Russia’s Teaching a Robot to Use Guns Because of Course They Are

                                                              FEDOR administering some repairs to a cinder block.

Meet FEDOR, short for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research. It’s a Russian space-bound humanoid robot that can do all sorts of neat things!  It knows how to use keys and a variety of tools, screw in light bulbs and even drive a car.  FEDOR is expected to travel to space in 2021 as possibly the only passenger on board Russia’s Federation spacecraft. So naturally, they’re teaching it how to shoot guns from both hands.

                                                To boldly go where no man has–wait, why does it have guns?

Do you want a robot apocalypse? Because THIS IS HOW YOU GET A ROBOT APOCALYPSE!

The point of the exercise is to work on FEDOR’s motor skills and decision-making. Its creators have unsurprisingly found themselves trying to address concerns that they’re developing a real-life Terminator. Russia’s deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, wrote on Twitter that this will help develop important algorithms. “We are not creating a Terminator,” he also tweeted, “but artificial intelligence that will be of great practical significance in various fields.”

Which is great, but doesn’t this:

Look a whole hell of a lot like this?

You can say what you want, but I’ve seen these movies and we’re now one step closer to Skynet. And you can bet your ass I’m going to start saying “please” and “thank you” to my voice-activated devices so that our future android overlords know I’m one of the nice meatbags.