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Technology, most would agree, is making life easier for all of us. Right? Well, yes and no. While it’s undoubtedly easier to create robots to do all those tedious tasks for us, we should really give some thought into what those tedious tasks are and what they should be.
Carrying heavy weights? Yes, obviously. Manufacturing tasks? Of course, that’s exactly what robots are for. And what about battles? Perfect, right? That way no human being gets hurt.
Well, not necessarily. Even if we ignore the debate on whether or not using drones for airstrikes spares the risk of endangering human lives (as we might not care to admit that perhaps it only spares lives on one side), there’s still the matter of technology itself being the grounds for a new arms race between world powers. Quite frankly, killer robots aren’t what helps us sleep better at night.
Experts have aware of the fact that Russia has been trying in recent years to match the US and China in the development of robots, drones, and other war machines that are potentially autonomous. Now it is touting it’s new robot – Iron Man: A humanoid military robot.
“The development of a special military robot is one of the priorities of military construction in Russia,” the Russian daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported recently. It’s purpose is to “replace the person in the battle or in emergency areas where there is a risk of explosion, fire, high background radiation, or other conditions that are harmful to humans,” the newspaper wrote.
In addition to the Iron Man, Russia is developing aerial drones, tank drones, and other robotic military vehicles.
The Iron Man was created by Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Studies — Moscow’s answer to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. However, the Iron Man is still an experiment that won’t likely appear on a battlefield anytime soon.
Russia’s technology may not equal that of the US, but it is taking huge steps trying to get there.
