Rage Against the Machine
Robots Are Going off to War
Story and Photo by Hector Gonzalez

I recently saw the movie “I-Robot” with my family. My step mom scoffed at the film, and said that robots killing humans was way too exaggerated. A couple of days later I read an article on the US military's new SWORDS Robots, and I knew that the day of killer robots are here.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the US Army has build robots to fight against insurgents in Iraq. The 18 S.W.O.R.D.S (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System) are scheduled to depart to Iraq this Spring. Their departure to Iraq will mark a historic point in time – for the first time in human history machine will be fighting man. Although a similar machine known as the Foster-Miller Talon robot is already being used in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is used solely for explosive ordinance removal.   The new SWORD robots are going to remove lives.

The SWORD robots are remote controlled, fully equipped with armor and a camera with night vision. Its shooting rage is 100% accurate and it can shoot 300 rounds in one burst. Who would have thought that the Hollywood science fiction characters of Hollywood's imagination – Terminator, RoboCop, I-Robot -- would one day manifest into reality.

I'm sure the military feels the SWORDS may help them win the war, but there is an element far greater than losing a war that is being overlooked -- the element of life. The Iraqis may be facing a powerful force in the US military, but things are about to get worse for them. They will soon not only be fighting gun to gun, but also flesh to metal. The difference is that the Iraqis will be fighting there opponents in theory, literally battling robots because the American soldiers will be invisible in the distance, controlling their weaponry by remote control.   Imagining the potential battlefields, I am reminded of David and Goliath, from the book of Samuel. David was a teenager and was victorious against Goliath, the nine foot tall giant.   But I am afraid that in this particular event, the Iraqi people may not be as successful as David, who beat the odds and defeated his enemy, for what willpower could defeat a machine created for the sole purpose of human destruction? It seems that the notion of willpower defeating such robots is perhaps even more unrealistic then the Terminator-like robots themselves.

These instruments of death say a lot about our times. An apocalyptic feeling comes over me, knowing that at this point there isn't anything that can stop the United States military.   Even without the robots, estimates for the death tolls have been as high as 100,000. We are now entering a time, when these numbers may rise exponentially, where death is the ultimate goal with no regards to the mercy of our “enemies.”  

Even the responsibility of killing may be dropped from US soldiers when it's the machines doing all the dirty work. It won't be live soldiers who are pulling the trigger on innocent bystanders. Even the romance of war will end with the use of robots to fight our battles. Stories of military heroism such as taking a bullet for a fellow soldier and walking miles with worn out boots will be a thing of the past. But one thing will remain the same, the winners of wars will be the one's with the best artillery.