Darpa robot challenge showcases further potential for automation

While humanoid robots fumbled through basic tasks and obstacle courses, these slow and steady machines will surely win the race - for your jobs

It is very difficult to read the words "Defense Department" and "robots" and not immediately come up with the phrase "robot army", but if this weekend's contestants at the Darpa Robotics Challenge in Pomona, California invaded your town, the damage would be about what a gang of arthritic 90-year-olds could do, if those 90-year-olds also kept forgetting where they were and what they were trying to accomplish.

These robots stumbled, they broke, they stood motionless for half an hour, they couldn't get out of the car. And this was the exciting version - the 2013 trials in this competition were "like watching paint dry", according to one Darpa worker.