iRobot, the company that makes the “Roomba” and a floor cleaning robot called “Scooba” (both built at the toy factory in Guanzhou that I visited last year) is also building military robots designed to carry weapons. Recently iRobot signed a contract to add tasers to their industrial/military robots. This is all happening in a climate of significant military interest in funding the development of tactical robots designed to “Hunt Down Uncooperative Humans.” These will be developed initially for military use. However, given the speed at which technology enters our culture, I expect to see robots replace expensive police very soon.
If shortly you see hundreds of bug-like creatures patrolling the streets of Santa Monica in the evening, I suggest you make every effort to suppress your girlfriend’s impulse to insult them. These creatures probably won’t be programmed with highly evolved ethics routines and you may find yourself either seriously incapacited or worse. Let’s hope they don’t also contract with Microsoft to write the software. Maybe by version 4.0 they will have gotten all the bugs out.
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