Recommendation: Read this classic hard sci-fi novel and expand your horizons about robots, teleoperation, and swarms. Stanislaw Lem was one of the most read science fiction authors in the world in his day, especially the 70s and 80s, though not in America because there were rarely translations from his native Polish to English. Lem famously did not like American science fiction, with a very few exceptions. One being Philip K. Dick- and it is no wonder since Lem's 1987 novel Peace on Earth shares many of the same themes that Dick covered: militarization of robots, people losing their memory or not being what they seem, and government conspiracies. In some ways Peace on Earth is like the longer, more detailed, and, actually, *better* version of Dick's 1953 short story Second Variety (which was basis for the Peter Weller movie Screamers). Peace on Earth has a sort of a Battlestar Galatica (reboot) backstory.

The era of artificial intelligence chatbots has opened wide in Korea. On the 10th, the domestic media introduced an artificial intelligence robot that helps the elderly. The human care robot developed by the Intelligent Robotics Research Division of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) is the main character. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said, "We have developed a robot artificial intelligence technology that understands the elderly, responds emotionally, and provides personalized services tailored to the situation." According to ETRI, the development of human care service robots requires data to recognize people from the robot's point of view and artificial intelligence technology necessary for deep learning.

China claims to have built the "world's largest quadruped bionic robot," a gigantic "mechanical yak" that can carry over 350 pounds at a shambling 6.2 mph, according to a report by the state-run Global Times. The goal is to carry gear for soldiers stationed in remote areas. A clip shared by the People's Daily, also associated with the Chinese government, shows a behemoth-sized quadruped going for a stroll along an empty road. It can also be seen tackling dusty inclines in the desert, an impressive mechanical feat that could one day be of huge benefit in areas inaccessible to conventional vehicles, and even weaponized. China's first domestically built "yak" robot with a load capacity of 160 kg made its debut recently.

United Nations delegates are currently meeting to debate possible regulations controlling autonomous killer robots -- but Russia is having none of it. The Russian delegate, representing a country that has already developed and deployed military robots in real-world conflicts, remained steadfast that the global community doesn't need any new rules or regulations to govern the use of killer robots, The Telegraph reports. That pits Russia against much of the rest of the international community, who are calling for rules to keep humans in charge of the decision to open fire, highlighting on the main anxieties and ethical conundrums surrounding autonomous weaponry. The argument from Russia is that the AI algorithms driving these killer robots are already advanced enough to differentiate friend from foe from civilian, and that therefore there's no need to burden the autonomous death machines with unnecessary regulations. "The high level of autonomy of these weapons allows [them] to operate within a dynamic conflict situation and in various environments while maintaining an appropriate level of selectivity and precision," the delegate said, according to The Telegraph.

The market size of the military robot market will rise considerably in the coming years owing to improving border surveillance and patrolling. The growth of inefficient border research and growing ISR functions has led to military robot industry propulsion. The robots are for defensive drive purposes and are remotely controlled which can perform dangerous activities making them more efficient than the other tools. The wider market will be influenced by a growing need for advanced monitoring, targeting and information-gathering systems in the military due to the presence of challenging and life-risking activities. Furthermore, the rising need for isolated processes for a long period and technological developments in unused systems worldwide is another factor that significantly increases the growth of the market.

A group of experts wants to study the brain waves and eye movements of people playing a video game in order to build an advanced AI that could coordinate the actions of military robots. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, awarded a team from the University of Buffalo's Artificial Intelligence Institute a $316,000 grant for the study. Although swarm robotics is inspired by many things, including ant colonies, researchers believe that humans have a lot of potential to improve AI learning systems. The study of 25 video game players will include real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, Stellaris and Company of Heroes. "The idea is to eventually scale up to 250 aerial and ground robots, working in highly complex situations. For example, there may be a sudden loss of visibility due to smoke during an emergency. The robots need to be able to effectively communicate and adapt to challenges like that," the grant's principal investigator, Souma Chowdhury, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, told UBNow.

A team of artificial intelligence researchers at the University at Buffalo plans to study the brain waves and eye movements of around 25 people, Digital Trends reports, while they play a video game. They'll then use the information they glean from the gamers to build an advanced AI -- so that it can then coordinate the actions of entire fleets of autonomous military robots. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- better known as DARPA -- has awarded the UB team a $316,000 grant for the study, which researcher Souma Chowdhury told Digital Trends is moving at "a pretty aggressive pace." The team still needs to gather the gamer data, but that shouldn't take too long. The researchers have already built a real-time strategy game for the study, with a round of the game taking about five to 10 minutes to complete.

Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics were first introduced in the short science fiction story Runaround, (PDF) published in the March, 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Fast-forward almost 80 years into the present, today, Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics represent more problems and conflict to roboticists than they solve. Roboticists, philosophers, and engineers are seeing an ongoing debate on machine ethics. Machine ethics is a practical proposal on how to simultaneously engineer and provide ethical sanctions for robots. Who or what is going to be held responsible when or if an autonomous system malfunctions or harms humans?

At the conceptual level the idea of killer robots is no longer a remote possibility. Already drones and other military machines can be piloted remotely, and some are equipped with missiles. Given the pace of development in relation of autonomous technology for vehicles, and the advances with artificial intelligence in general, the idea of a machine that can directs itself in battle is plausible and, some might argue, inevitable. Inevitable, that is, unless concerted action is taken by governments to ban the development of these types of devices. This would be something similar to the treaty that is in place prohibiting the use of chemical weapons (the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction).

Scientists at the Army Research Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute are teaching robots how to be better mission partners to soldiers -- starting with how to find their way with minimal human intervention. Given that autonomous vehicles have been navigating streets in many U.S. cities for over a year, that may seem like not that big a deal. But according to ARL researcher Maggie Wigness, the challenges facing military robots are much greater. Specifically, unlike the self-driving cars being developed by Google, Uber and others, military robots will be operating in complex environments that don't have the benefit of standardized markings like lanes, street signs, curbs and traffic lights. "Environments that we operate in are highly unstructured compared to [those for] self-driving cars," Wigness said.