US Robots posted in Iraq apparently tried to take out their human counterparts, The Register revealed today. It appears that the robots, which had a fitted M249 (usually used by soldiers to suppress fire) for some unknown reason began to train their fire on the soldiers they were there to protect. A high ranking official said, “The gun started moving when it was not intended to move.”

So all this talk of robotic murder led me to a question: What other steps have robots made to try to kill mankind?

It didn’t take me long before I found a report on Slashdot of a Robot lawnmower killing a Danish man. The “Dvorak Spider” didn’t kill him in the obvious way, by slicing him into small human chunks, instead it hurled itself off of a cliff to crush the hapless bacon lover below.

And then I re-stumbled across the recent news of a man in Australia who had built his own suicide-bot to fire a handgun into his head. But then the only witness was the robot.. Maybe the robot faked the suicide note?

Finally, after blowing the dust off of the internet, it appears as early as 1979 a robot had taken out a human with intricate precision. Of course it was made to look like an accident. According to this Wikipedia article, the workers at a Ford factory had overridden the safety features on the robot. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t take Isaac Asimov seriously.

So it’s been on the cards for a long time, according to the evidence. Robots have been systematically taking humans out - in relative quiet - for the last 30 years. Robots are being used more and more to make our lives “easier” so we will eventually get to a point when we’re surrounded. As it stands now there are robots that can park your car, robots to babysit your children or Japanese robots trained to trick you into thinking they are humans. And then there’s the small child-like Asimo. At what point will the authorities actually open their eyes to what’s going on around us?