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Military Robots Get Machine Guns
javaxman writes "Next spring, the U.S. military is expecting to deploy Talon robots with machine guns. They can also be equiped with rocket launchers. Really, they're remote-controlled 'bots, not true autonomous 'bots, so you can save the Skynet jokes for, um, some day in the not-to-distant future. This is just the first, or maybe second step. As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!"
Post this again when they graduate to frickin lasers.
Can these robots be captured and reconfigured to turn against its ex-master, or do they have self-destruction function?
This reminds me of an old Canon printer advertisement, where the Martians use this bubblejet printer to print realistic Mars landscape photos and place them in front of the Mars probe's visual sensor.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Didn't they get shotguns about a month ago? From what I can tell they'll have rocket launchers by the begining of next year.
Whatever happened to Asimov's rules of robots that they can do no harm to humans? For years, bearded terminal hackers have done their thing, hacking on software, hardware, and such, with little regard to the ethics of the situation. But now, with our creations affecting mankind in a more profound way, we give little more thought to ethics than we did with a simple BASIC shell script.
Think about this the next time you are coding a servo controller on your Redhat compiler. Could your code be misused in a way you would not approve?
finally! a way to get rid of Trolls without having to smell them!
Theory of flight?! I'll teach you the theory of fist!!
Johnny Five ... ALIVE!
Need I say more?
Military people were complaining gamers make crap soldiers... now we'll own them at robot wars and laugh at how they mocked us for playing space invaders!
I like muppets.
Did anyone else notice the page file was lemming.htm?
police departments have been using shotgun armered robots for a while to shoot bombs and stuff via remote.
The weapons these things are carrying are the M249 SAW. They are chambered in the 5.56mm NATO round spec and carry a 200 round box which it feeds from, but it can also use the regular 30 round magazines that the M-16 uses. The gun was developed in the 70s and has been used by the US, UK, and Isreali forces. Although the original ones could accept the M-16 magazines the latest Mk.46 mod.0 version doesn't include this option as to save weight on an already hefty 6.8 kg gun.
Creative Demolition
The Patriot Missile system fires with no human intervention. It uses an Identification Friend-or-Foe system to track everything in the air, and shoot down anything that shouldn't be there. During the recent Iraq invasion, a glitch in this system caused it to fire upon a British fighter jet, destroying it and killing its pilot. It was about to do the same to a US jet, but that jet was armed with fast-flying radar-seeking missiles designed to take out hostile SAM sites, and was able to take out the radar component of the Patriot system before the missile reached his plane. Notably no one was injured on the ground when he did this, since there was nobody actually sitting in front of the device, or anywhere near it.
I think it'll be a long time before autonomously firing ground systems are in place, because it's hard enough doing IFF in the sky, let alone on the ground. I think the fire-finder system (used in the Balkans to take out mortar positions in the mountains firing upon cities) might do this in some limited capacity, but that's only anti-artillery, rather than telling the difference between a guerilla carrying an RPG and a farmer carrying a section of irrigation pipe. Sure, you could wait until they shoot first for all of these systems, since that's a lot easier to determine automatically, but I think it's quite obvious that waiting for the other guy to shoot first is very far from the policy of the current administration.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
here
got sig?
Heh, now I can see how USA of the future is going to run the world. A bunch of armed robots rolling around the middle east bringing freedom to every man, woman, and child while obese American schoolchildren hold the remote linked gamepads in their greasy palms, with attention divided between American Idol and a Kraft "cheese" commercial.
I think you are missing the point that only fewer soldiers on OUR SIDE die. The casulaties on the other will make up for the discrepancy.
Don't call them terrorists- call them rebels or whatever, but not terrorists. And while in the short run this may save a couple of Americans, civilians are more at risk from killbots. A dead innocent civilian just creates at least five or ten more "terrorists". Even if it does slow the death rate of Americans, that also means the presidents approval numbers remain high and contempt for us from the real world grows. This is not a good thing at all.
"...any tech that means fewer soldiers have to die..."
Fewer of ours, more of theirs...OOH RAH!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Oddly enough, one of my favorite, and IMO the best, episodes of SeaQuest DSV is the episode where the crew is wisked into a future where wars are fought by armies of giant armed combat robots, which are remote controlled by children, who think that they are actually playing a total imersion video game.
With the advances in VR and forms of total control of remote devices and such based on muscle movement and in some cases even brain wave activity, how far away are we from a time when anyone with a joystick can command a combat robot?
It really reminds me a lot of Largo from MegaTokyo and his army of Ph34rbots.. but on a serious note, however, I really do wonder. It would seem that, while these types of things are great in that they save lives ultimately, at the same time, they could ultimately be a supreme form of evil.
Even though bad things DO happen in any armed conflict, at least in this case, fields of robots battling it out, even if they are merely remote controlled, will keep real people from dying needlesly. However, again, how long before someone figures out how to gain control of these things and turn them against civilian populations, villages, cities, etc.
On a side note, what I really find funny is that, traditionally, the military is the last major area of manual labor that has NOT been severly affected by technology (in the sense of robots replacing workers as they have in manufacturing and other areas) and now, there exists a real possibility of the military being downsized due to robots replacing soldiers. Maybe the Teamsters can organize the military!
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Think about this the next time you are coding a servo controller on your Redhat compiler. Could your code be misused in a way you would not approve?
Y'know, I hear this kind of question a lot. I work for a defense contractor. When I'm explaining my work to people, invariably the question of "don't you worry that your work will be used in some future war that you don't approve of?" No, actually, I don't and the reason isn't that I approve of all (or even most) of the military actions that my country is involved in. Part of it is a bit of short-sightedness on my part. I work on very "research-y" topics: data fusion, sensor resource management, and other stuff that isn't gonna get implemented until 2015 at the very earliest. Part of it is that I think war is a necessary part of humanity. I wish it weren't but a simple examination of the human brain reveals that the "R-complex" (aka reptilian brain) is present in every person. I have learned to use my other brain portions to control my aggresive tendancies but there are lots of people who will never master that trick.
But I think the main reason why I don't lie awake at night worrying that the results of my efforts might make the world a worse place is the same reason why parents don't usually lie awake worrying that their kids are going to turn out to cause more harm to society than benefit. I don't have kids but I'm thinking that if I did, I probably wouldn't spend too much time worrying that my kid is gonna become the next Kenneth Lay and be the cause of a great deal of suffering. I would probably think that my kid is more likely to be a benefit to society or I'd just be enjoying the process of raising my kid and not get all worried about how he's going to turn out.
I don't see any reason why one should assume that the products of their efforts will only be used for applications that they 100% agree with. Really, I think that's terribly naive. Do sheetmetal workers lie awake at night worrying that the steel they cast that day might be used in the casing for a bomb?
GMD
watch this
... but ED 209.
:)
Now put down that weapon. You have 30 seconds to comply.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
They can make gun wielding robots, but they cannot make me a Tom Servo to watch movies with me and wisecrack. I tell ya, what is technology good for?
(Sorry, saw the "In the not too distant future" quote in the article, brought up some fond memories)
Monstar L
Another angle on this is that mutually assured destruction through nuclear weapons was enough intimidation that it prevented nuclear war. In a similar fashion, fighting a war where your side suffers human losses while the enemy loses robots would be a humiliating, demoralizing experience - perhaps to an extent that fighting against such a miliatary would be a lost cause before the first round is fired.
There are pros and cons to that - it could be a very real deterrent to warfare, but it could just as easily alienate and silence people with a just cause for fighting. I doubt those people would shrug their shoulders and go home - they'd probably settle for guerilla warfare amongst the civilian population where an armed robot isn't a feasible option. Hm, not a far cry from terrorism.
I'm seriously not a hippy but the prevalence of "insurgent" style warfare these days is starting to convince me that war really isn't the answer - not because war is unhappy or unpleasant, but because people who are motivated enough to fight a war will express themselves despite being outright defeated in a war. If they want to kill, they'll kill regardless of your tanks or soldiers or barricades or armed robots. It's just too bad that nobody tosses tea into the harbor anymore.
Fewer of 'theirs' if they get a f-ing clue and give up sooner.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
If you are the one that started the war, then yep, its a bad argument.
This has to be the Pentagon's dream come true: a remote controlled war.
Now the US can slaughter people in developing countries without the fear that some of our own soldiers -- fighting for "freedom", of course -- will be killed or injured. I suspect we'll see the number of "Operation Freedoms" increase dramatically.
How come I don't think this is progress?
Before I thought about any of the ramifications of this, I thought to myself "I think war games are about to get really, really cool."
Now about the ramifications... I'm starting to think that it's only a matter of time before some mad genius combines one of these with the robotic toilet and mankind is doomed.
The enemies of Democracy are
As that old Negro spiritual goes, "[Tibet,]free at last! [Buddha] all mighty! Free at last!"
I would say you're smoking something, but any plant strong enough to make you come up with that would have poisoned itself first and not grown.
One of my coworkers is a military man. He says there will always be need for a human with a gun to be on the ground in war.
But if you have a soldier controlling a robot with a gun, he can literally have eyes in the back of his head. The thing could have cammeras on all sides. His hands would be perfectly steady. He could be simultaneously seeing infra red, heat vision, and what ever other kind of cammera they have mounted on it buy looking at multiple monitors. And think if the great help in communication. You could just yell "he's around the corner" to the other controller right next to you, like at a LAN party. No hand signals or radios needed. You could have a speaker mounted on it for ording civilians around.
Soon we will be fighting zero casualty (on our side) battles. That is, until someone develops the perfect jammer and sells it widely.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
That is, until someone develops the perfect jammer and sells it widely.
That, my friend, is the argument for making the robots autonomous. Insert sci-fi armageddon of choice here.
Put a M16 in Asimo's hands and you have one hell of a prototype.
..don't panic
"....we can wheel these robots in and take out those suckers without risking harm to our soldiers."
And thus negating the most important check and balance against perpetual war.
It is necessary for soldiers to die in a war, because their death reminds us that war has a price. If you can operate a completely robotic army/navy/air force, you lose that human connection, and create a killing force that can operate without any moral conscience whatsoever.
That makes for a generation of politicians who will decide that because there is no human cost to their side, they may as well just send in the robots and exterminate the opposition.
You are already seeing this process in action with such edicts as not being allowed to show coffins returning from Iraq. If you don't see the cost of war you are more likely to support it, and robot killing machines are the ultimate expression of that lack of human cost to war.
Continuing down that path will have only one outcome, and it won't be pretty.
Visceral Psyche Films
I hope their AI engine is not windows based.
It looks like you're trying to shoot something! What would you like to do:
- Identify your target(s)
- Wait for a supervisor
- Just shoot without help
Just think of these robots doing really dangerous things - going down terrorist booby-trapped tunnels and the like.
Or would you feel better just sending human fodder into such situations?
If you think wars suck, then you should like modern high-tech wars. War still sucks, but far fewer people get killed doing it.
Hmmm is that a good thing? On balance, I think so.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I wouldn't say we are politically losing the war right now. We certainly aren't in a good state politically but it's not like the situation has really changed that much on the ground for the worse since abu gharib. I would say that while we lost more casulaties november then usual that was because of fallujah which I think can be looked upon as a modest success considering we very quickly took over a hostile city and the population of Iraq didn't go up in arms like it looked they were going to do back in april the last time the U.S. was thinking of clearing out fallujah.
Perhaps the reason that the USA appears to value human life, at least in terms of its own war casualties, is because the USA has so few of them whereas the Chinese have so many?
,IIRC.
Some time in 2000 I spidered the CIA world factbook.
There is an entry in that book labelled;
"Military manpower - fit for military service"
In the edition which I have, it lists the USA as having 2,056,762 people who are fit for military service. I believe that was supposed to include women.
Thats less than one percent of the population.
Every other listed country can manage at least 10%
After the Sept.11 attacks these figures were no longer listed. Instead today it says "NA"
The USA is the *only* country listed as "NA".
Why does the USA *need* machines like this?
Do the math.
I know the parent post was mostly humerous but frankly the idea of a USA with autonomous fighting machines scares the bejebits out of me since lack of manpower seems to be the *only* thing holding them back from a classic Civ endgame.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
...which means that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. Army deploys Steve Gutenberg in battle, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
No more than any other country having nukes. Actually it may be a postive thing if they had nukes since that might prevent Bush from invading and killing who knows how many people (Iranian and American)
Would attacking other countries such as Iran be an easier choice to make without the threat of American casualties to sway the public?
Man, I hope so. Otherwise, what good is it? Seriously.
Nobody wants to see more people die in war, but even fewer want to see a lone superpower with even less hesitancy to enforce its agenda around the world.
We all got agendas, Bunky. I have one. America and Iran have one. You clearly have one. And although I don't have the poll numbers in front of me, I believe the number of people who want to see the agenda of a country sitting atop a substantive percentage of the world's oil supply, draped in medieval-level religious fanaticism, and armed with newly-minted atomic weapons achieve ascendancy over that of a nation whose principal exports are fast food, Hollywood movies, Internet cafes, arrogance, swagger, and democracy is rather small.
It's been over a hundred years that America could be viewed as the underdog, and pop culture teaches us never to root for the Big Lone Superpower, but when the little guys are murderous right-wing religious lunatics, aintcha glad that pop culture's got nothing on plain ol' common sense?
Fewer of 'ours' if we do.
Shh...not so loud! The military is probably planning to outsource the manufacture of these robots to China.
In WW2, the British and to some extent the Americans put a huge dent in the German advance by having a very good understanding of the psyche of their opponents and of their command structure. Both sides had radar as far back as 1940, but the British used it much more effectively and designed a defense system around it that optimally combined what little resources they could bring to the situation at that time.
The various deceptions that were devised by the British went largely undetected by the Germans, and while their impact is difficult to measure in lives saved, there is little doubt that various decoys and false transmissions in the right places allowed the Allies to attack more effectively at a low cost in extra manpower.
The point is that defeating your opponent is as much (or more) a mind game as it is a matter of brute strength. Robots, even with remote control, aren't going to have the agility or cunning required to survive on the battlefield.
Less is more.
Cruise missles isolate humans from the actual act of killing in war. Before that, ballistic missiles isolated humans from this awful task. Before that it was strategic bombing, and before that it was long range artillery, and before that it was the machine gun, and before that the rifle, which came after the cannon, the trebuchet, the arrow, the rock, and everything that wasn't some sort of cutting weapon weilded in close combat. This is a recurring whine, and little more than that.
The real concern is the number of human lives lost in stopping these recurring acts of idiocy. The actual effect of technological advancement has been to steadily reduce the number of combatant and noncombatant casualties as technology improved. Modern technology makes it possible to confront agression with less cost in human lives over shorter periods of time.
But if it assauges your sense of moral rectitude, we can go back to the days of sword-weilding armies and the concomitant casualty rates of 20-40% of entire populations during wars. We wouldn't be isolated at all from the act of killing -- a large plurality of us would have a constant connection with death, rather than our 1-2% or so who have intimate experience with it now.
If you think more experience with death promotes peace, talk to a Bosinan, or a Croat. They'll set you straight.
Wow, it's not enough that the Americans take on the Arab World; they also want to take on the Oriental World!
Considering the situation in Iraq, do you really think the Americans will last long enough to build these robots...plus the Chinese or Japanese could easily buy these robots once they are build through the all-mighty corruption magic?
I have no doubt the current US Administration will build these robots. The question is whether other countries could also get their hands on the 'bots or not. Oh, and I think all the mighty, high tech 'bots can't stand against a 10 years old nuke.
According to an article in Technology Review last month our troops in Iraq often find their comm isn't too great on the frontlines for much more than sporadic email at the best. Imagine the equivalent or worse comm problems with these remote controlled robots engaged in live fire. A couple of bucks worth of nasty kidstuff electronics overcomes millions in robot devices. Sounds like another winner from those folks who cornered the market on $400 hammers.
I wish the boys would grow up a bit or at least make toys that friggin are useable.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!
It's not between "gangs of these suckers" that you will see the "action", but rather gangs of these suckers slaughtering tons of civilians somewhere in the 3rd world that doesn have any. Wars are never about fair competition.
They're still going to fuck up and shoot their allies by mistake
George Bush has all that figured out. You see, on the current path he's guiding our country, in a few years we won't have any allies left.
Then we won't have to worry about that problem.
Paying for lifetime US-quality medical services, life insurance, widow's benifits, orphan benifits, pension benifits, college costs, and all the other costs associated with putting the numbers of men in the field, the cost benifit ratio may well prove to favor robots and other systems that keep service members out of harms way.
What it comes down to is the almighty dollar.
or something
Hey will these babies support Longhorn?
/sarcasm
That statement is completely idiotic and, if anything, probably only serves to illustrate your devastating lack of education.
In WWII, almost 60 million people were killed, about two thirds of them civilians. Without technology, such "convenient" ways of genocide as the holocaust or air raids wouldn't have been possible.
In WWI, 15 million dead. Many died in the trenches, because such advances as machine guns and heavy artillary forced things into a deadlock.
If there's enough of a technological imbalance, and no other factors to make up for it, the more advanced country has an easier time killing lots of enemy soldiers or civilians. The US has repeatedly been in that situation. But then there's also cases there one side is more advanced, and the other is more numerous, and a huge carnage results, such as in the Russian theater in WWII, or the Korean war.
I find it disgusting how easily Americans like you talk about others who "whine" about yet more weapons. Your criminal government has shifted to a policy of preemtive - illegal! - wars. Thousands get killed. Sure, you in your self-righteousness watch O'Reilly and believe that it's all cool. No, it is not. People get sick of it. People get sick of wars, of killing, and of fucking arrogance as you display it.
"...a nation whose principal exports are fast food, Hollywood movies, Internet cafes, arrogance, swagger, and democracy"
...and nuclear weapons, cultural imperialism, lowest-common-denominator entertainment, anti-intellectualism, gun culture, hyper-agressive business practices, corporate owned 'democracy', business by lawsuit, capitalism as religion, religion as capitalism, all-out economic war against it's supposed allies (cloaked in fluffy terms like 'globalisation' and 'free trade'), 18th-century labour and health policies... I could go on and on and on, but your last sentence just can't go unnoted:
"...but when the little guys are murderous right-wing religious lunatics, aintcha glad that pop culture's got nothing on plain ol' common sense?"
And when the people in charge of the Big Lone Superpower are murderous right-wing religious lunatics with a massive military, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons (and a history of actually using them), and effectively unchecked political power over the rest of the world, then please tell me, who are we supposed to root for?
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
So.. these drones will be remote controlled? Yes, I read the thread, bear with me. They are going to save on "OUR" human casualties, by killing more of the enemy via a remote link to an actual soldier controlling these mechanoid suckers. Instead of losing lives, "we" will only lose millions of items of immense monetary value, which still is considered the smaller loss. Of course a surviving fighter pilot gets one hell of a scolding if the plane gets lost, but it's basically the same thing here: If you have more tech than soldiers, it's a good thing to empower every soldier with more tech than he or she is worth, so to speak.
Now, what is the interface going to look like? I am assuming a live-feed, encrypted, RF signal with video and audio and not some command line interface thing because we don't have that kind of autonomy in AI yet... unless you count my industry. I am not in defense works, I am a game designer. We have AI that could do the job. Sure, the bots would freeze up for seconds at a time trying to convert the terrain into a pathmap grid, and it will get stuck in odd loops between rocks and hard places, but my point is that some degree of autonomy is possible if the operator is taking a piss or getting another jolt, pizza, mountain dew, what have you.
And so, what interface will the "mechanized infantry" be using against its operator? One 'bot per remote operator "Operation Flashpoint" style (or "Mechwarrior" / "Starsiege" style?) or two to four 'bots per operator, "Hidden & Dangerous"-style or maybe even eight ("Full Spectrum Warrior") or 60 ("Ground Control") 'bots for every operator?
Especially if bots feature some kind of learning, remembering last used commands, path maps, all of these alternatives are more or less feasible. I actually think the "Quake 3" or "OFP" approach is the least appropriate because a bot can be destroyed, chaffed, EMP'd, taken out of range, fall down a hole, lose the connection or start dropping packages like crazy. Controlling a bot lagging over radio with a jerky video feed is not a first person shooter experience you would want to participate in, not even for fun, and especially not when you are sitting in a command bunker undefended save for those ABC mechanoids.
Instead, imagine a setup where each operator shares his or her attention between members of a squad of four or five 'bots. Equip the 'bots with a few different pieces of equipment while they're awaiting deployment, maybe tweak one of them for speed and recon, another for damage soak and a third with a long-range weapon, and so on. Now, keep in mind that a video feed is possible but not speedy enough to make instant point-and-click orders. Thunderstorms, sandstorms, building occluding the signal and so forth will make that much too unreliable. Instead, the operator gives move orders to the 'bots, identifies targets, marks them on the IFF using bandboxing or clicking, the bot remembers distingishing features and asks for confirmation when a takedown is possible.
The only thing the USA has to worry about now is Korea. No matter how smart US operators become, how streamlined their interface or how autonomous their remote controlled heavy weapons platforms, they will remain unable to stop the Zerg rush, kekekekeke.
/ Per
Go read a good book about this, namely: On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.
He's a psychiatrist who considered the effects of different ways of killing on the mental health of the soldier and has come the conclusion that, while the US army has become extremely efficient at breaking down the natural inhibitions against murder it has not been as successfull in dealing with its aftermath. One step has always been the adding of physical distance between the soldier and his victim, in the progression you so proudly cite (have you ever thought about the "collateral damage" of a sword vs. that of a cruise missile?). Go read that, and then reconsider your opinion.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Yes Sir! /me bows smilingly.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
If we did build millions of these bots, we'd have to ask China (and all of our other creditors) politely to pay for them for us. On top of that, since we've let them suck away all of our manufacturing over the last 25 years, we'd have to ask them to build them for us, too.
Play Command HQ online
It's not guns that kill people, it's robots.
Yeah, of course. Nobody wants to see the mullahs take over the world. So? How does that imply that we should go to war? The uttermost wingnut error is this dogma:
"A is evil. Therefore we should go to war with them"
"B is evil. Therefore we should go to war with them"
I'm no pacifist. Sometimes war is the right answer. But it isn't in all cases. The grandparent makes a point that reducing the risks of war may create a situation in which a powerful nation is more likely to start wars at the drop of a hat. Since in general wars kill people, starting more of them is not a a priori a good idea. You have to argue that a specific war is worth the cost, and you haven't done that with respect to, e.g., Iran.
Pointing out solely that Iran has an evil agenda does not in any way shape or form refute the grandparent's argument. Yes, they're evil. So what? That's irrelevant: the point wasn't about the nature of the agendas in question, it was about the effects of the policies pursued in support of those agendas. A very different question.
Your attitude, (which you call "common sense"), that violence is the only effective strategy against bad people, is neanderthal and ignorant of history. Even in the bloody 20th century, significantly more oppressive regimes and dictatorships were overthrown by nonviolent means than via wars. Yes, sometimes, war can overthrow a dictator and bring peace and democracy afterwards (as WWII). Sometimes, though, war can fail in its goals and set the stage for the rise of brutal dictatorships (as we failed to free Vietnam, but set the stage for Pol Pot). How many examples do you want of wars fought by the US that failed to bring democracy to the target country and/or gave rise to a brutal dictator afterwards?
Different situations require different responses.
History most definitely does *not* support your implicit assumption that a nation more willing to go on the warpath to enforce its agenda increases the likelihood of that agenda "winning". More often, that kind of attitude just fuels resentment and defensiveness, leading to a bigger fight and a lot more people dead, which isn't in anyone's best interests. There are a lot of arguments to be made that a more warlike America would do a great deal of harm to the cause of democracy around the world.
Already, anti-US rhetoric and consequent terrorist recruiting in the middle east has tripled as a result of the Iraq war. From that aspect, it would seem that a little more caution might be advised, not less. There may also be positive outcomes
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
they'd probably settle for guerilla warfare amongst the civilian population where an armed robot isn't a feasible option. Hm, not a far cry from terrorism.
... an evil, terrorist tactic by 17th century standards.
Yeah, exactly.
People fight when they 1) have a grudge, 2) are poor 3) feel they're being taked advantage of 4) are scared or 5) are disenfranchised and feel they don't have a say in their own future.
How they fight depends on their circumstances. If they're wealthy, they use technology at arm's length and/or send other people (usually their own poor) to fight. This is how the US does it.
If they're outnumbered or outgunned, they fall back on guerilla tactics and/or terrorist tactics. This is how the iraqi insurgents fight.
Take for example Israel and Palestine. Both populations feel they have a historical and religious claim to the land. But the israelis are wealthy workers who have jobs and a vote. So they send tanks and helicopters. Palestinians are dirt poor, live under continuous occupation (=disenfranchisement) and are outgunned. So they blow themselves up and use guerilla tactics.
If the USA were under occupation by a superior force, we'd fall back on insurgent and/or terrorist tactics, too. Go watch "Red Dawn". As a matter of fact, that's how we won our independence. We couldn't defeat the british regulars on the field, so we slinked through the forests and sniped their leaders
Robots won't change this scene at all. They'll just change the balance of power and drive the other side to new tactics, as you suggest. We get all high and might about how the other side uses unspeakable insurgent and/or terrorist tactics, but we would do exactly the same thing if the conditions were reversed.
It's just too bad that nobody tosses tea into the harbor anymore.
They do. Just nobody pays attention. The reasons people use such violent tactics these days is because in the age of sensationalist profit-driven news reporting, if you don't make a big noise nobody even hears about it.
BTW, throwing tea in the harbor in 1773 is about equivalent moneywise to torching 15 hummers to make a political statement in 2003. That guy is headed to jail, and nobody is singing his praise...
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
I went to the Talon site and looked at the machines they were proposing. It immediately struck me that I had seen these military robots before, in 1983:a uncher.shtml
http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/83/pacrats/missilel
Yo Joe!
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. Thank you.
-- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I was always offended by Bush's refering to the terrorists on those planes as cowards. As one talk show host said (pls reply with name), it takes a lot of guts to fly a plane into a building, knowing you'll die.
How many times have you realized that you really should do something, but you were afraid for your own safety? Aside from disagreeing with their beliefs, these terrorists did what they thought they needed to do, and were not cowards.
Enemies? Sure. Needing a good ass-kicking? Definately. Hiding in Iraq? Only since the fall of Saddam.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
And look at the other robotics story on the front page:
"AFP is reporting that, starting today, "Japan's growing elderly population will be able to buy companionship in the form of a 45-centimeter (18-inch) robot" designed to help them avoid senility. The robot, named Snuggling Ifbot and developed by Dream Supply, will be able to respond to verbal commands. "If a person tells Snuggling Ifbot, "I'm bored today," the robot might respond, "Are you bored? What do you want to do?"". It retails for 576,000 yen (5,600 dollars) and there is no English version currently available but "its makers plan to program the robot in English -- not for export, but to teach the language to Japanese children.""
Reminds me how Japan's largest computer is used to model weather and the earth, and our largest computers are used to model nuclear explosions.
Well, I guess that's the difference between the conquered and the conqueror. If we conquer the world does that make every country more sane than us?