Pentagon To Send Robot Soldiers to Iraq 765
conJunk points out this AP story carried by Salon (also covered by various sources linked from Google News) "about the Pentagon's plan to send robot soldiers to Iraq in March or April. The program, Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, uses Foster-Miller TALON robots, and is said to be "years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp." If it's successful, maybe our men and women in uniform will have to team up with the United Auto Workers to fight the robo-threat to their jobs." Note that (whatever other considerations you might have about such deployment), the Rules of Robotics that some readers have linked to don't really apply to remote-controlled drones, which is what these are.
Re:A Bummer about the Job, though... (Score:3, Interesting)
...until some pencil pusher decides it's more cost-effective to have the humans sacrifice themselves to protect the robots....
Already Robots, Just Not Meat Robots (Score:2, Interesting)
And isn't that the reality of military discipline? Soldiers are meat, fodder, expendable. I suppose having machines will lower the bar for ethics and morality when it comes to how much we care about the human beings which we are told are our enemies.
When no one will be killed in a war (Score:2, Interesting)
Soon it will be 1984, a never ending war. All metal will be reclaimed from the battlefield and all parts will be modular, meaning these wars could go on forever. It will be the perfect war, controlling your population but with no outcry over bloodshed. Then we get into androids with real skin, and all rights are taken away in the name of "making sure your neighbor isn't a droid". May god have pitty on humanity's future, for it is bleak.
It's Pretty Pathetic When.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Exclusive video of the robot... (Score:3, Interesting)
(actually, the video is an "old" CG animation clip called Tetra Vaal. Still gives me goosebumps to imagine what the powerdrunk elite would probably do if commanding a better-than-human army without a conscience.)
Re:obligatory. (Score:0, Interesting)
MacGuffin (Score:2, Interesting)
MacGuffin at Wiki [wikipedia.org]
"A MacGuffin is a plot device that holds no meaning or purpose of its own except to motivate the characters and advance the story."
A huge cybernetic tank with micronukes that fires upon the opposing team is certainly *not* a MacGuffin. It has a definite purpose. It is used to kill things.
A good rule of thumb for MacGuffins is "Can I replace the item with the word 'MacGuffin' and have the plot remain essentially intact?"
"We're going to steal the MacGuffin from the art museum. I'll need a seven man team."
"Professor X holds the MacGuffin formula in his hands. It's up to us to save him."
Clearly "you have an army, and your opponent has a nuclear MacGuffin" is ridiculous, though it's a game I'd gladly play. The nature of the item itself matters too much to play the game seriously under those circumstances.
RC Killing for All (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ummmm.... (Score:3, Interesting)
For that matter, elevating Asimov's (or, perhaps, Campbell's) so-called "Laws of Robotics" to some kind of absolute standard that must be maintained is ridiculous considering our current level of robotic technology. I mean, even if we had robots that could make use of said "Laws" the fact is no-one has any idea how they will work in practice. Most laws, rules, regulations and restrictions look great on paper but frequently fail miserably when actually applied (or even given a good, hard look.) Consequently, a set of nice-sounding rules written by a popular science-fiction author should hardly be considered the be-all and end-all of robotic safety.
We are going to have self-aware machines (and, Three Laws or not, that's a risky proposition in and of itself) so we'd better think long and hard about the risks, the benefits, and what we'll do when things inevitably go wrong. Regardless of how well-programmed and well-meaning the robots may be, there will always be people that will try to turn powerful tools into powerful weapons.
name 'SWORDS' from film (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bush is no redneck. (Score:5, Interesting)
Earlier in his career, a native Texan opponent defeated him by emphasing W's outsider status and Yale connections. After that W remade himself into cowboy.
Re:The Iraqis, for one.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Democracy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Democracy. (Score:3, Interesting)
The attack on Iraq, as we now know and as many tried to tell us before hand, was not a preemptive war. It was an elective war. If you're going to trot out "911 changed everything", I would say that no, it didn't. The threat existed before, and the President was made aware of it, or should have been made aware of it by his advisors. What seems to have changed is that Bush has been given an excuse to do whatever the hell he wants without political consequence.
Quite an intimidating enemy (Score:3, Interesting)
Now imagine you're hiding in a building, waiting for your chance to repel the evil americans storming your city. You've heard the american forces are well organized and have amazing technology, but you're entirely unprepared for an armed robot coming in after you. One of your fellow soldiers in another room opens fire with his AK-47, but succeeds only in damaging the robot's treads, and giving away his position. The robot returns fire with its rocket launcher, and at this point you feel desperation like you've never felt before.
Sorry for the dramatic scenario, but I think it's worth noting that these robots could really inspire a sense of despair in the United States' enemies. I believe that it often takes a desperate person to view civilians as acceptable targets, and suicide bombers may often chose to be suicide bombers due to a feeling that nothing else will work.
Also, I know the thought of killing other humans doesn't deter a lot of people from joining militias and armed forces, but it will be that much harder to feel any sympathy for invading forces if the face of the enemy is a slow-moving robot that has deadly accuracy.
Re:More War Profiteering? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ummmm.... (Score:3, Interesting)
One way of looking at it is: science fiction writers have done an incredible amount of research into possible scenarios resulting from various premises. For example, Asimov has sketched out for us a lot of the changes we can expect from a world in which we decide that robots should work for humans, where ownership of the robot has less priority than protecting humankind. That's one future we could choose, and it's been thoroughly explored in an easy-to-read format. And it's not just one writer here, there are many people looking at societies where robot labour is freely available.
Other science fiction writers and computer-game writers have sketched out what we can expect from certain other choices made today. Most notably, writers have explored a world in which robots are commonly used as military weapons, or used to enforce the wishes of a ruling class. There are more authors working in this area, so a wider variety of scenarios are presented, but most of them tend to the same conclusion, that a world covered in military robots wouldn't be somewhere that we'd like to live.
An asimovian world, although it has some problems, seems fundamentally more stable, more pleasant, and more prosperous than a Terminator-style battleground world.
So for this particular decision: "what should robots do, fight for the military, or serve humanity?" we have an unusually large amount of information available to us about the consequences of each path. And that's why I'd quote the first law when discussing UCAV operations - not because it's some plot-element that exists only in Asimov's mind, but because it's a valid piece of research that directly affects our decisions today.
Re:Bush is no redneck. [OT] (Score:1, Interesting)
Would you still be calling the Ukraine a democracy if the re-counts there had been suppressed?
This is the crux of the matter. I'm not going to dispute the validity of the United States' last year's presidential election (though as I understand there were some, relatively minor, problems there as well), but ultimately what happened in 2000 did not seem consistent with the values of openness and democratic process US politicians seem so eager to praise constantly.
Now, I am not a citizen of the USA and thus do not see it fit to impose my views on their internal politics. However, many of the actions of their politicians directly affect matters geographically distant from the USA. The current administration's seeming disdain for anyone outside their inner circle in concert with the circumstances of Mr. Bush's election for president leaves a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth. This type of sentiment is not uncommon in the world at the moment.
Also, what's up with that guy Rumsfeld? Didn't he say he was going to take responsibility for what happened at Abu Ghraib (among other places)? How, and when, exactly does he plan on doing that?