We’ve all seen Terminator. You know, rampant murderous robots on a mission to kill us all, blah blah. Well, some genius is trying to bring this rosy vision of the future one step closer. Check out this article and video.

This creeps me out. With the advances being made in AI and robotics, I don’t think we’re too far from producing an autonomous infantry killing machine. Going up against a robot as seen in the video would be fearsome.

Imagine, you shoot at a machine that keeps coming no matter what. You hit it again and again and it sprints forward unless destroyed. When it shoots back, it does so with accuracy and reflexes that are literally inhuman. It would destroy without mercy, it would kill without qualm.

Someone will put these things on the battlefield, I do not doubt. They don’t need to be fed, paid, or trained. All they need is programmed, powered up and reloaded.

There is an answer to the Terminator, though. It’s the powered fighting suit, as featured in Starship Troopers, The Forever War, or my own books. This would pair a controlling human with a complimentary AI and a fighting machine. Humans would regain the ability to fight machines with such a powered armor suit.

Without powered armor and your own personal AI, have fun fighting the Terminator.

I wonder if there’s as much research going into powered suits as there is into humanoid robots. Somewhere on the internet I’ve read that DARPA is messing around with powered exoskeletons- but that’s just the unclassified that’s filtering through to us poor slobs.

This is the next generation of infantry fighting. We have reached the limits of what a human can do with old-school training and modern equipment.

For better or for worse, we’ll see the rise of the machines soon.

The question is, are people already thinking ahead with an effective counter?