Yikes! The Navy has issued a proposal for U.S. nerds to build it "a coordinated and distributed swarm of micro-robots" capable of manufacturing "novel materials and structures." How useful, robots that can build things. But why stop there? What about robots that can build more robots? Adam Rawnsley describes what could be “the Easy-Bake Oven of the robot apocalypse.”This isn't heavy industry, though. They want the robot swarm to use desktop manufacturing—a technology that allows you to "print" 3-D objects using equipment that can fit on your desk and be programmed with nothing more sophisticated than your own laptop.
In its more benign uses, desktop manufacturing takes the form of products like Makerbot, which lets users fabricate cool 3-D objects out of plastic. In the hands of intelligent robots, though, think of this more as the Easy-Bake Oven of the robot apocalypse.And it only gets worse.Darpa, the Defense Department's far-out advanced research wing, has previously experimented with "programmable materials" to create shape-shifting machines like the self-folding origami robot that can change into a small plane and boat.
Intel, one of Darpa's partners on the research has suggested the technology could one day go further, making it able to "mimic the shape and appearance of a person or object being imaged in real time."
So these mechanical swarms might eventually be capable of building other, shape-shifting robots? What could possibly go wrong?With all this talk of drones, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to see the government using this technology with a Patriot Act slant.Image:PEER 1. viaDanger Room
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