Today, Syfy announced it has wrapped production on the first season of "Robot Combat League," gladiator-style matches featuring 8-foot tethered robots controlled by human operators. Entertainment Weekly (Nov 20) - "Giant boxing robots reality show unveiled by Syfy -- EXCLUSIVE": http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/11/20/robot-combat-league/ The article mentions another "robot combat show" announced by Discovery Channel in April produced by James Cameron ("Avatar", "Titanic") and Mark Burnett ("Survivor") called "Robogeddon": http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/11/james-cameron-to-create-robogeddon/ Steven Spielberg has committed to filming an adaptation of Carnegie Mellon Robotics Ph.D Daniel H. Wilson's text _Robopocalypse_: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robopocalypse I'd like to suggest these are somewhat interesting sociocultural reflections of HRW's admirable though perhaps Quixotic call for the banning of killer robots. What is this desire people have to see robots smash each other? How does that comport with the desire people have to be frightened about robots annihilating the human species (as evidenced by the uncounted books and films that revisit that theme)? Finally, what is the nature of the gap or disconnect between the latter and the very real work to create Lethal Autonomous Robots? Might it have something to do with the former? ymmv, gf -- Gregory Foster || gfoster@entersection.org @gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/ _______________________________________________ drone-list mailing list drone-list@lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/drone-list If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE