Russia is aiming to replace human soldiers with 'faster and more accurate' robot 'brothers' on the battlefield, deputy director of country's Advanced Research Foundation says

A top Russian researcher has claimed that 'faster and more accurate' robots will replace their soldier 'brothers' in combat on the battlefield.

'Living fighters will gradually begin to be replaced by their robotic ‘brothers’ who can act faster, more accurately and more selectively than people,' Vitaly Davydov told local media in April. Davydov is the deputy director of Russia's Advanced Research Foundation.

Davydov has said robotics will be the future of military conflict due to their increased speed and because they can be more accurate in target selection.

Russia will begin testing their newly developed robot, the Marker UGV, towards the end of this year.

Pictured: An undated photo of Russia's newly developed Marker UGV - fully autonomous tank

In July last year, the country also sent an humanoid droid into space.   

'There is a still-classified Russia's military robotics road-map that sketches out various stages of Russian unnamed military developments, which undoubtedly has been influenced by Russian military actions and experience in Syria,' Samuel Bendett, an adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses, told Forbes.

Some of the robots have underperformed during tests, but the Russian Ministry of Defence has pinned its hopes on the Marker UGV, which is a battle tank that would not need a crew.

Bendett added that Russia is discussing the use of 'robotic swarms', launching a large number of autonomous vehicles at once. 

A handout photo made available by the official website of the Russian State Space Corporation ROSCOSMOS shows Russian anthropomorphous robot Fedor (Skybot F-850) being tested ahead of its flight on board Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at the Baikonur  in Kazakhstan, 28 July 2019


The Pentagon is also developing robot military capabilities and has settled on a method similar to Russia's.

There are ethical considerations in handing over the decision to kill to an autonomous machine, ensuring that they adhere to the international law, and the technology is not quite up to scratch to deploy a robotic army quite yet.     

Meanwhile, China has been using its robots to provide assistance to infected patients during the Covid-19 outbreak.

The droids began to deliver medicine and food to patients as well as collecting bed sheets and medical rubbish yesterday in Guangdong, according to the provincial health commission

The use of the self-driving and self-charging machines could cut down the workload of medics and reduce the risks of cross-infection, according to officials
A Chinese hospital started to use two robots powered by artificial intelligence that were capable of disinfecting themselves to help treat coronavirus patients.

The pair of droids began to deliver medicine and food to sufferers as well as collecting bed sheets and medical rubbish yesterday in the province of Guangdong, said the local health commission.

The use of the self-driving and self-charging machines cuts down the workload of medics and reduce the risks of cross-infection, according to officials.

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