Hasta La Gadget!

Electronic Arts made waves throughout the gaming community when it started showcasing real-world weapons in marketing for Medal of Honor: Warfighter, but today the publisher is beginning to distance itself from its relationship with arms makers. Originally, the Medal of Honor: Warfighter website displayed the logos of various arms manufacturers along with links their products, allowing players to browse guns, knives, and other combat gear. While those logos are still present on the Warfighter website, the links have been removed.

So, Electronic Arts has made it a lot more difficult to browse these catalogs from the Warfighter site. It sounds like Electronic Arts wasn’t initially aware that its Warfighter partners page contained these links, as a representative told The New York Times that they were removed after they were discovered. “We felt it was inappropriate and took the links down,” Jeff Brown said.

In a separate statement in the same write-up, Electronic Arts likened itself to a film studio when it came time to explain why it put real-world guns in Warfighter. The company did it, obviously, to achieve a greater sense of realism, which is precisely what movie studios are doing when they license to rights to use various brands in their films. For what it’s worth, EA clarified that it didn’t receive any money for using these branded products in Warfighter.

The controversy surrounding Electronic Arts and its arms partners was so big that it nearly overshadowed the release of the game itself. With violence in video games being such a touchy subject, it’s probably good that EA removed the links from the Warfighter site, despite the fact that the descriptions and logos remain. What’s your take on this whole marketing nightmare?

EA gives weapons manufacturers the boot from Warfighter website is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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Human rights groups are calling for a universal ban on robotic weapons systems that are able to determine when to fire without human interaction. Clearly, someone has watched The Terminator too many times. Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic have both called for all states to agree to ban the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons.

The US military has several robotic weapons systems that are capable of operating autonomously that are equipped with weapons. However, those weapons are controlled by humans when it comes time to attack a target. The same human rights groups want the designers of robots to enact a “code of conduct.” That sounds like an effort to prevent Skynet.

The fear is that numerous automated weapons systems in use around the world that currently identify, target, and give humans only a little time to decide whether the target is obliterated might be turned into fully automated systems. Some of those weapons systems may need only a software upgrade. The human rights groups say, “action is needed now, before killer robots cross the line from science fiction to feasibility.”

A ban on fully automated weapons systems would reportedly require a new and major arms treaty amongst nations. Those who support the ban point out that fully autonomous weapons systems wouldn’t be able to comply with international humanitarian law. Others believe that fully autonomous weapons systems could be more reliable than humans because people can make bad decisions under stress.

John McGinnis, a Northwestern University Law professor, suggests, “artificial-intelligence robots on the battlefield may actually lead to less destruction, becoming a civilizing force in wars.”

[via The Globe and Mail]

Human rights groups call for ban on automated killer robots is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.