Sentinels, Ultron and HAMMER Drones OH MY! Military Robots and Iron Man-Like Suits Are Already Upon Us

This is not a post about Iron Man or H.A.M.M.E.R. Drones or the X-Men or Sentinels or Ultron. This is just a post informing anyone who wants to know, how close some countries are at making science fiction a military reality. No bias here. Just some comic book jokes here and there but this is a real serious matter that has many concerned about the use of robots and suits for military purposes.

Science fiction can fuel the imagination. All it takes is one writer to create a false technology in a movie script or comic book and the next thing you know you're hearing on the news that someone has nearly created a real-life lightsaber.

In a report by the New York Times, apparently the United States and other countries are close to creating military robots.

"A United Nations expert called Thursday for a global moratorium on the testing, production and use of armed robots that can select and kill targets without human command. 

'War without reflection is mechanical slaughter,' said Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur onextrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. 

'A decision to allow machines to be deployed to kill human beings worldwide — whatever weapons they use — deserves a collective pause,' he told the Human Rights Council in Geneva. 

No countries use such weapons, but the technology is available or soon will be, Mr. Heyns told the council. 

The United States, Britain, Israel and South Korea already use technologies that are seen as precursors to fully autonomous systems. Little is known about Russian and Chinese progress in developing them."

Sounds surreal, doesn't it? It continues.

"Mr. Heyns urged the council to set up a high-level panel to report within a year on advances in the development of 'lethal autonomous robotics,' to assess whether existing international laws are adequate for controlling their use. 

Preparations to introduce armed robots raise 'far-reaching concerns about the protection of life during war and peace,' Mr. Heyns said in a report on lethal autonomous robotics he submitted to the council. 'This includes questions of whether robots will make it easier for states to go to war.'"

Lethal autonomous robotics? This is starting to sound like Dr. Hank Pym is in a lab somewhere attempting to create Ultron.

There are many non-government organizations who are fighting to ban these types of killing machines. And no, we are not talking about a small band of mutants who live in upstate New York.

The fact is sci-fi and comics fuel many ideas for military weapons development to the point where it sounds like governments are building Ultron or Sentinels or a HAMMER Drone army. This is kind of scary. Not to mention there's hardly any information as to what China or Russia have done in secret. China could have an Iron Man suit nearly ready for launch. Russia could have a Crimson Dynamo suit ready too.

But many are attempting to stop these real-life killing machines before they are put into production.

"'It is possible to halt the slide toward full autonomy in weaponry before moral and legal boundaries are crossed,' Steve Goose, arms division director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement this week, 'but only if we start to draw the line now.'"

The kicker about this whole thing is that there is even a company called Cyberdyne who are creating an exoskeleton suit that is very Mark I-like. Quick side note: Cyberdyne created SkyNet in the Terminator franchise... just sayin'.

It's still many years away from fully covering a person's entire body but the technology is based on recognizing signals from the brain that travel through your skin and enhance your movements. Seriously, this is a real company and technology and you can read more by clicking right here.

A real-life Mark I suit by Cyberdyne, called HAL.

Let's hope those who are concerned can help control the use of robots and suits in the military. Because if there's one thing comic book fans and readers can tell you... it's that fighting off an army of drones or Sentinels or an Ultron army is not an easy task when you don't have super powers.


Follow @DailySuperHero