From Nick Stephens
I refer to your article on military robots (23 September, p 28). Is it just me, or can anyone think of an easier way to get a munition into a US base than by attaching it to a robot with an autonomous “return home” function?
So, military robots might be developed by the Pentagon with a capability for speech, face and gesture recognition. Will these be based only on the characteristics of people who might be found in a Midwestern shopping mall, or more broadly? If the former, what will such a robot make of the Greek negative of the head nodded upwards, the Indian head waggle to indicate a reluctance to say no, or an Indonesian with eyes downcast in deference to authority?
