Slashdot Mirror
Robot Wars
EyesWideOpen writes "According to this New York Times article (free reg. req.) the Office of Naval Research is coordinating an effort to determine what it will take to build a system that will make it possible for autonomous vehicles (in the air and on the ground), or A. V.'s, to serve as soldiers on the battlefield. The project, called Multimedia Intelligent Network of Unattended Mobile Agents, or Minuteman, would consist of a network in which the highest-flying of the A. V.'s 'will communicate with headquarters, transmitting data and receiving commands. The commands will be passed along to a team of lower-flying A.V.'s that will relay them in turn to single drones serving as liaisons for squadrons of A.V.'s.' The article also mentions that the A. V.'s will have the ability to send high resolution color video as well as still photographs using MPEG-4 compression. Pretty interesting stuff."
Won't these people learn? Didn't they see the Terminator? Don't they know if they build this it will come back and bite them in the ass? Haven't I asked enough questions for one post?
Believe in things of which no person has ever learned
In order to be pollitically correct are they going to build a female version called MinuteMaid?
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
does anyone else hear the soundtrack of Terminator 2 when they read about this?
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
Autonomous sounds scary.
At times when armies to the "Wrong Thing" there are deserters. With robots, or especially autonomy, that sounds rather scary.
I think Terminator's (the movie) vision was a bit too far fetched, but it brings up a good point. It's a *really* cool idea, but we best make sure someone has tight control over it.
===
Are you reading this?
it's robot fighting time think they can get carmen elecktra (sp?) in to a B.D.U. (of course then the whole pouring of hot grits!)
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I though I seen this on a movie once, and didn't the human end up getting bit in the ass for it? Oh well, I guess if we don't innovate, we as a society are doomed, so we must roll with the punches. But technology today is getting about to where you could build an application that couldn't be killed. I've seen some linux based clusters that have fallback nodes and data integrity measures, that make me glad they didn't have arms and legs!
Sounds like the Bolo, Mark XX to me.
http://www.iislands.com/hermit/bolo.html
Wonder who'll win the $200k for gaining control of one of these babies on an unmodded X-Box...
"...Multimedia Intelligent Network of Unattended Mobile Agents, or Minuteman..."
Tell you what...ditch the robots, get someone who can make cool acronyms and go from there.
For example: B.A.D.A.B.O.O.M.
Ballistic Aeronautic Destructive Assault Bullet [which has a tendency to be] Overly-Optimistic [in it's] Massacre.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
What happens if the system is hacked? Can the robots then be turned against us or do they just quit working?
So what they're going to do is basically conduct future wars like in certain RTS games- i.e. we see in certain RTS games in FMV footage, that "you" are some guy controlling remote units via some terminal in some concrete bunker.
This of course has been predicted by many SF authors for years, and even surpassed where we have the case of AIs continuing to generate units and attack each other long after all the humans are dead.
Karma will now be dispensed, yea! I say, dispensed to those posters who can cite authors and works as examples of this.
graspee
And they can use that wonderfully accurate facial recognition technology to differentiate between good and bad guys and kill the right one.
They just started playing adds in the movie theatres for T3, Rise of the Machines.
It looks like the army is continuing their new public relationship actions of making the forces look cool.
Not that I truly think the military would care, but what would keep some HaCk0R from finding a bug in the WinXP code running these robots and taking over the world?
Just hope there's an off switch somewhere in there.
.wav
Terminator? Didn't we see this in Episode I where one little boy was able to take out all the droids by destroying the control ship (and practically by accident, at that?)
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
And skip any and all conversations with the Battlebots people on Comedy Central. Night and day, these two shows are.
After watching Robot Wars, I will never go back, even though it's overdone, and they have that cheesy refereebot. The make the carnage...er, um...metalage more fun to watch!
...to think about this. It seems that it could possibly become the exclusive means for fighting wars in the distant future, which more or less flies in the face of the concept of war. As I see it, in the past, the goal of a nation at war with another has been to cause it the most casualties, thus preventing the other nation from defending itself against further attacks. With this method, however, (bearing in mind that we're in the distant future) the robots could be turned out quickly and cheaply. There would be no concept of morale among machines, and no loss of manpower to a nation that suffers great mechanical casualties. Does this alter the idea of war, making it a longer, more drawn out affair?
Additionally, someone commented that the system would not be impervious to a hack attack launched against it (what system is?). Thus, the concept of wars being fought almost exclusively from a command prompt comes into play (I seem to remember this being a hot topic not too long ago... power grids taken down at key times, etc). I suspect that things such as these will have very interesting ramifications in the way that war is fought...
The official web site. The quality and the amount of information on this web site seems to indicate that this project is in a very early stage, i.e. they haven't really done much. The links on the side mostly go to other UCLA departments. Altough, they do have some interesting looking demo units available. They don't seem to pack much of a punch, though ;).
Maybe somebody from the project is reading this, and can provide some real information?
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
(OK, I admit it, it's time to get a grip on my total fixation with robots)
You be the judge
It is high time we put a stop to the needless waste of human lives. Our sons have fought victoriously in war after war, and we as a nation have paid our dues in full. It's time to let the robots step in and do our dirty work.
Also, I see no reason to limit the applications of this technology to peacekeeping and stablization of foreign lands. Once it's been tested for several years against hostile populations, we could bring a scaled-down version back home, for use in some of the high crime areas of the US.
People complain about how cops and soldiers are unfair, well we can program fairness right into them. They can't be bribed, don't have prejudices, and they're bullet-proof.
Also, we are starting to develop the technology to grow body parts and organs. Why not incorporate the two? Give a robot cop some real human hands, for superior weapon-handling skills! We could even breed entire brainless bodies, equip them with computer systems, and put them on the street. Economical and effective, and our children don't end up dying for some empty slogan.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
We should be working on clones! Clones, man, not droids! Droids suck!
Sounds cool to me, but do we really have a problem with US soldiers life loss when we go in to fight a country? I guess the little suckers could go where men could not and do things that men would not...
Butlerian Jihad
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of man"
"Report Soldier!". "Sorry, Hal" but Afghanistan sold all their distribution rights to the MPAA and you do not have a client license to view this material at this time. Please feel free to visit their website where you can obtain one for a small monthly fee on your credit card.
Tell you what...ditch the robots, get someone who can make cool acronyms and go from there.
Like these guys?
I know where they got this idea!! Anyone ever seen "Toys" with Robin Williams?
.....
An army of robots, with a central control? Does not work. why they dont try clones, instead?
[]'s Carlos Cardoso - Becoming a brazilian ProBlogger, typo by typo
If these robots are running Windows, I'm getting one-way tickets to the north pole right now.
Blender And Linux Fan
Great, now the US can slaughter people in other countries without the bad press that inevitably accompanies American casualties. (Civilian casualties among foreign populations will be ignored as usual, of course.) I'm sure Henry Kissinger is peeing himself with glee.
Can you just imagine the bandwidth requirements for something like this? Makes the problems with real-time Predator images in Afghanistan seem pretty insignificant doesn't it? So how many more satellites and it's associated space junk would be required to fight the next war of the future? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/11/155425 0&mode=flat&tid=160
But won't they get pissed when they find out what the royalty payments are?
Well war ethics are going to have to be completely re-written if this happens, because previously the idea was that to win a war you had to send some soldiers to their death. If we don't have to send in soldiers anymore then the American public will be easily distracted from our hideously hypocritical foreign policy decisions since they don't actually have to worry about their sons and daughters.
The prime contractors will be Tyco and Lego...
Never trust a bald barber; he has no respect for your hair
go watch wcw
I certainly hope they (er, uh, we the taxpayers) properly pay the licensing fee per Meg. viewed....
You would think The Navy make one for the water too...
Next, the Army will enlist the services of Auqaman.
It's a *really* cool idea, but we best make sure someone has tight control over it.
Like who would you trust, the President or WHAT?
Skynet anyone?
"The wars of the future will be fought by robots on really high mountains!"
From the commander of the military school bart and lisa went to.
Talk about your blue screen of death.
It sounds uncool. New and better ways to kill each other is a bad thing.
What do you think the point of these systems is? Wargames? Scientific research?
Since we're all paying into it, we have to justify it with "oh, look, it's got MPEG-4.. there's another example of those military dollars helping out us common joes."
How about "Hm, it will be easier for our Army to become a police force in foreign countries and impose our Government's will where it isn't wanted. It will be more understandable when we get news reports of collateral damage, because some programmer forgot to put in the innocense filter. Maybe I should find a way to stop paying these people money to build these things. Maybe someday we won't spend our money on discovering new ways to kill each other."
MOD him up +4 funny. HAHA
Don't these guys watch Star Wars? Droid armies never work!
End of lesson. You may press the button.
This is so stupid! This would be even more imposable to produce then the Star Wars Defence plan of Reagan!
I am far less worried about hacking then some people seem to be. What I am worried about is that they will obey commands. I mean what happens when say these are sent against Cuba, but the General/Admiral decides that he really want all of south florida to retire in, and captures it with his drone army. Normally it isn't possible becuase American troops are (suposed to be) loyal to thier country first and not thier officers, but now you are reducing the number of people needed to enable a coup or power grab. Less people is both easier, and more liekly to be sucessful.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
Arnold roolz.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I certainly understand, and share, the apprehension, and the feeling this could be a very bad thing. But while I was sitting here reading the comments of others, a nuclear bomb went off in my head. Didn't a lot of people worry we would shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot with that one, too? I realize there is still the possibility of that happening, but I think throughout history, with most innovations there has been this common fear of where it will lead.
I don't want to be the one to make the decision about when we're ready as a people to make some of these advances, or even if we should take these steps. But, I would certainly feel better if I knew someone had, and could tell us their thought process and all the pros and cons. I think that would be very interesting to read.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
At least the novel Second variety by Philip K. Dick deals with AI and robots attacking humans after humans are (nearly) exhausted and so on.
This novel can be found (among other places) from the excellent book The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century.
I really wish we just decided we weren't going to be the monsters who open this box. It's worse than the A-bomb. At least an A-bomb had a relatively confined kill zone.
I'm sure I'll be dead before things have a chance to get so bad, but why are we in such a hurry to do this?
FORBIN!
Very Truly Yours,
Colossus
I Believe The Robots Are Our Future
Besides the aweful acronym, we already have a weapons system called the Minuteman. It would be a damn shame if some top brass ordered a test of these robots and launched our ICBMs instead.
-B
Someone hacks in and scarfs a copy of the front end controller, thinks it's a really cool video game but s/he's actually piloting a squadron of those things over [insert funny accidental real world target here].
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
August 21, 2006---Microsoft becomes self aware.
At some point, regardless of how decentralized the machines network is, a command is going to have to be issued. As long as that command comes from us, we're golden. If not... life quickly sucks. How can one ensure that that command process is never compromised? In the field, if you have human soldiers and the commander goes nuts and starts ordering everyone shot on sight, the soldiers have the discretion to avoid a massacre of innocents. Bots won't care. Potentially very dangerous to humanity as a whole. Not that will stop them from making it. If taking others lives is so important, I think its worth risking some of ours. If not, then the reaction is capricious. This also reminds me of the Asimov short story (title escapes me) in which humans have lost the ability to do math. Only computers and calculators can do it. We are also in a war which is being guided by our computers. Since the other side has their computers also, everything is in stalemate due to the rigid logic of computers. Enter a pentagon janitor who "rediscovers" arithmetic as a hobby. The generals take over, and suddenly humans are guiding events through their math, and the uncertainity causes victory for us. Long story short, humans do what machines can't. Period.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I'll have to go back and reread "War Without Men: Robots on the Future Battlefield" by Shaker and Wise, to see how accurate their predictions were in 1988.
n In quiry.asp?userid=6BWVO37Y9C&isbn=0080342167
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isb
Why can't they just collide a whole bunch of little hadrons?
While this story isn't really new (we already have flying drones, cameras, etc.), I have to say that I am disturbed by it.
If robots are put to use as our new soldiers, what restraint will there be on those people in the military who are already too eager to send our forces overseas to police/invade/kill others? No one will complain that their sons/daughters are paying with their lives, and it will only make it easier to engage in armed conflicts. This is the nightmare of the future, when everyone sends their robots to fight each other.
There will be those who say, "but anything that saves our boys from dying is good." But this is not a sustainable policy -- it's not ethical for us to want to come up with a force that is only to our benefit, so that we can fight without the consequences of fighting. If everyone took that position, we'd be fighting all the time.
The true sustainable solution would be to work on the real causes of conflict in the world, and spend our billions of dollars to try to educate and help peoples so that we're not the target of violence. I tell you, it's much more efficient than trying to put out the fire once it's started. Why can't people see that long term issue, and work on that, rather than just coming up with new/better ways to kill others in the short term?
if (target.headgear == "turban")
{
FireDeathRay();
} else {
GlowerMenacingly();
}
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Everyone knows all you have to do is fly your ship into the hangar of the mothership and destroy its reactor, and all the drones will cease working.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
...I think they should call them Terminators.
Why can't robot contests on TV use explosives and machine guns? That would be far more interesting than a big hatchet that never does any real damage.
True, you couldn't have a live audience, but who needs them anyhow?
Table-ized A.I.
Make way!
All hail the autonmous crawly thingies.
How much would it cost to outfit a large force of these machines?
How much would it cost to train and equip a human recruit?
We don't need to worry about building recruits, we seem to supply enough of those already.
As for effectiveness, a low-yield nuclear burst would pretty much wipe out all the nearby electronics with the EMP. Or better yet, build one of those cool devices they had on Ocean's 11.
If you ever wind up on the battlefield facing one of these contraptions, [obscure quote] just turn sideways. It messes them up then you can make jukeboxes out of them. [/obscure quote]
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Cordwainer Smith wrote about this, sort of.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Let me give some possible scenarios. After reading the scenarios, tell me if it sounds plausible for real-world use.
/., somebody tell me how many variables are in a live battle. What happens when the system is exceeded? Suddenly, the information that is new needed for combat can not be transmitted because it does not exist.
Scenario One: System has tracked enemy troop movement and friendly troop movement. Enemy troops and friendly troops clash in battle. At this point, on the grid, everyone looks like they are in the same place. There's no way to distinguish friendly from enemy. As the combattants regroup to different geographical points, an airstrike arrives. There has been no time for communications to propogate to the system which group is the friend and the enemy, and it is doubtful that the system has a database of the facial structure of every single friendly in our forces. What happens? Does the system pick randomly one group and tell the autopilot to bomb that group? Does it use probabilities? What is the acceptable margin of error, when that error is a 1000 lb bomb falling on you? Who in our government decides the number of our own solder that we can kill and still think it is ok?
Scenario Two: The system is flying above a battlefield. A situation develops that the programmers of the software running these things never thought of. How does the system react? Please, and I speak mainly to any combat veteran at
I ask you, would you trust an unmanned computer to shield you from a live machine gun pointed at you? I wouldnt. A manned computer, maybe, but not unmanned.
SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue > 0
0 rows returned
Bah! Robot Wars is the Lindows to Battlebots Slackware. Though I admit Battlebots has lost some of the feel that originally interested me in it.
I'm sure the orange juice company would get their lawyers into that fight pretty quickly.
Infuriate left and right
exactly
If you haven't noticed, the majority of casualties from recent wars have been from *friendly* fire. Plus we stopped the draft, so every soldier out there ASKED to join the military.
We of the American Public couldn't give one rat's ass about what the military does, in a capitalisitc sense. We've got moral and fanboy caring, sure (I personally find a just war morally necessary sometimes, and the geek in me says "yeah!" whenever it hears about a new high-tech way we've waged a war), but not a capitalisitc measure--War does not, in any way aside from slightly higher taxes, affect our everyday lives.
Well, except for that NYC and DC thing 11 months back. If Pres. Bush had said "we need more soldiers, we're going to swarm the entire subcontinent and put and end to this" myself and most of the peopel I know would be in the military right now.
My company does Department of Defense work almost to the exclusion of everything else. Believe me, when you do R&D for the DoD it is *really* important to get an acronym, and fast. Sometimes you get the acronym first and then design the system around that. You won't sell them on anything without one.
The ALV was basically an unmanned tank. It was a much bigger problem (visual recognition of terrain and route plotting). I do remember they had a couple of prototypes. The tech ended up being of more interest to smart car people.
Story If you could press a button and kill someone on the other side of the world, would you.
Now remote controlled war robots might not be a bad idea
Oh, and imagine a beowulf cluster of those! (someone had to say it)Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Uh....It sounds like someone has been watching too much Episode I.
-516
Better yet, this one could serve as inspiration:
D.R.O.I.D.E.K.A.
Deadly Robot: Opportunistic, Intelligent, Destructive, Killing, Autonomous.
Anything that gives a Jedi a run for his/her/its money is pretty spiffy.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Seems like the easiest thing to do would be to knock out that highest flying drone. Similar to how they won the battle in Episode 1. Though I don't think the lower level AVs will simply stop as the robot soldiers did.
Nice Marmot
These things aren't really networked.
They will be controlled remotely with "America's Army" software ala Ender's Game.
Get that mouse hand ready, we're going to war!
B
In Afghanistan, we did not use American troops to spearhead the offensive against the Taliban; we used Afghani allies (the Northern Alliance) instead. American troops only exposed themselves to combat to call in occasional laser-guided bomb strikes, and stayed behind the front looking for Al-Q refugees.
The American casualties (aside from those that died in helicopter crashes and stuff) didn't start up until the Northern Alliance warlords pushed the Taliban into the mountains, and stopped fighting to resettle country territories. Then it was just American troops fighting the dug-in Taliban, and we took plenty of casualties. The government's done a pretty fair job of keeping it out of the media, though.
The "experts" say we'll do something similar in Iraq, using Turkoman allies (in northeastern Iraq) to do the close-in and dirty.
So, moral questions aside, why should the military develop expensive combat robots when they can get foreigners to bleed and die for us at no PR cost?
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
-- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" as found on the best Simpsons site http://www.snpp.com
Failure is not an option. It comes automatically enabled in every Microsoft product.
"The project, called Multimedia Intelligent Network of Unattended Mobile Agents, or Minuteman, would consist of a network in which the highest-flying of the A. V.'s 'will communicate with headquarters, transmitting data and receiving commands."
Hm... I wonder where they got their name?
--
Excellent!
if they base it on the UK version of robot wars, all they'll have to do is hope the enemy cant get up after being flipped over
...must come from the people themshelves. the constitution of every free nation must be based on the nation itself.Every individual is responsible for the preservation of freedom in his or her country.That is the basis on which every constitution is founded:That it is guaranteed by the people. And that's why you can't outsource the struggle for freedom to some stupid company making some stupid machines.If you break the equation, then NOBODY on earth can guarantee your freedom, it will be taken away before you know it. Or do you think that it will be long before those machines are used to impose a dictatorial regime on you? Think twice before you say that many lives can be saved. It may eventualy require many many more sacrifices to restore the potential damage.
hmmm... getting robots to do our dirty work, eh? wasn't our nation founded by people who believed in something great enough to sacrifice their *own* lives? If people don't give up something that they value highly of (ex: your own life or anothers), then the reason/meaning of whatever your doing is worthless.
-= "I wanna throw it all down and get lifted" =-
l33t...
Sorry, can't help but be an asshole here...
if (strcasecmp(target.headgear, "turban") == 0) {
FireDeathRay();
} else {
GlowerMenacingly();
}
As part of the on-going war effort here is a message from the Ministry of Homeland Security: http://homepage.mac.com/leperous/PhotoAlbum1.html
Which I think is what we are moving to anyway, once people realize that the american military is an unstoppable machine. Then they'll realize that buying a commercial during the super bowl would probably be a cheaper and more effective way to deter a conflict with the U.S. than actually fielding an unbeatable army.
At any rate, even if you're terrified of 'american imperialism', the american military is more likely than ever to be used in missions with humanitarian motives. Tens (if not hundreds) of thousands starved because we were too afraid of casualties to oust a somali warlord. Nearly a million rwandan's died because we were equally afraid of military intervention. The U.S. may need better foreign policy, but we do not need a less effective military.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Blizzard Entertainment announed its entry into the military control software market.
Our advanced unit control interface will allow the easy, dynamic control of a large number of military units of various types. Unit divisions can be formed on-the-fly allowing for easy regrouping of units.
Our revolutionary interface provides not only visual information but also features our advanced Aural Notification of Unit Situation system (A.N.U.S.). Simple audio queues inform the operator what military units are up to both on and off screen. Aural queues such as "daboo", "zug-zug" and "work completed" will inform operators of the current status of infrastructure units and codes such as "We're under attack!" will provide data pertaining to attack units.
a3c6 0e89 b1ec aa4d d630 26c8 d07e 7eed 8148 5503 02b4 dfaa 9922 b28d 0820 c4af
Send Jar Ja...I mean Wesley Crusher to the rescue!
I guess they didn't see Phantom Menace. Someone should explain to them what happens when you have a central computer contolling all of your battle droids...
Anyone remember the game ROBOTWAR by Silas Warner, the same company/author that published the first Castle Wolfenstein? You wrote small AI scripts for your robot and put them on a battlefield and they duked it out. It all ran on Apple ][ machines.
I pictured the government robots making the 'plink plink plink' sounds of a Mockingboard-C...
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
or better yet:
if ("turban".equals(target.headgear)) {
FireDeathRay();
} else {
GlowerMenacingly();
}
since I sure wouldn't want my war robot going mental because of bad pointer arithmetic
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Nuclear-armed ICBMs could be called autonomous war fighting machines. You tell them where to go, and they do the job. Same thing with these robots, in theory.
You say that it could be a problem if an Admiral decided to send his drone army to take over Florida. Presumably this would be a problem because there would be no sentient humans for the command to go through; he says take Florida, they do it, he has Florida. Well guess what, things don't work like that in the United States of America.
What is this, amature hour?
Do you think that one man is sitting somewhere in the USA who has the ability to hit a button and send nukes flying towards Russia? NO. You have the President who gives the final clearance for launch, and about a zillion other people down the command structure all the way down the the guy who actually presses the button for launch.
In the event the USA acquired a "drone army", you can be sure that, provided the country is not run by people who think like twelve year-olds, there will be a security structure in place to prevent one man from having unlimited control over the entire army.
In addition to the number of people commands would have to go through, you can also consider the redundant controls that one would expect to be in place. For example, a "drone army" would likely have multiple redundant control stations based around the country so as to prevent problems like you've suggested from arising.
Note, I wouldn't expect redundant control stations to be an absolute necessity unless you actually had a domestic army capable of causing real trouble. But then again, that's taking this crystal-ball game of ours a bit far.
...would reverse-engineering it
violate the Geneva convention?
Considered harmful.
Seems like it has to happen, but I really don't like the implications. IMHO a machine capable of harm but incapable of moral reasoning should not be autonomous. What about a police force? Under a repressive regime? Call me old fashioned, but I think maybe only people should kill people. (or better yet, not.)
(or robots kill robots!)
Quack, quack.
What would you rather have in the line of fire in a war, humans with parents and spouses and children, or robots? Seriously...think about that a little. Human beings are going to fight wars whether we like it or not...why not minimize our human casualties? Certainly it would be neater (in both senses of the word) if both sides fought with entirely cybernetic armies, but better a robot lay its metal ass on the line rather than a human.
Imagine if all conflicts were settled with Battlebots/Robot Wars-style bot fights! That would rule! Gives new meaning to the term "Rock 'em, Sock'em Robots!"
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Better not be visible with a towel wrapped around your head after a shower...
Sinclair Lewis (who won a Nobel prize for literature) wrote a book called "It can't happen here" back in 1935. It was about Fascism in the United States and featured an army of "Minutemen" that were used to control/oppress the population. A coincidence?? I think not. Imagine Palladium compliant remote controlled bots flying into your room and zapping your pr0n and mp3s.
The question of whether killer robots are moral or amoral is in my view a complete waste of time. Once you've decided to wage war, you want to win it (note that I'm talking about *war* here, not peacemaking and peacekeeping operations, which are frequently confused with, but are completely different in character from actual war).
The United States has become a leader in warfare technology precisely because the American public values the lives of its sons and daughters. If our opponents had access to this sort of technology (assuming it works reliably and effectively) they'd use it. Would the Chinese government have used human wave tactics during the Korean War if it could have used less horrific means of persuing its military goals? Of course.
I'd make the suggestion that if the technology exists, and you don't use it, you're willingly killing more of your own and potentially of the enemy as well.
Which is more moral?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Hmmm.
;)
Shouldn't it be:
if (target.headgear == "turban")
{
FireDeathRay(target);
} else {
GlowerMenacingly(target);
}
Gotta be careful.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Our military is already rather technologically advanced. In the Gulf "War" U.S. losses were (statistically) miniscule. How many anti-war protests have you seen recently that site danger to our military personell as reason not to fight?
This is just another step in the same direction.
I guess that's why they call it An Army Of One. Because if the goal is to go out and try to fight a hoarde of maniacal robots, you're the only One who is stupid enough to do so. =P
;)
Or we could make some comment about "Be All That You Can Be [Engineered to Be]"
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Putting dirty words into that is waaaaay more fun than it should be.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I have a feeling that minuteman was first used as the codename for America's rapid response missile system, when the idea was that the missiles could be readied to fire within a minute. I guess the name is a nod to that. JP.
are those metal war robots from Judge Dredd or maybe an army of clones....
Ave Molech Setting
what is it about AI that makes people think it will automatically be evil?
As good as people are portrayed to be, how well do we really treat the "lesser" beings? So even if an AI did'nt turn out "evil" per say. It nesserily whould'nt treat humans any good. That is a valid reason to fear them getting too powerful.
FRA: STFU GTFO
2. Some of us actually pay attention to things beyond our own lives, and consider factors beyond "gee, is a family member risking his life" such as the economic and diplomatic ramifications, as well as whether or not a military action seems feasible. The US does /not/ invade places on a whim.
This is an important point. All this "robots will make war too clean" stuff is crazy. War is incredibly destructive. Not just in the number of people who die but in economic and political terms. There are some who believe that GWB is waiting for the American economy to bounce back before he fulfills his dream of knocking off Saddam. Right now, our economy probably couldn't take the strain of a difficult conflict (the Afghan conflict hasn't been too tough on us, you have to admit).
GMD
watch this
Gruntmaster 9000!
FRA: STFU GTFO
Its not that hard to harden something against EMP, if you think that EMP is a significant risk. You know how the Squidy hunter-killers in The Matrix were only susceptable to EMP, and the super advanced machines had no defense against it? Yeah, that wasn't real. Someone made it up.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
What defines ethics to an AI anyhow?
Either way, it's inevitable: if A.I. becomes smarter than us, we'll live or die as a species at it's sole discretion.
Does this keep you up at night?
Are you Bill Joy?
Lasers Controlled Games!
Why do so many allegedly smart people (nerds) cite fiction as basis for an opinion? You know thats not real, right? Yeah, I know about half the posters are making a joke, but I really worry about the tenuous grasp on reality that the other half has.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
1. How would we feel if our enemies had this capability?
2. If such a military approach is taken, can we morally object to the inevitable acts of terrorism necessary to break up our societal infrastructure needed to support such an approach? Consider that if IT completely governs our fighting forces, our university IT departments are now legitimate military targets. Suddenly, the Humanities department is regrettable collateral damage.
3. Are we completely comfortable in our hacker-proofing capabilities in other aspects of technology that we can say that such soldiers would not be a safety concern to everybody (including ourselves)?
4. How many real-life soldiers will be put out of a job by this? How will our need for reservists be affected by this?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
That's the way to go huh. You can attack anyone you want without any risk besides losing a few hitech chunks of metal. You can order them to do whatever you want them to do - massacer innocent people, erradicate whole cities, groundzero a whole country - and don't worry, the bots won't tell anyone. They also don't have moral objections. And the people at home? They only protest if some of their own kin get hurt. As long as it's only 'a few towelheads' on the other side of the world, what do they care!
Really, that's very interesting.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Assuming for a sec that this isnt' meant as humor, trolling, or flame-baiting:
The kind of AI that you're going to get in these AVs is a few orders of magnatude below what people seem to expect. These aren't intelligent beings per se; they're robots that are capable of responding to chaotic conditions. That means that they can avoid rocks and possibly dodge incoming mortar fire. This is simple, moth-brain stuff, nothing even remotely like Skynet and the Terminator.
Let's assume that these 'bots demonstrate emerging anti-human behavior; the next step is to insert a couple of schema into their architechture, one that says obey commands from recognized superior officers and another that says don't fire upon friendly forces under any circumstances.
Hope this helps.
Finding God in a Dog
if (Ass.Hole == RACIST)
{
Join(Skin, Heads);
Stop (thPosting);
}
War is useful for population control. If you have more people then can live the lifestyle they want on the land you have, then war is a good way to randomlly get rid of a few.
Note the the above needs to be vague. If everyone wants to live like I want to live (1000 acres of land all for me, with a private 300 acre lake, within 2 miles of a modern super market), that is very different from people living another life. (ex small apartment in a skyscrapper near plenty of theator and night life) Resource limits are different for each style. There is a big different between beaf and rice as a main staple of the diet, though you can be healthy with either. When there isn't room for you to live your lifestyle you have to get rid of some people, or change your life style.
This just goes to show you, the powers that be almost completely lack ethics. The day we can't look into our enemy's eyes before killing him is the day mechanized slaughter takes on a whole new meaning.
This is wrong, and I am terrified by my own people. This is a sad day for America indeed.
I sure hope we can institute one of these, I've been waiting long enough to get to be a war hero.
Seriously though, when all wars are automated, what then is the point of warfare? Won't this just compell the technologically weaker side to strike at "civilians" by becoming "terrorists", since forcing one's will by loss of human life has always been the method of war?
If nobody's physically involved in the fighting, who is a civilian and who is a warrior? It strikes me that the difference is that a warrior has voluntarily put his life at risk to fight, whereas a civilian has not. In this future scenario, all people are civilians, but they're also all being put at risk, all the time. Is this where the future truly leads?
Where do they get these acronyms, i mean do they sit down and think of a cool name and then make it fit. Why put Multimedia in there its just goofy. -despite popular belief, apparently BIOS stands for Built in Operating System :Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, :) (its a good book despite that, read it)
What comes first the Acronym or the Name??
We already go to great effort, including putting our own guys at great risk, to avoid hitting civilian targets. This will make that much easier (and safer) to do.
What's your objection?
Well it will make it alot more tempting(and feasible) to just beat the whole world into submission. Poor people growing coke cause the land was poisoned(by the US) so that nothing else will grow? Put them up the clones! Poor people trying to form a union, so they don't have to work 16h/day for some american company? Put them up the clones! When the US replayces some democratically elcted govt. with their choise of dictator, and people try to fight back? Put them up the clones! Failed to get that exeption so US soliders can't commit crimes against humanity and get away with it? Put them up the clones instead! Is Japan exporting more to the US than importing? And competing with product quality whould cost the campain contributors too much money? PUT THEM UP THE CLONES!
FRA: STFU GTFO
Honda has a walking machine already. Just add guns/armor and there you go... a mechanized infantry unit. Modern warfare could replace Monday night football.
Or a nice <blink>THIS POST HAS IT'S TONGUE PLANTED FIRMLY IN IT'S CHEEK</blink> disclaimer, perhaps?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
fact is that.
1) it's a story. live with it.
2) it actually *might* be possible -- let's go wild and screw around here: because frankly, everything we do not have data on COULD be possible, right?
it is *possible* that large-scale controlled fusion is not possible without a significant amount of fine grain control -- and the fine-ness of the grain is down to plank's level. since the human brain is a direct reflection of the spacetime quantum ripples, humans are therefore needed to make sure everything keeps running; in essense we are like battery terminals, except regulating the huge fusion reactor down below.
ANYWAY... side note: even crap we know for a fact is bs can still make a good story. read Issac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves". in a Sci-Fi convention that he attended, some guy was talking about Plutonium with atomic weight of 196 or some such non-sense. (Pu usually have atomic weights around 244, FYI) -- Asimov was so pissed at the stupidity and said: you are sooo dumb, but to show how damn smart i am, i am going to write a story around Pu/196! -- the moral of the story is that even bs makes a good story.
now - i admit i was making a failed attempt at humor -- but i really intended to point out the false sense of security my post's parent had about the issue, without spending the time disceting everything there.
basic argument goes something like this:
1) without some kind of AI, these robots are useless
2) the AI will have, or need to eventually have genetic algorithms incorporated to be actually effective in battles
3) the moment the genetic algorithm takes off, you are tinkering with evolution -- and with evolution you can not keep Asimov's 3 laws of robotics rooted in their programming
4) and bad things will happen.
anyway; moot point; M$ will have us all for lunch before any robots can. sigh...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
How can there be Robot Wars without assorted host of house robots, and a couple of arena hosts? And what about those robot building teams looking for some gorifying oil bleeding fun, plus worldwide audience? As for judges and Refbot, they are completely optional :).
... is that the USN is the branch of the military researching autonomous aircraft, not the USAF. Sheesh, not only are they behind in fighters but they'll also be behind in UAVs!
:)
Of course, considering the USAF to be a brach of the military is really stretching it...
enough mistakes made by human soldiers as it is?
Won't trusting murderous weapons to robots be a serious risk? Seriously, already more civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in fighting the Taleban/Al Qaeda than were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On top of the most recent bombing of a wedding ceremony by american pilots.
How the hell are they going to stop robots from killing just as many if not more civilians in future attacks? I guess they think that as long as none of their soldiers are hurt, it doesn't matter how many others (civilians or not) are killed.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
mesa hate osama. send in the clones.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Just give me an army of gungans to distract them and I'll go take out the central control ship in my fighter. Roger Roger.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
Although this is a stretch, I'll get in on this one, because the humanistic issues are astounding. War involves death and destruction, but honestly, it also involves some morals, even to win.
Honestly, the object of war is defeating one's enemies, not destroying them utterly. Creating a machine that might not have sympathy for non-combattants, personal property, innocent victims, or even animals scurrying away seems like a terrible idea. And an utter waste.
Without the concept of losses on your side, you see total coquest as the only way. Total conquest can mean total death. Here is a short version of my argument:
Mechanical weapons have pinned down an group, and that group decides to surrender. The person or entity on the other side of that machine feels no threat to his life, so like an execution, they might just "pull the switch" on them. WHY? It is a colder decision... or that decision is automated for "no quarter" fighting.
Either way, you are not going to feel the sympathy required to cut a break surrendering in battle if you are removed from it. You might let a group surrender if you are getting bullets over the top of your head too, but I find that less likely that you would let them surrender if you were making a decision in a air-conditioned military building in a suburb.
However, if you made them impenetrable pacifying machines instead a weapons platform, then that is an idea. Robots might be used for capture, but using them to kill sounds dreadful.
All's Fair in love and war, isnt it ?
_________________________________________________
Can't wait til Cyberdyne Model 101 comes out.
... wrote a novel, Ender's Game, a fascinating read about this kind of scenario. The novel focuses on kids being trained for military in the face of almost certain doom (invading aliens). The author's ability to empathize with the 8- and 9-yr-old subjects makes it a hard book to put down. The finale of the book has the kids operating, remote control, a pre-emptive strike against the aliens' home planet. I'll save a few details for you to read on your own, but when I saw this article, I immediately thought of Ender.
ComedyCentral predicting the future? If BattleBots is a sign of things to come, I shudder to think of what South Park forbodes for us. TrapperKeepers that take over the world a la Akira?? I'm scared...
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
we'll still need zealots, at least.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Robots will augment, but never replace humans in warfare, in the same way that the automatic rifle has superceded the knife, but not rendered it obsolete.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Might I suggest a design like this (AV's on left and right, Doctor and companion in middle).
[Insert pithy quote here]
There might be economic damage inflicted to both sides, but not human damage. Sure, robots could attack cities, but it seems more likes that robots will intercept, and be intercepted by other robots.
What point, then, is there in fighting a war at all, if there is nothing to lose but metal? War will become nothing but a video game. There is no soul to robots nor to any war that they might fight.
What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?
ack! It should be target.headgear.equals("turban"
) !!!
We should sent our first robot army to Iraq and all their doing is giving them the evil eye. In other news, France surrenders [just in case].
Live web cams
Increasingly capable autonomous vehicles have been around for a while. I was at the Robotics Institute at CMU when their vehicle was driving around local streets, in the late 1980's. Later I believe one of their vehicles drove automously from Pittsburgh to LA, or something... I don't recall exactly but I recall the video of the 'driver' sittig with his hands behind his head.
:O) We've also seen Popular Science articles about autonomous flyers only a few inches long with facial recognition and ability to follow someone through the streets - I think this is probably at least feasible, if not deployed yet.
We've all seen Short Circuit too!!
The point is that autonomous vehicles have been around, increasing in capability gradually, in part as computing power increases. So I expect this project is more about integrating existing tech into a working mass-deployment plan and developing battle and survival strategies. This is going to the next phase from just making a vehicle work.
Check out the Field Robotics Center at CMU - the latter link is to the whole Robotics Institute.
I've thought for some time it might be fun to sponsor a robotic "Race across the desert" out here in Central Oregon. I think 100 miles would probably be a sufficient test. If anyone's interested, try garyb at fxt dot com.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
... like a lan party. A room full of consoles with trained robot operators each controlling it's own unit of robot fighters. One person can easily control a main unit soldier with the rest following his lead.
Special promotions will be given out the one with the highest score.
Live web cams
The appropriate Sheckley short story comes to
mind... About the Armageddon... I forget the name...
Considered harmful.
you see, all it would take to bring down your entire drone army would be a six year old prodigy accidently crashing into the highest-level drone control ships... all your battlefield formations would simply collapse, giving them dirty gungans the opportunity to ridicule your expensive battle drones...
;)
now, an army of clones, that would be something to think about
-strangeloop
"What is the purpose of war?"
"Well, thats simple. The purpose of war is to inflict maximum damage on the enemy. To eliminate his ability to retaliate."
--General Black & another in Failsafe
What is the purpose of these robots? They are to prevent our soldiers from being lost in war. The problem is that if we have robots that can be quickly manufactured, and don't cost us a human when they go down, then they are no longer primary targets. An enemy presented with an opposing army of robots would be more inclined to go after the people controling the robots than the robots themselves. So in a war between two more or less evenly matched opponants, I see two scenarios. First, each has his army of robots destroy the opposing army of robots, leaving both sides where they were before the battle began, and at a considerably loss for the cost of manufacturing the 'bots. The other scenario is that each army of 'bots goes after the people controling the other army, ignoring the other 'bots, circumventing the reason for having the robots in the first place, that is, to prevent the loss of human life.
Of course a key term is "evenly matched opponants". We can't stop developing new weapons, as pointless as it may be, because someone else might not stop, and then we'd be at a disadvantage.
Oh well. Just some ramblings that came to mind.
Your pseudocode sucks balls.
Good morning!
How are you?
Stop whining.
STOP IT!
There is a top level project called "Intelligent Autonomous Agent Systems" of which this is part of. But there's nothing coming out of that which resembles T2 style aggresive AI controlled vehicles. Most of what they mean by autonomous, is the ability for the system to reconfigure itself if it loses an 'agent'. IE, and information node point. Another UAV could move from Group-A to Group-B to cover a lost eye-in-the-sky.
Although, I think there is room for truly autonmous agressive UAV. During desert storm, much of the day-day airborne offense took place in kill-boxes. They basically put a grid over the desert, and certain pilots or squadrons were told to destroy anything moving in grid X:Y. These boxes we're very much outside the 'Fire Support Coordination Line' meaning these air mission didn't need to be coordinated by someone on the ground. They were truly deep in enemy territory. When you run missions near troops the FSCL becomes the important factor. You can't target or shoot anything behind it (your computer won't let you either) Also, anything behind the FSCL requires a on-the-ground coordinator to give you the go ahead. I think we could see in 10 years roving aggresive UAVs that patrol grids and kill anything it finds in them. It's no different than what our pilots do now.
In fact, our humans pilots make mistake more than machines. There's famous video tape of an Apache captain taking out a Bradley and an M-113 at night, all capatured on his FLIR. He was providing FSCL support. His computer would not give him the green light to fire, he in fact had to override it in order to attack. His ground command did clear him for the shot verbally, telling them they had no vehicles in that area. There could be an argument that a mistake like that would not happen if it was a machine making the decision. I believe the real cause of that incident was the moving of the FSCL, and the airborne guys not getting the most recent FSCL coordinates (although his computer did have it).
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Yes, [Ender].... this game is going to start being really difficult.
Just shoot the highest flying one and they don't know what to do.
Sorry, I'm just sick of hearing all those "towel head" and "camel jockey" jokes. It just seems every one's getting away with it too easily these days.
This brings to mind some of those programming games that I was never able to bring myself to get into, even though the interest was there.
Corewars was too arcane (Although the program evolvers are neat, at least in theory), and my simple Robot Battle programs fared rather poorly.
IBM put together a Java-based rip-off of Robot Battle called "Robocode" which I'm looking into, especially since my Java could use some help :)
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
I'm ready to guess that you would find these
robots evil when they would come in your street
firing bullets through your house...
If humans are so stupid as to create more war machines,
then they deserve to extinguish as a race.
The day I see this in my army/police, I sabotate
as much as I can.
re: For the honor of the regiment
jack dalmas???
Okay first off I have to say - This is bad mmmmkay. Robots with guns is bad mmmkay. Now that I have got that out of my system I want to say that even if the military managed to pull this off with out some sort of monumental screw up - which I doubt - war is going to become a non-event. Men and women will always be needed on the ground and should be on the ground in any war. To replace them with automatons is to cheapen the lives of those you are fighting, and also the true horrors of war to those at home. I mean who is going to care when a casualty list comes back - 2000 T-300's destroyed today, oh and 10,000 enemy troops. Well thats my ramble, as disjointed as it was.
Anyone remember the Stephen Jackson games OGRE/GEV ? As soon as I read about this I thought of OGRE come to life... check out http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/
0. The ends justify the means.
Read "Foundation and Chaos." It's a prequil (not by Asimov, however) to the Foundation Trilogy. It points out that the first law is contradictory, because in many cases by not injuring a human being a robot causes harm to another human being through inaction. In this book, robots have concluded that the only way to deal with this is to formulate a 0th law that says the ends justify the means. The outcome of this is that they destroy Earth to force humans out into space, since they deem this best for humanity in the long run.
I think it's the absurdity of that stereotype that American AC was commenting on.
First we assume that wars are bad. Used to be that the reason wars were bad was that millions of people died when we fought wars. Recently fewer and fewer people, in this case Americans, die when the US goes somewhere and fights. This is a result of all the modern technology and expensive equipment the United States can afford to have blown up and use to blow up others. Missiles, UAVs, lots of nice things that keep you at a distance from the people or equipment you're destroying. Now say we have everything automated, the closest human person to where bullets are flying, or railguns or whatever, is halfway around the world. The sole objective is now to simply exhaust your enemy's supply of robotic thingys before they blow up all of yours. No one dies. Maybe this means war is now okay. Maybe we should just fight wars continuously until all the resources on the planet are expended into heat energy. Sounds like a nasty place to live though. just a rant
See the 1997 Congressional hearings on EMP protection.
I think of transformers too soon...
Send in Constructicons!!!
Too true. I'm a Brit - I happened to be over in the States a couple of months back and saw Battlebots. And my only reaction was "well, put all the Battlebots in an arena, and the weakest Robot Wars entry will steamroller the lot in 5 minutes, no messing". They're just so badly made, not designed for any sort of "battle".
And where's the fun in assault courses? I mean, the US is the country that invented WWF, and they can't even see that a robot assault course is boring, boring, boring?! Compare and contrast to "Robot Wars" - cutting disks, hydraulic pick-axes, flipper mechanisms that'll throw a 60kg robot a metre in the air, even the most basic has a self-righting mechanism these days. Why does anyone bother to watch Battlebots? Or possibly, why does no-one at Battlebots watch Robot Wars to see how it *should* be done?
Grab.
I guess that's possible in a way. It would be more effective to attribute it to something like the government or something.