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Robot Warfare Going Open Source
destinyland writes "Peter Singer, author of the new book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, says 'You can build your own version of the Raven drone, which is a widely used military drone, for about $1,000.' Singer argues that 'just like software, warfare is going open source.' He warns that, ultimately, robot warfare may even expand beyond the military using more DIY and off-the-shelf systems. In addition to 43 countries now working on military robots, there are 'non-state actors ranging from Hezbollah to this militia group in Arizona to a bunch of college kids at Swarthmore... One person's hobby — such as the hobbyist who flew a homemade drone from North America to Great Britain — can be another person's terrorist strike option.'"
Quick, someone embed the three laws in the linux kernal.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
You can build your own version of the Raven drone, which is a widely used military drone, for about $1,000.
You mean this? Raven Drone. Umm.. maybe you could build the airframe for under $1000.. or at least something that looks like it. I seriously doubt you could get the radio control equipment, let alone the camera or milspec GPS receivers (which cost $10k each and you have to justify why you want them and promise not to export them).
If the book is as accurate as this interview, I think I'll just read fiction.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If somebody makes a killbot without a pre-programmed kill limit then how will we ever defeat them?
I can't believe people can actually ask these questions with a straight face. It's like we've all forgotten how a military dictatorship works.
Ya don't invade your neighboring country to kill everyone (ok, maybe you do if you're in Africa).. you invade your neighboring country to dominate them, remove their ability to fight back, then take control of their government and their media and rule them. That's why, in this day and age, the first thing to go in a war would be access to the Internet. If you can control everything a dominated people see and hear then you can easily convince them that they are better off following you than fighting you. When dissenting opinions are quashed the masses quickly fall into line.
So what are wars about? They're about stopping an invader from controlling the information. Even in our highly digital world you still need to have physical dominance over a country to maintain that kind of control. If people can freely travel across borders then they can bring with them information which you can't control. So you build a wall.. and put guards on it to shoot anyone who tries to cross without your permission. You build an air force and shoot down any planes that try to come into your airspace. Same for a navy and the coastline.
Wars are not "competitions". You don't send your most strapping men to kill their most strapping men, in the snappiest uniforms you can design, and then do a body count to determine the winner. You win by controlling the terms that everyone uses to refer to what happened. The war isn't over when everyone stops fighting. If you are seen as a "liberator" who is now fighting "insurgents" then the war is over.. you won.
War is ugly. It's the ugliest thing there is. Cause it's not about killing them.. it's about forcing your point of view down their throat.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The "open source" part is a little silly, but the "anybody can use technology in inovative ways to harm others" part is very reasonable
Seriously. Think about any world leader/other person in the world. If you didn't care about getting caught, don't you think you could engineer something to make them wind up dead?
given the resources available today (especially the internet), it's not that far-fetched
As such, robot engineers will rule the world, make robot women to serve us, and put freakin lasers on sharks.
Don't you suddenly want to change career?
Just great, who wants to bet that the DHS will make a "No buying aerial plane kits" because they can be "terror weapons"? And of course everyone will have to register their model airplanes. And consent to a search of their home if they own one.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I read that book. I think it was even reviewed on Slashdot already.
One thing that's surprised me is that nobody in the Third World has built something like a V-1 "buzz bomb". That's WWII technology, and it was a low-end technology back then, built from sheet metal. Just duplicating the V-1, adding a JATO bottle so you can use a short portable launch ramp, and adding a half-decent autopilot would provide a precision cruise missile capability at a low price. A low-end GPS plus a backup capability to revert to compass and time in case of jamming would work.
Most of them will get through, especially if they each take different routes. The original V-1s flew in a straight line from launch site to target, the launch sites were fixed, and the target was usually London, so shooting them down wasn't hard. It took thousands of anti-aircraft guns, though. Who deploys thousands of anti-aircraft guns any more?
Who would buy a 5,000 year calendar if it's only got 3 years left in it? That's such a waste of money. I'll wait and buy the 2012-7138 version.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
If personal military robots are the wave of the future, what will this mean for 2nd amendment issues? Will there be a movement to protect a citizen's right to run their own robot militias?
Yes, I ignored your 3 laws question.. sorry. I thought it was too silly to warrant a response. Obviously no-one who makes armed robots for warfare is going to make them 3 laws safe (quite apart from the fact that it was a literary device, sheesh).
It's simple, as robot technology matures, armed robots will appear on the battlefield.. they will be programmed to determine friend from foe and carry out specific missions. Maybe it will indeed be like playing a game of C&C.. but that's irrelevant.. you asked what the point was of that. I told you what the point is; specifically, you use your robot army to kill their robot army, and then their regular army, then anyone that resists, so the people who are cowering in fear will believe what you tell them.
This isn't some new "Cyber Warfare" idea. This is what wars are about, it's what they've always been about.
How we know is more important than what we know.
So...the Soviets defeated the Nazis by controlling the semiotics of the situation? Napoleon won because he could control what the Austrian press told its readers? Come on man, that stuff doesn't fly in the real world.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Old news. robocode!
robot.rotate(90);
robot.rotateGun(-45);
robot.fire(3);
robot.doVictoryDance();
blog.idigitall.com
Lets not forget the other common reason to go to war:
- Being faced with internal dissent and a real possibility of loosing power, portray another nation (or even a minority within your own nation) as "the Enemy" and go to war against them, thus distracting the masses from your own faults as leader, rallying them against somebody else and having a convenient excuse to take on "state of emergency"-like powers which then can be use against your personal internal enemies.
This technique is as widely used in tin-pot-dictatorships as in "democracies" *cough* war on terror *cough*