Soldiers Bond With Bots, Take Them Fishing

HarryCaul writes "Soldiers are finding themselves becoming more and more attached to their robotic helpers. During one test of a mine clearing robot, 'every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.' The man in charge halted the test, though - 'He just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg. This test, he charged, was inhumane.' Sometimes the soldiers even take their metallic companions fishing. Is there more sympathy for Robot Rights than previously suspected?"

Comments

"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[TodMinuit]

Good thing a robot isn't a human.

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[MrMr]

Why not declare the robots enemy combattants?
that normally kicks in the dehuminization mode.

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[Rei]

animals, like humans but unlike robots, can feel pain

Currently. ;)

First off, this sentiment by the tester expresses a lot more about humans than it does about the robots themselves. It's something that has long been exploited by the designers of robotic toys. In an article about Pleo, an upcoming robotic dinosaur by the creator of the Furby, this issue was discussed. The creator mentioned that he had even gotten letters from people who owned Furbys, insisting that they had taught their toys a few words of English, or that their toys had let them know when the house was on fire. It's instinctive to ascribe our thoughts and emotions onto others, and for good reason: our children can only learn to act like we do when we give them the right environment to mimic.

A young child isn't thinking like you; an infant will spend the first year of their life just trying to figure out things like the fact that all of these colors from their eyes provide 3d spatial data, that they can change their world by moving their muscles, that things fall unless you set them on something, that sounds correspond to events, and all of the most fundamental bits of learning. A one year old can't even count beyond the bounds of an instinctive counting "program"**. They perceive you by instinctive facial recognition, not by an understanding of the world around them. Yet, we react to them like they understand what we're saying or doing. If we didn't do this, they'd never learn to *actually* understand what we're saying or doing.

As for whether a robot will experience pain, you have to look at what "pain" is and where you draw the cutoff. After all, a robot can take in a stimulus and respond to it. Clearly, a human feels pain. Does a chimpanzee? The vast majority of people would say yes. A mouse? A salamander? A cricket? A water flea? A volvox? A paramecium? Where is the cutoff point? Really, there isn't one. All we can really look at is how much "thinking" is done on the pain response, which is a somewhat vague concept itself. The relevance of the term "pain", therefore, seems constrained by how "intelligent" the being perceiving the pain is. As robotic intelligence becomes more human-like, the concept of "pain" becomes a very real thing to consider. For now, these robots' thought processes aren't much more elaborate than those of daphnia, so I don't think there's a true moral issue here.

** I don't have the article onhand, but this innate ability to count up to small numbers -- say, 4 or 5 -- was a surprise when it was first discovered. A researcher tracked interest in a puppet by watching childrens' eyes as it was presented. Whenever the puppet moved in the same way each time, the child would start to bore of it. If they moved it a differing number of times, the child would stay interested for much longer. They were able to probe the bounds of a child's counting perception this way. The children couldn't distinguish between, say, four hops and six hops, but they could between three hops and four hops. Interestingly enough, it seems that many animals have such an instinctive capability; it's already been confirmed, for example, in the case of Alex, the African Grey parrot.

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[UseTheSource]

Many people I know treat their animals like they were their own children, especially if they are a childless couple. I accord my own cat with roughly the same level of accord as I do most people, if you were crapping on the carpet I would swap you too.

Hey... At least my birds actually talk. What can your cat do? :P

In all seriousness, to the GP... Not sure if he was trying to be funny or not, but just because we may be at the top in intelligence, humans are still animals. Hell chimps are 99% genetically identical. When talking about intelligent animals, sometimes people refer to the age of a child. For example, one might say that one of my birds has the mentality of a 3-4 year old human child. Coupled with the fact that they use English words in the correct context and ask for things by name blurs the distiction the GP was trying to make.

Unless he's a Bible-thumper. ;)

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[Tuoqui]

You know... Before we get this 'robot rights' thing down, we should get the whole 'human rights' thing right first.

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[greenbird]

Imagine not having any stimulus to tell you that putting your hand in front of a blow torch is a bad idea. Not accidentally killing yourself becomes a bit of a challenge. Pain is an excellent instructional tool.

This is why I'm all for corporal punishment. Pain is nature's way of telling you you're doing something wrong. Let's use nature's tools.

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[treeves]

I think this is right.

No one is accused of being inhumane when they crash a car. Why is it any different if they destroy a robot? Limbs are more life-like than wheels? What if my car talks and I take it with me fishing? How strange.

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[kalirion]

Now if only it was that easy to tell the body "All right, I acknowledge your message that something's wrong. However there's nothing I can do about that, SO STOP YELLING."

Re:"This test, he charged, was inhumane"

[An Onerous Coward]

I fully disagree. Anything that helps us expand our sphere of empathy helps. Working on one will likely have a positive effect on the other.

Humans are funny that way

[powerpants]

We can feel empathy for a machine that's doing us a favor -- but in reality has no feelings -- while simultaneously dehumazing whole groups of people who only differ from ourselves culturally and/or geographically.

Re:Humans are funny that way

[QuasiEvil]

We can feel empathy for a machine that's doing us a favor -- but in reality has no feelings -- while simultaneously dehumazing whole groups of people who only differ from ourselves culturally and/or geographically. Um, that's because I like my car more than I like most of humanity.

The idea of disposable robots is better...

[RyanFenton]

Than the idea of disposable soldiers. And that's really the design ideal here - the cheaper and more disposable the robot can be while meeting reliability requirements, the more extremely dangerous jobs can be done by robots.

Robots really are replaceable - you can have empathy for a robot doing a hard task, but the next one off the assembly line really is the same thing as the previous one. Robots are not unique little snowflakes, compared to the valuable human beings they protect by proxy.

The danger is, of course, when cheap, highly replaceable robotics replace enough of the work of war, that the perceived cost of war itself becomes less and less. We're in little danger of that occurring now, and I'd gladly see any human life saved by our current efforts, but I do worry about the possible increased use of war once a poor village could be suppressed entirely with mobile automated turrets with a few controllers hidden in a safe zone.

Ryan Fenton

Re:The idea of disposable robots is better...

[Rimbo]

If you take away the human cost and human horrors of war, of what benefit is peace?

Robots and Pets

[EvilGrin5000]

This article isn't talking about those annoying toy robots available at your nearest junk store for the low low price of $99.99, this article describes robots that take on the impossible jobs of sniffing bombs, of tracking enemies and searching caves! They become part of the team:

FTA
-------
"Sometimes they get a little emotional over it," Bogosh says. "Like having a pet dog. It attacks the IEDs, comes back, and attacks again. It becomes part of the team, gets a name. They get upset when anything happens to one of the team. They identify with the little robot quickly. They count on it a lot in a mission."
-------

I'm not surprised that this article describes emotional attachments. They've become pets, and not just a pile of hardware. Most people love their pets and they cry when their pets die.

The Robot Rights is in regards to ALL robots, the article is only describing a very small percent of robots. Not only that but these robots stories are set in military actions.

So to answer the question from the summary: Perhaps, but the article certainly doesn't relate to the wider audience!

Wouldn't YOU love your pet robot that sniffs IEDs and takes a few detonations in its face for you hence saving your life?

Re:Pretty hypocritical

[chuckymonkey]

Ok, having been to a war zone I can tell you first hand that you're completely wrong. What the hell do you think PTSD is? You cannot imagine the total mindfuck it is to kill a living breathing person even if that person was trying to kill you. I'll have nightmares the rest of my life because of it, and that's only the direct instances. Nevermind that for what I did, I had a very high kill count even though it was more distant and I wasn't necessarily pulling the trigger. Yeah, we may joke about with eachother but all this is is a defense mechanism. If we don't "dehumanize" it we go fucking crazy. I have several friends that are so messed up from thinking about all the horror that they've had to do that they'll never really be a good part of society. So yeah it's inhumane, I did it because I had a choice. Kill him or he'll kill me, not a really hard choice for me to make but I have to live with it for the rest of my life. Once the trigger is pulled there's not taking it back ever. I do agree that it isn't necessarily right and something should be done. That's why I vote and take an active part in trying to get people out of there because I know first hand the horrors of a war zone, horrors that I hope people like you never have to face. Don't blame the soldiers that do the killing, blame the people in their pinstriped suits that don't have to do the trigger pulling.

Luke Skywalker, anyone?

[Tatisimo]

Reminds me of the time when Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star, when he was asked if he wanted a new droid to replace the busted R2D2, he outright refused! We all grow to love to our favorite stuff: Computers, cups, cars, blankets, robots, etc. Are soldiers any less human than us? Heck, let them keep their robot buddies after the war as personal assistants, that might make people less scared of technology! If Luke Skywalker could, why can't they?

Re:Pretty hypocritical

[CantStopDancing]

Don't blame the soldiers that do the killing, blame the people in their pinstriped suits that don't have to do the trigger pulling.

While I have sympathy for your situation, every single (US) soldier who is pulling a trigger is a volunteer. "I was only following orders" stopped being a valid excuse for government-sanctioned murder a loooong time ago in an all-volunteer army.

Different situations, different attatchments.

[Irvu]

Soldiers in the field are themselves constantly at risk of life and limb. They are also constantly under stress and tension. Such stresses and risks are what forms the bond with their comrades as well as their equipment. Everything, everyone, has to work right or likely they all die. This is why sailors refer to their ship as she, and call her by name, why they get almost tearful when thinking of a favored ship and wear caps claiming them as a member of her crew. This is why Airforce officers feel an attachment to their planes and why Army officers care for their sidearms. This anthropomorphization is an essential facet of how they operate not just a side effect. The application to a mine-clearing robot may be new but not so unprecedented.

This attachment shows up in other ways too. Kevin Mitnick is said to once have cried when being informed that he broke Bell Lab's latest computers because he had spent so much time with them that he'd become attached.

Now contrast that with an office job where the computer is not your friend but your enemy, you need the reports on time, you need them now why WHY! won't it work. Clearly the computer must be punished it is and uppity evil servant that will not OBEY!

If you were to stop talking about "Robots Rights" and start talking about say "Ship's rights" then you might have a fair analogy. To men and women of the sea a ship, their ship is a living thing so of course it should be cared for and respected. To people who live on land and don't deal with ships, this is crazy, even subversive to the natural order. To people who have developed an intimate hatred of such things giving them rights will only encourage what they see as a dangerous tendency to get uppity.

On a serious note though the one unaddressed question with "Robot Rights" is which robots? If we are to take the minefield clearing robot as a standard what about those less intelligent? Does my Mindstorms deserve it? Does my Laptop? Granted my laptop doesn't move but it executes tasks the same as any other machine. At what point do we draw the line.

In America, and I suspect elsewhere, race based laws fell down on the question of "what race?" Are you 100% black? 1/2 One quadroon (1/4) or octaroon (1/8) as they used to say? How the hell do you measure that? Ditto for the racial purity laws of the Nazi's. Crap about skull shape aside there really is no easy or hard standard. Right now the law is dancing around this with the question of who is "Adult" enough to stand trial and be executed, or "Alive" enough to stay on life support. No easy answers exist and therin lies the fighting.

The same thing will occur with "Robot Rights" we will be forced to define what it means to be a robot and that isn't so easy.

Re:Pretty hypocritical

[paranode]

I am not a huge fan of this war but you need to get your terms straight. Murder is what the jihadis do when they blow up a car or restaurant full of innocent people, including women and children, on purpose. Killing is what the soldiers are doing, and they do it to the asshats who perform acts like I just described.

Why the military likes robots.

[Kadin2048]

Robots really are replaceable - you can have empathy for a robot doing a hard task, but the next one off the assembly line really is the same thing as the previous one. Robots are not unique little snowflakes, compared to the valuable human beings they protect by proxy.

The danger is, of course, when cheap, highly replaceable robotics replace enough of the work of war, that the perceived cost of war itself becomes less and less. We're in little danger of that occurring now, and I'd gladly see any human life saved by our current efforts, but I do worry about the possible increased use of war once a poor village could be suppressed entirely with mobile automated turrets with a few controllers hidden in a safe zone.

Well, the real reason for the development of robots, is that it closes one of the gaps inherent in our current wars, which generally involve a group of people who put a very high value on their lives, fighting a group of people who put a very low value on their own lives. It's one possible answer to "how do you fight people who don't care if they die?"

The American public -- and most other Western nations -- is willing to spend a lot of money, and a lot of resources, but isn't willing to spill a whole lot of (their own) blood before they pull the plug on a military operation. If you can create machines that perform the same tasks as people, and get blown up instead of people, then you can hopefully reduce friendly casualties. In short, you trade treasure for blood.

You don't see Al Qaeda researching killer robots, because they have the opposite problem -- lots of blood to spill, not a whole lot of treasure to use developing expensive new weapons systems. Hence why they think a person is an effective ordnance-delivery system.

The question is really whether all this technology can keep any particular war asymmetrical enough to defeat a heavy-on-blood/light-on-treasure enemy, before the public gets fed up with losing its young people and stops supporting it. If you look just at casualty figures, Western armies are some of the most effective military organizations ever created, in terms of inflicting damage and death on an 'enemy' without really absorbing any. Depending on which figure you believe, the "enemy" dead in Iraq are somewhere north of 100,000 (although it's certainly debatable whether most of them were really 'enemy' or just 'wrong place, wrong time,' although most figures that I've seen including civilians are up around 600k), with only 3378 U.S. dead in the same period -- if true that's about 30:1. However, by most measures we're still losing the war, and will soon pull out without any clear victory, because even at that 30:1 ratio, it's still too high a rate of friendly casualties for the American public to bear for the perceived gain. (And admittedly, the perceived gain is basically nothing, as far as most people can see, I think. Killing Saddam was a goal that people found supportable, bringing democracy to a country that seems positively uninterested in it doesn't seem to be.)

So I think it's with this idea in mind, that leaders in the military are pushing high technology and robots to replace soldiers wherever possible, in the hopes that perhaps by increasing that ratio even further, that they can be effective in their mission (however inadvisable that mission may be) without losing the support of the public that's required to accomplish it.

Re:Pretty hypocritical

[dircha]

"While I have sympathy for your situation, every single (US) soldier who is pulling a trigger is a volunteer. "I was only following orders" stopped being a valid excuse for government-sanctioned murder a loooong time ago in an all-volunteer army."

Soldiers from lower middle class backgrounds without a college education are disproportionately represented in combat units. This suggests they are more pressured or inclined by their circumstances to enter the military. No one chooses the family they are born into or the environment in which they are raised. In many cases they may see no viable alternative to military service to realizing the demanding values and expectations society has instilled in them, and may be unable to see or acknowledge this coercion even when presented with it.

Add to this that the military spends millions of dollars to actively misrepresent the nature, scope, and risks of military service in elaborate advertising campaigns targeted at young people in such circumstances, and you have a truly despicable situation.

If you supported this war based on the premise that those there are enthusiastic volunteers having made fully free and informed decisions about their participation, you are deluded. Let me guess: you feel the same way about sex workers in southeast asia?

Re:Pretty hypocritical

[Foolhardy]

Oh yeah, because everyone knows there are no civilian casualties in Iraq from US military actions. Civilian casualties are civilian casualties, be it from terrorism, military invasion, ethnic cleansing, whatever. The innocent are just as dead.

Re:Anthro..

[Constantine XVI]

H2G2 defenition of ackthpt:
A mindless jerk who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Re:That makes it WORSE, not better

[Hatta]

There are boundaries, and we expect our soldiers to recognize them. We expect soldiers to be able to tell the difference between the lawful application of deadly force and unlawful murder, and we expect soldiers to carry out the first and to refuse to carry out the second. Soldiers who cross the line we expect to be disciplined in the harshest manner possible.

And yet, only one of our soldiers has had the character to do the right thing. And he's being court-martialed for it.