Killer Robot Week Begins

Welcome to Killer Robot week, the antidote to those lovable scamps, R2D2 and BB-8. There’s a saying among actors that playing bad guys is more interesting because there are so many ways to be bad but so few ways to be good. This week we’ll explore the notion that in sci-fi robotics sometimes it’s good to be bad! We’ll start with a review of All Systems Red the first book in the MurderBot Diaries. MurderBot is sort of who Star Wars’ K-2SO would have grown up to be if he hadn't been destroyed. But from a real world perspective, killer robots are designed and programmed by humans to be killers. We will also touch on the ethics and our role as Citizens in the proliferation of weaponized drones, autonomous snipers in the Korean DMZ, and other disturbing trends. This is an important topic and I serve on the board of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics https://responsiblerobotics.org/.