Government JOb

merper68
Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:52:57 +0000

Nope, I’m about to start grad school in Mech Eng. Most of the projects I want to work are funded by DARPA, so I try to keep track of what they’re up to. Plus, most of these projects are just fascinating to begin with. Robot armies? How can you not be interested in that?!

I don’t think small robots are going to completely replace humans in 20 years. I think that small robots are already starting to replace humans(See Predator) and their bigger cousins will continue to do so at an increasing pace over the next 20 years. 500 years ago, there were probably less than 10000 people on the world working on actively improving weapons technology. Now there are easily more than 1 million. You can’t compare the rate of change in the distant past to what’s happening now, even if you don’t belive in exponential growth.

Edit: Also note by small arms, I meant conventional, lock and hammer, mechanically fired small arms. Clearly, personal weapons will still be in use in the future, just that research will be more associated with the electronically fired versions.