Killer Robots: If No One Pulls the Trigger, Who's to Blame?

On Saturday at a NASCAR track in Florida, a humanoid robot named SCHAFT, created by a team of engineers from the University of Tokyo, performed a series of emergency tasks including using a hose, drilling a hole into a wall, walking through doors and driving a golf cart. SCHAFT ran away from the competition, with only a robot from DOD-funded Boston Dynamics staying close. These two robots, along with six others from private companies and university labs around the world, performed these tasks under the watchful eye of DARPA, the secretive defense research branch of the U.S. military. DARPA said the purpose of the competition was to begin modeling a robot that could be used on the surface of Mars. But many suspected that DARPA sponsors the competition to advance the use of robots like those on the battlefield.