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Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Oct 18, 2007 06:34 PM
from the keep-quiet-on-the-terminator-jokes dept.
from the keep-quiet-on-the-terminator-jokes dept.
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
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ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
To be fair, it did give them 30 seconds to comply.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, the editors may not have approved of my comments linking Bill Joy's "Cassandra" predictions of killer robots, with the pledge to remove the Roomba from my home - and idle speculation about the possible involvement of Windows XP in this incident...
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Interesting)
I think I'm too old for this stuff. It seems like these days, if I mention to a younger software developer that even now Robocop is still one of the scariest films I've ever seen, they assume it's because of the ketchup effects.
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Automated weapons are going to make the blood cost of war (to us) too low. We need casualties in the millions before our dumb monkey brains can figure out it's a bad idea, sometimes not even then.
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Re:Government coders (Score:5, Insightful)
If programmers like HIM are writing the code for these "smart" weapons, then I think we should just give the things to our enemies for free.
* I was an intelligence analyst in the Army. I dealt strictly with excruciatingly mundane secrets. Boring, boring, boring. My father was an engineer for Hughes (now Raytheon). He worked on things like the B-2 Spirit ground mapping radar system. For years he "worked at Hughes", and that was it. Later, he was able to say "I work on the B-2 radar system. You'd be amazed at some of the cool shit we do with it, but I can't say what it is."
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time you are dealing with big guns, fast motors, high-speed fire, large rounds, and explosive projectiles there is a risk of disaster if things go wrong. These things aren't toys. Even if the fire button was completely manual things could still go wrong.
I recall reading an article about a magazine detonation in a battleship which went into all kinds of detail about all the things that could go wrong - and this was a fairly manual operation. It did involve lots of machinery (how else do you move around shells that weigh hundreds of pounds?), but it was all human operated.
Assuming the system is well-designed the automation actually has great potential to LOWER risk. Humans make mistakes all the time. They're even more prone to making mistakes when a jet is incoming loaded with cluster bombs.
Another thing to keep in mind is that peacetime training disasters always make the news with the military. However, the military has a fine line to walk - on one hand they want to be safe in their exercises, but on the other hand they want to be able to handle combat operations. A 30 minute single-shot firing procedure that allows for all kinds of safety checks sounds great in theory, but in wartime you'd lose more people to incoming fire than you'd ever save from gun explosions. Sure, you don't want to kill yourself, but if you're so ineffective that the enemy overruns you it is all for nothing. As a result we tolerate some friendly fire, accidents, etc.
Like it or not robotic weapons WILL be the future of warfare. Sure, one country might elect not to develop them, but sooner or later somebody else will, and once they work out the bugs they'll be overrunning everybody else...
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously.. this thing was built with the explicit purpose of raining death down on people.
And lookee, it apparently did the job it was built to do....
Only on people we've all decided "deserved" to keep their lives.
Unlike the people this thing was *intended* to kill.
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want really sick and twisted humor, try living in a war zone.
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
150000 people die every day. That's almost 2 a second. I'm sure the family and friends of these 6 are heart broken, but for the 6.5 billion people who don't know them, it's not all that remarkable.
The only thing unique about these 6 people is that they died in a somewhat amusing way. If you want to mourn, mourn for the other 149994 people who died today that you'll never hear about.
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see you cracking a joke about the robot at the funeral if it was *your* son in the casket.
Now, I don't see anything bad about us making jokes in this forum, since we aren't personally involved in the matter at all and can only feel sorry in an "abstract" kind of way (as in, accidents and human loss are sad but oh well I can't feel sad for *every* bad thing that happens in this world right?), and this won't be read by the affected people. But let's not go around pretending that we are "dealing" or "coping" with anything here. That's just hipocrisy.
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Come to Australia then.
I've been a volunteer ambulance officer for decades, and I've seen people keep their sense of humour in the most horrific circumstances.
Went to a car rollover once. The driver had been seriously injured and trapped inside the inverted vehicle. He'd been there for almost an hour before anyone had found him (this was remote WA), and it took another half an hour to cut him out. We put him in the stretcher while the ambulance was reversing to us. As we moved towards the ambulance, he looked at the back wheel of his trashed car and said "Anyone got a shifter? I wouldn't mind adjusting the brakes now I can get to 'em easy."
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
That's coping, using humor. It happens in real life.
In this forum, however, nine South Africans are truly remote. They're about as far outside my monkey sphere as humans can get. You wanna joke about them? Fine by me. You want to complain about the jokers because you don't think people really deal with tragedy that way? You're quite wrong.
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Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit of background:
Since the government changed from white-run to black about 15 years ago, almost nothing has been done to keep our military equipment up to scratch. We went from having one of the best (sizewise) defence forces in the world to one that "loses" millions of dollars worth of equipment in war torn countries like the Congo and Sudan. And by equipment, I mean armoured cars, transport vehicles, artillery, grenades, millions of rounds of ammo, you name it. When called to account, the minister of defense (Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota, I kid you not!) basically said that all armies lose equipment, and that he's not even going to bother looking into it. There's lots of things they won't look into these days. Even when our own health minister expounds on the value of garlic, lemon juice and beetroot as a cure for HIV, she's completely backed by all her cronies in the SA gvt. But I digress...
In an effort to bring our defence force back up to scratch, a number of black former anti-apartheid "struggle heroes" got involved in buying about R40bn (about US$6.5bn) worth of materiel from overseas arms companies based in Sweden, Germany and others. Corruption and kickbacks were so rife at this point that even the Germans are still trying to untangle the South African side of things (our government doesn't believe in transparency when it looks like president Thabo Mbeki might be involved, and he was, which is why the investigations keep stalling). But to give you an idea, the SA government purchased some new corvettes for what passes for our Navy, which are too expensive to run. Last I heard they were sitting in dry dock, because it was going to be too expensive to maintain them if they actually put them in the water and used them for exercises. I'm not sure who we'd be defending ourselves against anyway, actually...
More than to 40% of our military (which is about 90% black now) is infected with HIV, and half of them don't know which end of an automatic rifle is which. They lose or sell their weapons and ammunition to criminal syndicates which use them for cash-in-transit heists (there's at least 2 a day, they don't even make the papers any more unless the guards in the armoured cars died a more gruesome death than usual). They also use them in armed home invasions, where a group of 3-10 armed blacks will burst into a home, torture and rape and kill the homeowners and families (usually white) before making off with the family car and a few electrical goods. We have about 55 murders a day (conservative estimate, (think a tour bus full of people)), roughly 144 rapes a day, and about 880 burglaries a day in this country, all aided indirectly by incompetent military and police personnel. That may not sound like much, until you work it out, to about 50,000 people die. every. single. year. And those are just the ones reported. And it's getting worse. Have a look at what's going on in an average suburb in Pretoria (name sooned to be changed to "Tshwane", see below). http://search.news24.com/search?s=NWS&ref=NWS&q=Lynnwood&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0/ [news24.com]. This page covers just the last 3 months, more links at bottom.
Many of you will nod your heads and go "yeah well, you deserve it after apartheid", but there's a couple of things you need to realise. 1. that most other countries that have at some stage practised (or still practise) some form of racial segregation. That doesn't make it right, but the only main difference between those countries and ours is that SA had an actual word for it. "Apartheid" basically means "separateness" in
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En-gag-ing.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Story is inaccurate -- weapons system from 1985 (Score:5, Informative)
This is typical of recent slashdot who is trying to compete more with the sensationalism of digg and other tech blogs. No fact-checking, just throw it up and wait for the ad impressions to roll in.
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ED-209 (Score:5, Funny)
I seem to recall seeing a documentary about this about 20 years ago. Ahh, here it is. [imdb.com]
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
BSOD. literally (Score:5, Funny)
This gives new meaning to the phrase "Blue screen of death".
That's why.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's why.. (Score:4, Funny)
"A sad day for robot history. But hey! We can always build more killbots!"
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Testing before testing. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I want to tell you about a radical new idea I had - testing things before deploying them."
In the case of weapons systems, that means debugging the software before loading the gun.
Truth me told, most "automated" weapons are more like remote control, for precisely this reason.
Also, while my experience is not vast in the area, most American weapons testers follow a lot of safety rules - including not being in the line of fire of the darned thing. Note I said most - we have our munitions accidents here, too.
Re:Testing before testing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Many times I have seen an automated system go out of control due to something as simple as a broken wire on an encoder to an entirely failed controller. Closest thing to this that we ever got was one day a SCARA robot (about the size and shape of a human arm) ran away (out of control) and hit the door on the work cell. Wouldn't have been a big deal except that another of the robotics guys was walking by and walked into the door as it swung open. Good times, good times, but I would never want to be around an automated machine with a gun, just too big of a chance for something to go wrong.
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Re:Testing before testing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would never want to be around a human with a gun, just too big of a chance for something to go wrong.
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Two words: Deadman switch (Score:5, Insightful)
Better than humans in the long run (Score:5, Insightful)
As with most automated technologies it will make some mistakes, but less than a human on average. The friendly fire rate for most militaries is no where near perfect.
No pun intended (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No pun intended (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:No pun intended (Score:4, Funny)
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Riiight (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
A few other points:
* The majority of low level flying targets are subsonic anyway
* It just takes a single hit in the right place on the airframe for the target to tear itself to pieces
* Having a computer fire a weapon is a very very bad thing, One of the principles that was drummed into us was a human must always pull the trigger. Always. Computers can aim for you, make the tracking easier, calculate the numbers, whatever - anything but actually fire the weapon. That should always be done by a person with the correct training and authorisation.
If this weapon fired by itself because of a software glitch, then it's poorly designed.
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Re:Riiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Think you can shoot down supersonic missile flying below the horizon? No. They let the computer guided robots do that. You're not nearly good enough at it. Ok, maybe you get lucky and nail it. Now try thirty in five seconds all coming from different bearings. Didn't think so.
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I told you before... (Score:5, Funny)
"But what if we want to have the windows open?" (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA: (Score:4, Funny)
"software engineers find that a goto statement was the cause of the recent military disaster. Experts say while this was a terrible tragedy, it could have been much worse [xkcd.com]."
I, for one. . . (Score:5, Funny)
No three laws safe here (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe fill the magazines on the 5th live fire test???
Just sayin, ya know.
Guess the NRA has to change the slogan... (Score:5, Interesting)
BUSINESS PROPOSAL (Score:5, Funny)
It is my humble pleasure to write this letter irrespective of the fact that you do not know me. However, I came to know of you in my private search for a reliable and trustworthy person that can handle a confidential transaction of this nature in respect to our investment plans in real estate. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. Let me start by first, introducing myself properly to you. I am Peter Okoye, a Branch Manager at one of the standard trust bank in South Africa. A foreigner, Late Nicholas Owen, a Civil engineer/Contractor with the federal Government of South Africa, until his death three years ago in a ghastly automated robot accident, banked with us here at the standard bank South Africa. He had a closing balance of USD$25.5M (Twenty five Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) which the bank now unquestionably expects to be claimed by any of his available foreign next of kin. Or,alternatively be donated to a discredited trust fund for arms and ammunition at a military war college here in South Africa. Fervent valuable efforts made by the standard trust bank to get in touch with any of late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin (he had no wife and children)has been unsuccessful. The management under the influence of our chairman and board of directors, are making arrangement for the fund to be declared UNCLAIMABLE and then be subsequently donated to the trust fund for Arms and Ammunition which will further enhance the course of war in Africa and the world in general. In order to avert this negative development. Myself and some of my trusted colleagues in the bank, now seek for your permission to have you stand as late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin. So that the fund (USD$25.5M), would be subsequently transferred and paid into your bank account as the beneficiary next of kin through our overseas corresponding bank. All documents and proves to enable you get this fund have been carefully worked out and we are assuring you a 100% risk free involvement.
Your share would be 30% of the total amount. While the rest would be for me and my colleagues for purchase of properties in your country through you/your Company. If this proposal is OK by you, then kindly get to me immediately via my e-mail (pokoye_mg@mail.com) furnishing me with your most confidential telephone and fax , so I can forward to you the relevant details of this tran! saction. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.
Best Regards.
Peter Okoye
Branch Manager,
STANDARD TRUST BANK SOUTH AFRICA
I worked on those 35mm Oerlikons (Score:5, Informative)
you're the godwinner (Score:4, Funny)
You know who else [wikipedia.org] went around knocking down Poles... That's right.
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Re:Three Laws of Robotics (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Three Laws of Robotics (Score:5, Insightful)
Asimov's three laws were meant to be a thought experiment in hubris and unintended consequences. They were sold (in the context of the stories) as the perfect control system for robots, and then there were always "problems" that the USR management couldn't understand and which Susan Calvin needed to figure out and fix.
Asimov wasn't naive, but some of his characters were...
Regards,
Ross
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Acme no, South African aftermarket coding, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Young says he was also told at the time that the gun's original equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon, had warned that the GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon system was not designed for fully automatic control. Yet the guns were automated. At the time, SA was still subject to an arms embargo and Oerlikon played no role in the upgrade.
It may just be me, but automating a machine that fires explosives that isn't designed to be automated just sounds like a Bad Idea(TM).
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Re:I, For One, Welcome Our... (Score:5, Funny)
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