought you the Internet.

The military is interested in these little scorpions for recon, not weapons deployment.

On the lighter side of things, they'd make excellent lawn mowers. Since the scorpion will use a sensor to determine if an object can be scaled or should be avoided based on it's height, you could use one of these robots to crawl around the yard and clip grass that measures above a certian point.

wouldn't it be nice...

[jeffsenter]

This would be much nicer if it was NASA trying to build a robot to crawl around Mars and take pictures rather than the Defense Department trying to create another weapon.

Re:Is Gene Simmons the chief engineer on this?

[AngrySpud]

Only Tom Selleck [imdb.com] can save us now!

I also want one of those little remote control cars that blows up the @#!% person tailgating me. Wasn't that also the movie that had the "smart bullets" that could follow people in a crowd?

Is Gene Simmons the chief engineer on this?

[RevDr.Interrupt13]

Holy..... I saw the diagram and all I could think of was Runaway. Masses of autonomous hell-bent scorpions cascading over the earth.... ooohhhhh....

I went up against one of these things...

[glebite]

In the game Wasteland - man, Las Vegas was crawling with 'bots, but this one scorpion bot was just jasty - had to practically use all my LAW rockets before it finally died...

I dunno though

[Placido]

I keep getting the feeling that the little robotic scorpion is going to get halfway across the desert where it will get picked up by a bird attracted by the movement. Maybe they plan to mass saturate the desert with these things cause there's a hell of a lot more that can go wrong besides getting lost.


Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"

Re:New Scientist

[radiashun]

MOD THIS UP!

Re:New Scientist (FP)

[radiashun]

Actually, "w00t" is derived from the word "root", which goes along w/ the whole computer thing. "Root" == the most power on most systems. "w00t" is just a lame version of "root".

Re:wouldn't it be nice...

[Boronx]

>The military is interested in these little >scorpions for recon, not weapons deployment. And if you beleive that I've got a bridge to sell you.

Re:wouldn't it be nice...

[Dancin_Santa]

you could use one of these robots to crawl around the yard and clip grass that measures above a certian point

Sure, until its grass-identifying sensor breaks and you have a swarm of robot scorpions nipping at your heels. It's all fun and games until someone gets a pincher in the Achilles.

Dancin Santa

Re:wouldn't it be nice...

[Dancin_Santa]

If you're lying on your lawn looking for Heidi Wall in clouds, you're on the way to destruction long before any mini scorpions snip your weenie off.

Dancin Santa

Today: Robot Scorpion, Tomorrow:

[blair1q]

Chinese Glorious People's Fly-by-Wire Cactus Wren!

--Blair

Re:New Scientist (FP)

[Public Enemy]

Watch these suckers jump when I get wh00t!

Re:wouldn't it be nice...

[Public Enemy]

Or until you lay down in the grass to look at cloaus, and you see a cloud that looks like Heidi Wall, then you sprout wood, then the scorpion runs over and starts whittling on your shaft. That would be the point where things would start to go wrong.

Re:New Scientist (FP)

[Hilary Rosen]

I believe at this point I'm supposed to say "w00t".

Thank you.
--

Re:New Scientist (FP)

[Hilary Rosen]

I assume it's a derivative of "whoo-hoo" or similar whooping noises.
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New Scientist

[Hilary Rosen]

When New Scientist was read by intelligent people, they wrote about intelligent robots. Now they write about dim-witted robots.

ObNotFlamingNS: This has been one of my pet peeves for a long time. We threw all this time and effort at creating AI, when we didn't even know how to create Artificial Stupidity. Humans did not walk fully-formed from the primordial slime. It took evolution a lot of trial and error to get from slime to scorpions to us. We should use the benefit of hindsight to avoid errors like the dinosaurs [slashdot.org], but that doesn't mean we can skip all the steps on the way. We might miss an important lesson.
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Re:Is Gene Simmons the chief engineer on this?

[MImeKillEr]

Nope. otherwise it'd have a 6" tounge dragging in the sand behind it while playing "God of Thunder" over a mini-speaker attached to its back.. Now _that_ would be interesting to see..