The US military has traditionally used stationary targets at firing ranges to prepare for war, but a new innovation is transforming the lifeless structures into a more realistic enemy. Camp Lejuene, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, has adopted the'range of the future' known as G-366, which unleashes autonomous robots in the field that'fall over' when shot, charge at shooters and curse at them in 57 different dialects. Designed by Marathon Targets, the robots run on a rigged four-wheeled chassis that supports a human-shaped target and is fitted with technologies used in self-driving cars to help it navigate through the range. Commanders say they observed a 104 percent increase in combat among soldiers within just 24 hours of using the robotic targets. Camp Lejuene, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, has adopted the'range of the future' known as G-366, which unleashes autonomous robots in the field that'fall over' when shot, charge at shooters and curse at them in 57 different dialects The robots were deployed at Camp Lejuene on December 12 for a demonstration in which 45 of the moving targets lined the range and rolled out of the woods for lifelike training scenarios.

We worry about robots stealing jobs and leaving huge swaths of the population with nothing to do but collect universal basic income and watch Simon's Cat videos. But some robots are going to take the jobs no person could or should do. If a Thai soccer team gets trapped in a cave a decade from now, we'll send a team of robots through the dangerous waters to get the boys, not a team of divers who could get hurt or killed. And if Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk ever gets around to building a space colony, they're not going to send humans who actually have to breathe to set up the first protective structures -- they'll send autonomous robots. We can already get a glimpse of how we can benefit when robots do inhuman work.