Latest in Robots
One of Lawfare's current interns, Staley Smith, discovered a few days ago this site's illustrious history of practical robotics—that is to say organizing stunts that involve playing with robots as a way of exploring the security challenges and opportunities they pose.
There was this fun time flying a drone around Brookings:
You will too after you watch this video of a Japanese swordsmanship robot cutting columns and slicing fruit with a swordsmanship master.
Don't miss it.
Here's an interesting demonstration of how much more powerful robots are becoming. A group at Stanford has produced tiny robots that can lift, while climbing up walls, more than 100 times their own weight---and one that can drag a weight 2,000 times heavier than itself.
The Wall Street Journal over the weekend ran this essay adapted from our new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones---Confronting A New Age of Threat. It opens,
You walk into your shower and see a spider.
This morning, Gabriella Blum and I had the pleasure of appearing on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones---Confronting A New Age of Threat.
It seems Chesterbrook Elementary, of Fairfax County, Virginia, has lost its drone---and now wishes to enlist the help of the community in locating it.
Such is the gist of the below email, sent by a school official earlier today. (I have embedded the video and pictures, which are linked in the original.) Chesterbrook isn't that far away from Langley...
Missing Drone - we need your help! :)
Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has announced that she plans to introduce new legislation aimed to "significantly strengthen drone safety laws to protect U.S. airline passengers and U.S.
The New York Times has a useful article today on autonomous weapon systems and debate about their regulation. The issue is also on the discussion agenda this week in Geneva for the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapon. The Times article says:
Warfare is increasingly guided by software. Today, armed drones can be operated by remote pilots peering into video screens thousands of miles from the battlefield.
Joshua Bleiberg has a post on the Brookings Tech Tank blog summarizing Ryan Calo's new paper, which argues for a Federal Robotics Commission to broker the regulatory and legal issues new robotic technologies present.
It begins:
Emerging technologies often generate a great debate over the efficacy of new federal regulations. In the past, the government has had to adapt to new technologies like the railroad or the radio.
We are pleased to share our recently published article on law and autonomous weapons, on which we teamed up with our good friend Daniel Reisner (formerly head of the Israel Defense Forces International Law Department).