DARPA Wants Soldiers to Have Robot Surrogates Dylan Duarte February 20, 2012 Extras Am I being punked? It certainly feels like it. Last week I wrote about DARPA working to get 4G internet to soldiers in the field, which I thought was pretty cool. Now I don’t give two cruise missiles about that. This year, DARPA will be pouring $7 million into a project to develop semi-autonomous bi-pedal machines that soldiers can control like surrogates. As The Verge points out, it’s just the Bruce Willis film Surrogates mixed with James Cameron’s Avatar. And I am so totally okay with that. With words like “telepresence” being thrown around, how can you not get excited? And they specifically want bi-pedal robots, so they’re just making terminators. It makes sense – science often borrows ideas from science fiction and being able to fight wars without risking human lives is a no-brainer. But we’re getting closer and closer to this actually being a legitmate question – will robotic warfare be our end? Share This With The World!
