I guess we aren't in the future yet

From Popular Mechanics

Last year, three armed ground bots were deployed to Iraq. But the remote-operated SWORDS units were almost immediately pulled off the battlefield, before firing a single shot at the enemy. Here at the conference, the Army’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey, was asked what happened to SWORDS. After all, no specific reason for the 11th-hour withdrawal ever came from the military or its contractors at Foster-Miller. Fahey’s answer was vague, but he confirmed that the robots never opened fire when they weren’t supposed to. His understanding is that “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move.” In other words, the SWORDS swung around in the wrong direction, and the plug got pulled fast. No humans were hurt, but as Fahey pointed out, “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.”

It sure would get my attention if my heavily armed robot warrior swung its gun around past me!

(Here's two links on SWORDS. Defense Review, and Army News Service. It really does sound like a pretty good idea, however, I always wonder about running armed platforms by wireless remote. Effective against Iraqis, but maybe a more sophiticated enemy could hack the controls. They're estimated to cost about $180,000.)