Skynet Now Becomes ...

 ... assertive. Russian robots now regulate the traffic on their own, LOL)). 

For White Board MBAs.

Get this: 

(Reuters) - Boeing Co has abandoned a key automation system used to make fuselage sections for its 777 jetliners amid reports of reliability issues, and will instead partially switch back to mechanics, the planemaker said on Thursday. The company began to build 777 fuselages in 2015 in an upright orientation, with robots drilling holes and installing fasteners, an initiative known as fuselage automated upright build (FAUB). The world's biggest planemaker said it had stopped using the system which, according to industry sources, caused problems with reliability and rework issues. Boeing had faced delays last year when the FAUB machine was tried out on existing versions of the 777. Instead, the company will switch to "flex tracks" - an automated method to drill the holes along the circumference of the airplane that are then fastened manually.

Believe me, there is more to it than meets the eye. By far, I underscore it, by far not all things could be done by manipulators (aka industrial robots) and especially so in the aerospace industry where only humans can provide for a foreseeable future required input and actual quality control. Training, qualifications, education become a decisive factor. I will not disclose any secret that many companies in aerospace prefer human layup of aircraft composite parts to any "machine laying", granted that machines can do only few and less complex parts anyway. And then comes the issue of Quality Control. Yes, there are machines involved in it, many machines, some of them very sophisticated, but in the end it comes down to human supervision and decision making process that define if the aircraft flies or it fails. It is good news that Boeing made this decision--in the end, it is Quality Inspector who answers for the aircraft, not some machine which can do only so much. 

This brings a larger issue to the fore--naked numbers on "robotization" which all kinds of white board trained MBAs love to operate with, in no way defines the "strength" or otherwise of economy. Robots are useful and they will continue to be deployed but they are merely tools and sometimes can be harmful due to bad engineering and design. Boeing provided today an excellent example of that. It is one thing to drill a substandard hole in a car on the conveyor, totally another--to do so on a commercial or military aircraft. Lives of people who fly it, including those on the ground, depend on that and no amount of bookkeeping and abstract economic data can ever substitute ethical and professional attitude of people making planes. This is a real hi-tech I am talking about, not assembly of iPhones or CGI. Only designers, engineers and, in the end, production floor manufacturing specialists can have a decisive input on the production issues. 

So, Kalashnikov Developed Yet Another Gun.

It is called AK-308 (in Russian), and we all may expect yet another round of all kinds of professionals, from combat veterans to Law Enforcement Officers, and, of course, armies of utterly unprofessional internet warriors getting ready to virtually kill each-other trying to prove that they know best what is needed in actual combat. It is, meanwhile, a very nice looking weapon:

AK-308

I will give a hint: even being an officer, during some certain events in Azerbaijan many of us still preferred to have, apart from standard issue PM, AK-74 with us when being deployed to some localities which required armed attention. AK-74 is my favorite of them all, despite me having an intimate knowledge of all of them in 1970s-80s from AK-47, AKMs and other versions of this venerable Russian "assault" rifle (whatever that means, but I am being PC here). I don't know how this new weapon feels but it looks cool. 

    

Now to unexpected turn of events. Remember this mecha-robotic son of a bitch? 

Well, Russians for some reason decided to present this new Kalashnikov 308, together with a huge array of a military hardware at the Forum "Armia-2018" (Army-2018) about to open its doors in Moscow,  by means of a lovely 4.5 ton contraption which looks like a bastard from the unholy coitus between this Paul Verhoeven's classic walking nightmare from Robocop and robots from late 1950s Hollywood B-rated sci-fi flicks or, maybe, a group robotic sex with some decent caliber net-centric capable machines squeezing primitive blue locals from Unobtanium fields in James Cameron's Avatar. So, here is this thingy.

Well, Russians love robots. Who doesn't? There is no better way to go than being shredded into a bloody pulp by robots' automatic guns or, for that matter, have 4.5 tons stepping on one's balls, a range of excruciating departures from this world which would satisfy even Lieutenant Frank Drebin's exquisite tastes in death.  

But jokes aside. This is the robot, or some versions of it, which may at some point of time pop up somewhere as a real combat bot and Russia, sure as hell, was working on this topic for quite some time. You maybe surprised with the array of high tech killing machines Concern Kalashnikov produces today. Yes, not just famous rifles. Somebody warned about not being overtaken by all this Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) fad in mid-1990s--it was legitimate and sensible call then. Today? Time to think hard about RMA as a real deal because we are into the reality of weapon systems with elements of AI and who knows, we may yet, at some point of time face the necessity to slay the Skynet in order for all of us to survive. But I am getting ahead of myself here. 

UPDATE: Meme machine finally hit the high gear. LOL!