US robot troops to go into battle

The Pentagon is spending $161 billion on a program to build heavily-armed robots for the battlefield in the hope that future wars will be fought without the loss of its soldiers' lives.

The scheme, known as Future Combat Systems, is the largest military contract in American history and will help to drive the defence budget up by almost 20 per cent in five years' time.

Much of the cash will be spent computerising the military, but the ultimate aim is to take members of the armed forces out of harm's way. They would be replaced by robots capable of hunting and killing America's enemies.

That human involvement has proved critical in convincing military lawyers that machines can be used on the battlefield. More advanced machines which can decide whether to kill would also be legal, says Mr Johnson.

"The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions," he said.

Since there are no laws what does it matter...