I just wanted to endorse the link in lookout's post.

Holy :speechls: !!

You guys worry way too much. I'm sure a good-hearted 15 year old savant working on the project from his advanced research positions in DARPA will realize that he wants to live so that he can marry his new girlfriend he met between late night work sessions in the campus rumpus room, and he'll change out the control chip at the last moment so that the crazed robots attack the Pentagon instead, and we'll all live happily ever after.

Alas, I must retract my endorsement of Lookout's link.
New Scientist ( http://technology.newscientist.com/a...or-deaths.html ) suggests it was simply a mechanical malfunction, rather than being anything to do with a computer going haywire. The gun still (normally) requires a human in the loop to give the fire order.
I'm sure the mothers of the nine dead feel much better about this now.

How about a bin Laden type getting control of an unmanned weapon? Let the West make the capital investment and do the building, all he has to do is crack the security...

Good point Griff.
At one level it wouldn't apply. If the machine really is autonomous, then there is no "controller" and so no bad guy can "take control" of it, in an on-the-battlefield sense.
But what they must have is high-level control, such as being told to eliminate enemy in a given area, much as orders would be given to a human soldier. Yeah, if the enemy (whoever they be) can find a way to hack that security, and start giving them orders ... oooohhh nasty scenario.