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Soldiers Bond with Bomb-Defusing Robots
hdtv writes "Reuters is running a story that talks about the emotional bonds that US soldiers develop with the robots in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The company, most famous on the US market for its Roomba vacuum cleaner, provided '300 PackBot Tactical Mobile Robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to open doors in urban combat, lay fiber-optic cable, defuse bombs and perform other hazardous duties previously done by humans alone.'"
As a Disabled American Veteran and member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, let me say Thank You! This technology is long over-due.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
People get emotionally attached to cars, houses, jewellery so why is this different? Perfectly normal in my opinion.
Probably has been done many times.
Think about ships. In the West they are given a female gender. "She is a good ship". Airplanes often are named and given nose art. This isn't anything new. It is a machine you depend on. It is comforting to think that it some how cares for you and will try to do all that it can to keep you safe. Since it is so willing to help you it seems only natural that you would care for it back. All very human and emotional.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I wish I had a robot that could apply glue.
Would be much easier to bond with.
Considering how some of us get emotionally attached to our computers, and the stress those guys are under, no wonder a bond develops. Like having a faithful dog, having someone or something you can rely on gives most people warm fuzzies - human or not.
Soliders name their rifles, Pilots paint nose art on the planes. Roman legions probably named their swords. You develop an attachment to the things that you rely on and that serve you well. You can't trust that your buddy won't get killed tomorrow, but you can trust the fact that your M-16 will work as advertised.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
People anthromorphize. Soldiers are people. Therefore soldiers anthromorphize. QED.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
It's similar to what we do with sports teams, schools, and other communities. It doubtless ties directly to a survival mechanism which we as pack animals have. I wouldn't be surprised to find this is also the root of racism and xenophobia, basic us vs. them mentality.
"This is my 'team', and if anyone is going to get those limited resources, it had better be 'us'."
"Here we go again, those [minority-of-the-day] are coming into our country, stealing our jobs, ruining our neighbourhoods..."
"Go [insert sports team, or tech school, here]!"
"[Programming language a] is soooo much better than [programming language b]...(mainly because I use [programming language a])."
It all looks pretty similar to me. Extending this to non-human or inanimate elements that you depend on for survival doesn't seem so surprising from that perspective.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
The dichotomy that we can at one moment be so attached to something like a video game character, a cat, a dog, a car, a robot, etc. yet still be such cold callous creatures to each other is one that always amazes me.
Humans are, in my opinion, capable of being the most violent and disgusting animal inhabiting Earth.
Genocide or borderline genocide is almost always going on in some part of the planet and the masses stand idly by.
Millions of babies die each year from starvation with relatively few doing anything to thwart it.
Yet invariablly we all become attached to non-sentient things such as our cars and computers. An odd creature we are from where I stand.
Sorry for the downer.
no, he wishes that a robot had been available to disable the bomb or mine that blew off a his leg and/or arm while he was performing a job so you could make idiotic comments on the internet. the world never has been a safe place and never will be, so put down the joint and face reality.
The only thing that'll bond a soldier to a robot is superglue. Someone's watched Star Wars one too many times. It's a machine. If you put the robot in a larger context, we do develop emotional attachments to cars and boats. And we tend to anthropomorphize things like that. There are times when you bang your head on a car trunk lid that you'd wish it could feel pain and you wish you could knock the crap out of it.
Calling it a bond is the wrong word. A toaster cannot tell you it loves you. Well unless someone installs a chip that has a pre-recorded voice with a tiny speaker and it goes off when the toast pops. I like my car and I take care of it. I do not feel affection for it and if it were to be totalled I'd be upset. We also develop a love-hate attitude towards Windows which is a piece of software. Some people love the MacOS, some people even love computer languages (Perl, Python, PHP).
The soldiers may develop a strong attachment to a device that can save their life and lives of others, but it's not a bond because the robot can't return the emtion.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
As a civilian (and a reader of history), let me say, whaaaaat? The only thing that stops our armies invading any resource-rich country they desire is the marine deaths. Ask any American, the death toll in Iraq is around about 3,000. They don't even consider the lives of the "enemy", or the civilians caught in the crossfire. Once that 3,000 figure was met, the opinion "back home" changed dramatically. Add one more zero to that, and you get the certified, double-checked list of civilian casualties. A number I've NEVER seen mentioned on TV news.
Wow! Social-Political overload. I can tell you read a lot of history; your evidence is so overwhelming and compeling. Heck..you should have a job with the NSA. I cant imagine why you arent president. Enlighten all of us; why would the "Marines Deaths" prevent "our Armies" from "invading resource rich countries?" As if the death of a fellow Marine or soldier really means something to you. To you its a number that you can use to make a point; to those who have served (including myself having spent 2 years in Iraq) they are what we refer to as friends...say it with me now...F-R-I-E-N-D-S...friends, yay you got it.
Do you honestly think these robots are going to make the world a safer place? You are talking about a future where our leaders can wage war without any repercussions? No fallout once the flag-draped coffins start getting fed-exed home? Surely as a veteran you realise that this cannot be good?
Do you honestly think the point of the robot is to make the WHOLE WORLD a safer place? Think smaller; think making the American soldier a safer person. Oh, "flag-draped coffins" dont come in Fed-X we use DHL now. That is the dumbest remark I have ever heard. They are fly in on military planes escorted by the military. Uhm...turn the page history reader. The book is better when you get past the cover
9-11 was a direct result of our meddling in the middle east. Now we have robots to do our dirty work, do you think that's going to improve the situation? Is it going to "win hearts & minds", "shock and awe" or just downright, extreme, suicidal hatred? Your children can answer that for you...
9-11 was not America's fault but thanks for that once again biased history lesson. Robots are not going to improve anything. That is not the point of the robots we use. The military uses them to take safty precautions so a life can be spared should the bomb go off. Would it be better if there were no robots so that you could add to that 3000 you so diligantly keep track of? God forbid we call these numbers people, worse American soldiers. So save the history lesson Aristotle; and spare us your blind, bias, judgemental and otherwise pointless view of the war in Iraq.
DRMBOT 0110, GTRBOT666 and AUTOMATOM agree with you.. The Ape Which Hath No Name and The Son of The Ape Which Hath No Name still love you. The Headless Hornsmen simply don't have all that much to say on the issue.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
The only thing that stops our armies invading any resource-rich country they desire is the marine deaths.
If South Korea were attacked by North Korea, and the US intervened, would America's use of mine-clearing robots be a good thing, or a bad thing? Whether you're talking about a "just" war or an "unjust" war, the soldier or marine on the ground just wants to stay alive. If robots can help him stay alive, that's a good thing - just like body armor, kevlar helmets, better military medicine, and so on.
If history has shown us anything, it is that humans will kill each other. The machinegun was going to end all wars. Dynamite was going to end all wars. The atom bomb was going to end all wars. Something tells me mine-clearing robots isn't going to make much of a difference one way or another in the grand calculation about whether we go to war or not. It will, however, make a whole lot of difference to the guys on the ground.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
So if you ever have a conversation with a paramedic, ask them about bike accidents they've responded to. Ask them what the motorcyclist keeps saying over and over again. The guy will have bone sticking out of his leg, and all he'll say is, "Dude! Is my bike okay?"
Seasoned EMTs have a canned response: "Couple of dings, paint's scratched, but she'll be fine." Once you get that thought of the rider's head you can get around to the "oriented times three" questions.
This is not my sandwich.