It looks like something out of the dystopian show “Black Mirror,” but it’s just the latest adaptation of robotics for the modern battlefield. During recent military drills with Cambodia, China’s military showed off a robot dog with an automatic rifle mounted on its back, essentially turning man’s best (electronic) friend into a futuristic weapon. “It can serve as a new member in our urban combat operations, replacing our human members to conduct reconnaissance and identify the enemy and strike the target,” a soldier identified as Chen Wei says in a video from state broadcaster CCTV. The two-minute video made during the China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon 2024” exercise also shows the robot dog walking, hopping, lying down and moving backwards under the control of a remote operator. In one drill, the rifle-firing robot leads an infantry unit into a simulated building. The latter part of the video also shows an automatic rifle mounted under a six-rotor aerial drone. Military use of robot dogs and small aerial drones is nothing new. A CCTV video from last year also highlighted China’s rifle-armed electronic canines in a joint exercise involving the Chinese, Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese militaries held last November. In 2020, the U.S. Air Force demonstrated how it used robotic dogs as one link in its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which uses artificial intelligence and rapid data analytics to detect and counter threats to soldiers. And since the Russian-Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, drones have become commonplace on the battlefield, on the land, sea and air, with cheap remotely controlled vehicles able to knock out sophisticated military machines like tanks and even warships. The lethal abilities of drones seen on the Ukraine battlefields have shown them to be a game changer. Despite export controls on certain types of drones, China is still one of the world’s leading drone exporters. The robot dogs have been popping up on China’s social media for a year. “Usually, a new gadget will not be brought into a joint exercise with another country, so the robot dogs must have reached a certain level of technical maturity,” the Beijing-based Global Times quoted an unnamed expert as saying. (SD-Agencies) Words to Learn 相關詞匯 【步兵】bùbīng infantry the part of an army that fights on foot 【司空見慣】sīkōng jiànguàn commonplace ordinary 這看起來像是烏托邦劇《黑鏡》里的東西，但其實這只是機器人技術在現代戰場上的最新應用。 在最近與柬埔寨的聯合軍事演習中，中國軍方展示了一種背上裝有自動步槍的機器狗，人類最好的朋友變成了先進武器。 “它可以作為我們城市作戰行動中的新成員，代替我們的士兵進行偵察、識別敵人并打擊目標，”在中央電視臺的一段視頻中，一位名叫陳偉的士兵說。 這段兩分鐘的視頻是在中柬“金龍2024”演習期間拍攝的，視頻中還顯示了機器狗在遠程操作員的控制下行走、跳躍、臥倒和向后移動的過程。 在一次演習中，步槍射擊機器狗帶領一支步兵部隊進入模擬建筑物。 視頻的后半部分還展示了安裝在六旋翼無人機下的自動步槍。 軍方使用機器狗和小型無人機并非新鮮事。去年11月，在中國、柬埔寨、老撾、馬來西亞、泰國和越南軍隊參加的一次聯合演習中，央視的一段視頻也重點展示了裝備步槍的機器狗。 2020 年，美國空軍展示了如何利用機器狗作為其先進戰斗管理系統（ABMS）的一個環節，該系統利用人工智能和快速數據分析來探測和應對士兵面臨的威脅。 自2022年俄烏沖突爆發以來，無人機在海陸空戰場上已變得司空見慣，便宜的遙控飛行器可以擊毀坦克甚至軍艦等精密軍事機器。在烏克蘭戰場上看到的無人機的致命能力表明，它們可以改變游戲規則。 盡管某些類型的無人機受到出口管制，但中國仍然是世界上主要的無人機出口國之一。 一年來，社交媒體上不斷出現機器狗的身影。 總部位于北京的《環球時報》援引一位不愿透露姓名的專家的話說：“通常情況下，一種新裝備不會被帶入與他國的聯合演習中，因此機器狗必定達到了相當的技術成熟度。” (Translated by Debra) | 