We are not creating a Terminator: Russia

"We are not creating a Terminator": Russia denies risk as Putin's 'robot army' is trained to shoot guns

Posting a clip showing armed robot FEDOR in action, Deputy PM insists teaching the androids to shoot will help improve their motor skills and decision-making abilities

Vladimir Putin's 'robot army' is being trained to shoot guns from both of its hands, it's emerged.

Android robots called FEDOR - Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research - are being developed for space exploration by Russia.

Now it's emerged that the human looking robots - with a head, two arms and two legs - have been handed guns as part of their training.

A video clip of them in action has already caused a senior government officials to issue a denial that they are creating a real-life "Terminator-style" killer.

The reference is to the robot in the Hollywood science fiction franchise - played by Arnold Schwarzenegger - which takes over the earth in the future by killing all humans that stand in its path.

FEDOR stands six foot tall, weighs between 106-160 kg depending on extra equipment - and can lift up to 20 kg of cargo.

Its creators claim that teaching them to shoot will help improve their motor skills and decision-making abilities.

Posting a short clip showing the armed robot in action, Russia's deputy PM Dmitryi Rogozin said: "Robot platform F.E.D.O.R. showed shooting skills with two hands.

"We are not creating a Terminator, but artificial intelligence that will be of great practical significance in various fields.”

In the clip posted by the Deputy PM the robot can be seen firing a pair of guns at a target board.

It is accompanied with the message: “Russian fighting robots – guys with iron nature.”

The clip also features other "robot-like" vehicles in action firing at targets on a range - although these are believed to be remote controlled.

The robot was originally created with rescue missions in mind until military uses began being suggested.

FEDOR is set to travel into space in 2021 - and has been touted as a permanent replacement for cosmonauts currently maintaining the ISS in the long term.

The robot is being developed by Android Technics and the Advanced Research Fund.

They are attempting to teach it a wide variety of basic and advanced skills - from how to use a set of keys and various tools to how to screw in a light bulb and drive a car.

The robot was originally created for rescue work, but military uses have also been suggested by engineers.

Numerous experts have issued warnings over where the development of robots with artificial intelligence is leading us.

University of Cambridge Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Lord Martin Rees, warned just this month that machines could soon take over from humans.

MirrorOnline reported last December that FEDOR is the the android robot that Vladimir Putin hopes will successfully colonise the moon.

FEDOR is the prototype of a new artificial intelligence the Russian leader wants to send to the International Space Station.

It can work in the extreme temperatures on the moon without the need for a space suit - and can even 'live' outside in the open.

This comes as Russia revealed plans to send humans to the Moon by 2031.

Putin's deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin said then: "This thing can work without a space suit, live not only in a crew vehicle, but even outside it. Its name is Fedor."

A video of the robot showed developers taking it for a walk and testing its human-like abilities.

It can stand up, walk around and move all of its metal limbs - it can also "see" through a camera in its head.

The robot can even do push ups, as seen in the footage.

Rogozin claimed the war in Syria had shown Russia the importance of robots in difficult environments, and promised FEDOR would make its space debut in five years.

Putin has also instructed his space chiefs to make a first landing on the Moon within 15 years.

A key task for FEDOR will be to "assist in construction and use of bases" on the moon and potentially other planets, said its Russian designers FPI.

The robot can "crawl, stand up after falling down, take and leave driver's seat in a car, use tools and operate in a regular building".

Sergei Khurs, head of the project and director of the National Centre for Technology Development and Basic Robotics, said: “During space walking missions and on other planets, astronauts will rely on robots.

"Their capabilities are equal to those of humans, and in some ways even exceed them."

Vladimir Solntsev, general director of Russian rocket-making corporation Energia, said: "Our involvement in the Fedor-based space robot project will bring us to the next level in the development of robotic technologies."

Alexander Grebenshchikov, director of the TSNIImash laboratory of space robotics, said: "Every hour of work of cosmonauts on space walks costs from $2 million to $4 million (USD).

"The use of robots for routine operations in the future will also spare additional time of the crew for leisure or for the fulfillment of other important tasks."

Fedor is the equivalent in Russian for Theodore, although in this case it is an acronym standing for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research.

Russia's ambitious plans would see cosmonauts being sent to the moon on a new spacecraft called Federation.

There would also be a new space station built in the next ten years with NASA seen as a possible partner to the plans.

There would be unmanned missions into space over a number of years before humans were send to the moon in 2031.

Only America has so far managed to land humans on the Moon’s surface.

The plans were unveiled by Vladimir Solntsev, of rocket company Energia.

He said an unmanned spacecraft would fly around the moon in 2026 followed by another unmanned space vehicle practicing on landing on the moon the following year.

In 2029 there would be another unmanned flight before eventually landing on the moon in 2031.

As reported by Russian news agency TASS, Mr Solntsev said: “In the 2030s, we set the task of a manned flight to the Moon and in 2031 we plan landing on the Moon.”

As well as landing again on the Moon, one of the next major space missions is to put a human on Mars .

NASA believes it can get to Mars before 2030 and the China National Space Administration has set a target of 2021, while the European Space Agency and the Russians’ Roscosmos are already in the first stages of a joint project to put a robot on the surface by 2020.

Meanwhile, SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk aims to ferry 100 passengers there by 2024, the space company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is rocket-testing in the Texan desert and Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp has already recruited eight people for his Mars One mission.