You have
twenty seconds to comply
Robocop looks a pushover compared
with a robotic security guard that shoots at will
Ian Sample
From
New Scientist magazine, 02 September 2000.
IT'S been sixty years since writer
Isaac Asimov dreamed up his laws governing robot behavior.
But the message still hasn't sunk in. Researchers in
Thailand have developed a robot security guard that
comes armed with a gun, and has no qualms about whom it
shoots.
Photo: Moviestore |
 |
Called "Roboguard", the
gun-toting sentinel is designed as a cheap alternative
to a human guard. It can be ordered to fire at will, or
told to check first with a human via a secure Internet
connection.
As they appeared in Asimov's science
fiction writings in 1940, the three laws of robotics
were meant to prevent robots from harming people (see
Table). Roboguard appears to have the potential to flout
all three.
The machine was built by Pitikhate
Sooraksa of King Mongkut's Institute of Technology in
Ladkrabang, Bangkok. It consists of a handgun and a
small video camera mounted on a motorised holder that
can direct them automatically.
"It has two modes, manual and
automatic," says Sooraksa. Using the weapon in
manual mode, he can control the gun from a computer
anywhere in the world. A laser pointer on top of the gun
marks its current target.
For automatic operation, Roboguard is
fitted with infrared sensors that allow it to track
people as they move. Sooraksa has password-protected the
"fire" command for when the robot is operated
over the Internet. "We think the decision to fire
should always be a human decision," he says.
"Otherwise it could kill people."
This doesn't reassure Kevin Warwick, a
cyberneticist at Reading University who has long warned
of the dangers of robots gaining too much power over
human beings. "Things can always go wrong," he
says. You can never allow for all eventualities.
"We need to think about introducing laws like
Asimov's, but even then robots will find ways to get
round them."
Other researchers were equally
concerned about Roboguard. "I find this quite
horrific," says Chris Czarnecki of the Centre for
Computational Intelligence at De Montfort University in
Leicester. "What about time delays across the
Internet when it's busy? What you'll be seeing and what
the gun's pointing at will be two different things. You
could end up shooting anything."
Czarnecki also suspects the robot's
tracking system might be error-prone. "If the
tracking's infrared, what happens when the Sun comes
out? It's a big source of infrared radiation."
At the moment, Roboguard is tooled up
with nothing more powerful than an air gun. To test its
accuracy, Sooraksa pinned balloons to the walls and took
potshots at them from a computer. "It's very
similar to a real gun," he says. It could easily be
upgraded to a more powerful weapon such as a machine
gun, he adds.
Sooraksa says Roboguard might be of
interest to private companies, but sees the armed forces
as a more likely buyer. "We'd like to show it to
the military," he says. "It should be in good
hands."
The current, static version of
Roboguard could be just the start. Sooraksa hopes to
develop his prototype further. "You could make it
mobile, it could be designed as a walking system,"
he says. "We have the technology."
© Copyright New
Scientist, RBI Limited 2000
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