Pentagon Drafts Kids To Build Drones and Robots

MrSeb writes "In a world where warfare is fast becoming fielded by remote controlled and autonomous robots, innovation is the key to victory. The most technologically advanced superpower can see more, plan better, and attack from further away than its inferior adversaries. What better way to revolutionize the drone and robotics industry than use the brilliant minds of our children? That's what DARPA and the Defense Department's research and development arm thinks, anyway. The Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach Initiative, part of the Adaptive Vehicle Make project, is slated to reach a thousand schools in and out of the country, roping in the brightest minds to develop robotics and advance technology in new and interesting ways. Funded by the Department of Defense, the program comes with a steep cost: The DoD wants unlimited rights to everything the students build. It sounds almost like something Orson Scott Card would dream up."

Not at all shocking.

[Anonymous Coward]

The DoD wants unlimited rights to everything the students build.

Just like Apple wants rights to the e-books made with their ebook software,

Or how Corporations want the rights to whatever you create, on or off the clock.

How many of you remember the old days when DARPA made a CAD package with tax dollars and felt the citizens should have full access to that source code?

not a new idea

[snookerhog]

somebody watched Toys [imdb.com]

Cool idea... Wrong agency to do it.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I wouldn't feel as bad if it was something done by the National Science Foundation (NSF) or NASA. However having the DoD do it where their emphasis is security and not science makes me worry. There is also the feeling that this will teach our children that it is okay for the government to spy on its citizens with drones and robots. At least with NSF and NASA there is the pretext that this could be done for science in a grand scale like remote sensing (drones) or in hostile environments like deep sea exploration or vulcanism (robots).

Re:Too much Hollywood for you??

[JoeMerchant]

"Besides that US, I don't think any other country has the kind of robotic arsenal you're dreaming of."

The US spends almost as much each year on the military as the entire rest of the world combined. It's hard to even count how many conflicts we're currently involved in. We're the trendsetters. And robotic warfare is the trend we're setting.

The U.S. spends 5% of GDP on military endeavors, down from 10% 50 years ago. Perhaps still too much, but less than a lot of countries.