Robotics Prof Fears Rise of Military Robots

An anonymous reader writes "Interesting video interview on silicon.com with Sheffield University's Noel Sharkey, professor of AI & robotics. The white-haired prof talks state-of-the-robot-nation — discussing the most impressive robots currently clanking about on two-legs (hello Asimo) and who's doing the most interesting things in UK robotics research (something involving crickets apparently). He also voices concerns about military use of robots — suggesting it won't be long before armies are sending out fully autonomous killing machines."

Comments

skynet

[el_tedward]

okay, where's the tag?

Re:skynet

[Midnight Thunder]

I am too busy doing R&D of my time machine.

Re:skynet

[rantingkitten]

Yeah, because tags are useful for anything around here. Why do we even have them, and why do people worry so much about them?

I've disabled them and haven't missed a damn thing other than inane gibberish at the bottom of each story saying "yes", "no", "!nuts", and other pointless crap.

"Friendly AI"

[Baldrson]

This is one of the things that makes me think the concern about "friendly AI" is blown out of proportion. The problem isn't making sure teh AI's are "friendly" -- its making sure the NI (natural intelligence) owners of the AI's are "friendly".

If half the effort spent on "friendly AI" were spent on examining the ownership of AI's, there might be some hope.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Ethanol-fueled]

Indiscriminately fire at anything that moves. Isn't that Blackwater's* job?

* er, Xe Services LLC.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[davester666]

So, are you saying that Blackwater hires people who act like robots or just created and sent out the first version of these robots?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Ethanol-fueled]

That depends on whether they started using steroids before or after they joined Blackwater.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[hyperion2010]

Haha, right now we're having a hell of a time getting other human beings to be friendy and they are quite a bit smarter and more dangerous than any robot, so until the meat is less dangerous than the quartz I think it is a grand waist of resources to try and make robots "friendly." To tell you the truth there are certain things that real intelligence should be unfriendly towards.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[evil_aar0n]

How 'bout "biological intelligence" instead?

And if the US military is involved, is there any hope?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[jollyreaper]

This is one of the things that makes me think the concern about "friendly AI" is blown out of proportion. The problem isn't making sure teh AI's are "friendly" -- its making sure the NI (natural intelligence) owners of the AI's are "friendly".
If half the effort spent on "friendly AI" were spent on examining the ownership of AI's, there might be some hope.

That's just it -- human nature never changes. The general can order genocide but it's up to the soldiers to carry it out. The My Lai Massacre was stopped by a helicopter pilot who put his bird between the civilians and "told his crew that if the U.S. soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Robots aren't really the issue -- distancing humans from killing is the problem. Not many of us could kill another human being with our bare hands. A knife might make the task easier in the doing but does nothing to ease the psychological horror of it. Guns let you do it at a distance. You don't even have to touch the guy. And buttons make it easier still. It's like you're not even responsible. You could convince young men to fly bombers over enemy cities and rain down incendiaries but I don't think you could convince many of them to kill even one of those civilians with a gun, let alone a knife.

This is the strange distinction we make where we find one form of killing a horrible thing, a war crime, terrorism, and another form of killing is a regrettable accident but there's really no blame to be assigned. A suicide bomber walks into a pizzeria and blows himself up, we lose our minds. An Air Force bomber drops an LGB in a bunker filled with civilians instead of top brass, shit happens. We honestly believe there's a distinction between the two. "Americans didn't set out to kill civilians" war hawks will huff. Yes, but they're still dead, aren't they?

Combat robots are simply continuing this process. Right now there is still a man in the loop to order the attack. Hamas kills Israeli targets with suicide bombs, Israelis deliver high explosives via missile into apartment blocks filled with civilians. They're using American-manufactured anti-tank missiles. I think they're still using TOW. Predator drones use hellfires and their operators are sitting in the continental US while Israeli pilots are a few miles away from the target inside their choppers but really, what's the difference? And what happens when drones are given the authority to engage targets on their own? A soldier with a gun can at least see what he's shooting at. Those in the artillery corps are firing their shells off into the unseen distance and have no idea who they're killing. Not that much different from laying land mines, indiscriminate killing. Psychologically no different from what it would be to set a robot on patrol mode, fire-at-will.

If one extrapolates a little further, the problem of the droid army is similar to that of the tradition of unpopular leaders using corps of foreign mercenaries to protect them from the wrath of the people. The mercenaries did not speak the language, did not know the customs, and were counted as immune to palace intrigues. They could be used against the people for they would not the sympathy for fellow countrymen that a native force might feel. What are droids being used for? Only the people operating them could say for sure. Welcome to the age of the push-button assassination.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Of course, for thousands of years of recorded history, people did kill each other en masse at arm's length. Alexander's soldiers may have been more honest about what they were doing than somebody today sitting in a bunker pressing a button and killing people on the other side of the globe, but they were no less bloodthirsty. So I don't think you can blame the modern willingness to kill on the impartiality created by modern military technology, because the modern willingness to kill looks remarkably like the ancient willingness to kill, just with different tools.

OTOH, I agree with you completely about the absurdity of calling some methods of killing heroic and others evil. Dead is dead.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[S77IM]

Shouldn't this story have an "ED-209" tag?

I agree with you that distancing humans from killing is big a problem. We have that problem now with cruise missiles, cluster bombs, nuke-from-orbit, etc.

But accidental death from robots run amok is not a pleasant thought either. The whole point of an AUTOMATED system is that it runs without a human driving it. This leads to a potential -- however slim -- that the system starts killing people without permission.

It sucks that we kill each other deliberately. Let's not create more opportunities for accidents.

  -- 77IM, "Guns don't kill people, robot guns kill people."

Re:"Friendly AI"

[stdarg]

We honestly believe there's a distinction between the two. "Americans didn't set out to kill civilians" war hawks will huff. Yes, but they're still dead, aren't they?

Are you serious? So to take a personal example, say somebody murdered your mother. How would you want that person punished? Many people would call for the death penalty. Now what if someone killed your mother completely by accident... say your mom ran a red light and got hit by someone. She's still dead, isn't she?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[AJWM]

Heck, for thousands of years people have been killing each other with autonomous -- although not intelligent -- devices. The projectile from a trebuchet or ballista can't be recalled or turned off once it's on its way. And the destructive force of long range munitions has only gotten greater since.

To the extent that battlefield robots can do a better job of telling the combatants from the non-combatants than can lobbed rocks or bombs, then all the better.

Just so long as somebody has an "off" switch.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Shihar]

As dark as the potential for drones can be, I think it actually has the chance to make war a far less indiscriminate and bloody thing.

Right now, if a square of Marines gets fired on, they can return fire. A square of marines has the firepower to flatten a village. Give them access to artillery or air support, and they can literally level a city. In other words, whenever you have a squad of supported marines fight, you are having a group of kids (and they are just kids) holding their finger over enough firepower to take out a small army. Their job is to use as little as that firepower as humanly possible. You might be able to level every building in a half mile radius, but you are not supposed to. When it comes to a firefight though, especially a desperate firefight where soldiers have their lives on the line, they, like most humans, choose life over death, and if that means flattening an entire apartment building to get at one sniper, they do it and hope that no one else was inside. Generally speaking, unless a soldier walks up to a civilian and splatters their brains on the floor, they are let off free. It is war, your life is on the line, you take your risks and respond in the best way possible. If a civilian gets accidentally whacked, that is sad but acceptable. Most soldiers develop a pretty thick "us vs them" mentality that see civilians if not the enemy, as hostile terrain, especially in a guerrilla war.

Drones offer up another possibility. It is true, you can order a drone army to go out and kill civilians and it is probably easier to get a soldier to do it. That said, if you policy is civilian murdering, a nation like the US doesn't need to use drones. You can handily exterminate all life through impersonally aerial bombing. What drones offer is more control over the rules of war. Rules mean little when you are surrounded by gunfire. You do what you have to do to survive. On the other hand, when you are sitting in the US with a military lawyer over one shoulder, a commander over the other, and and every single second and action you take is getting recorded, rules are a lot more enforceable. If the rules call on you to die before you level an apartment complex just to get at one sniper, a drone can simply die. A soldier generally wont.

With drones, you have complete accountability for your actions. You can always go to command before doing something. You never need to make snap judgments. Hell, you can call a damned military lawyer over and get his take on the rules of engagement. Further, every bloody thing you do is being recorded, so if you decide to start murdering civilians you will be caught and tried.

On the balance, I think drones are going to lessen the lives lost. The few potential abuses are pointless to worry about. If someone wants to exterminate another people indiscriminately, you can do it the cheap old fashion way of aerial bombardment. On the other hand, if you are an army that wants to enforce ironclad rules of engagement, drones ensure there is never an excuse for fucking up, and that fuckups get caught.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[tsm_sf]

I'm not really worried. I'm sure we'll hear about some 'bot wiping out it's own platoon in the next decade, and that will be the end of semi-autonomous killbots.

In fact, I'd be very surprised if this didn't happen in the next ten years. Armed robots are a great idea in that they'd cost less than a fully trained human and are more easily repairable. It's a natural way to go for the military. I also know enough about software development to see that a catastrophic failure is fairly likely, and that the idiot-proof failsafe they'll set up will turn out not to be and won't, respectively.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[joe_frisch]

I think a lot will depend on the extent to which the robot operator is held responsible for the semi-autonomous robot's actions. If the human is completely responsible, it might make ware less deadly. If the human can use the excuse "well the automatic targeting system mistakenly identified the 5 year old with a tricycle as an enemy robot - its a terrible shame, we need to update the recognition system" - then you have problems.

  There is a tendency for large organizations to avoid placing blame on any particular person - so the military might tend to deflect blame from the human operator. In fact the blame IS unclear - is it the operator, or one of the possibly thousands of programmers involved in the pattern recognition algorithms in the robot?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Baldrson]

Actually, I'm thinking of this more in terms of a private dystopia. In other words, imagine the nation states collapse and you have some multibilionare guy controlling an army of droids. Even if he is "well intentioned" as is Bill Gates, what is to keep him from deciding that feeding millions of fat lazy over-paid American programmers to starving African children isn't the "moral" thing to do?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[mbone]

Well, suppose your Mom was at a restaurant having dinner, and it got blown up, killing her and most of the rest of the clientele, and you learned that the restaurant was bombed without warning because a "high value target" was supposed to have been there, but wasn't. (This has happened, and it was no accident.) I assume, based on the above, you would feel that "them's the breaks," but I can assure you that many people would conclude that the people dropping the bombs don't really care much as to whether civilians were killed or not, and you don't have to dig very deep to learn that in reality many of the people at the receiving end of such incidents do indeed feel that the people behind the bombs deserve punishment.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Maxo-Texas]

Exactly-- during those times that killing is necessary, then those who enjoy and are skillful at it, will excel.

I had a rat problem once.
First I took them away.
Didn't help.
Finally, I took a stick and went to killing them.
At first it was a bit tramatic.
Very quickly it became enjoyable and cat/mouse hunterly like.

It was ineffective tho, so I went to poison. That stopped the problem.

Animals enjoy playing with and killing other animals. Humans are animals.

In the face of massive propaganda that life is sacred and we shouldn't kill, people still do it and a lot of them enjoy doing it and are good at it.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[CopaceticOpus]

Yes, it will happen. No, it won't stop development. Depending what you mean by autonomous, it may have already happened.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the video for an automated orlikan 20mm canon gone berserk

Found it

http://m.gizmodo.com/site?sid=gizmodoip&pid=JuicerHub&targetUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2F312443%2Frobot-cannon-goes-berserk-kills-9%3Fop%3Dpost%26refId%3D312443

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, terrible example: if my mom ran a red light, it's partially her fault. It's not really your fault for going into a building that was going to be bombed (unless you're a human shield or something). Let's say the man who hit my mom was a drunk driver. And this wasn't his first fatal accident.

I don't think the death penalty is ever appropriate. I'm also not convinced there's a huge difference between *a certain class of* accidental homicide and intentional homicide.

With intentional homicide, a big part of the reason we punish very harshly is we're afraid that the sort of person who'll do this is liable to decide to do it again. With accidental homicide? Was it avoidable? If a person is criminally negligent, we might again be just as afraid they'll do it again. Like a recidivist drunk driver, who ultimately shows no more regard for human life than the intentional murderer, is just as dangerous and just as despicable.

A pattern of bombing buildings full of civilians, even by accident, is just as horrifying as somebody doing as many on purpose. If you want lenience, then the accidents have to STOP HAPPENING. No accidents in a few decades, say.

But what happens is a cost-benefit analysis. "We can win with 0% accidents, but it would take a kabillion dollars and 500 million soldiers and risks Y and Z. Or we could go with what we know, and win, and have an accident X% of the time, which is regrettable but acceptable. Or we could lose." Obviously a bit more complicated than that, but there it is. And as long as option b is chosen, then the difference between doing it intentionally and doing it by an accident that we chose to risk is academic.

And maybe option B is the right choice, the best of all worlds. STILL doesn't make the other side feel any better.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[QuantumG]

Another way to look at it is that if every single order has to be entered into a command terminal somewhere and the robots in the field are logging all their own "decisions" then you've got a perfect information situation for tribunals.

"An atrocity occurred and we have the logs to prove it!"

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Eivind]

Agreed. Suffering own losses is pretty much the only thing that in practice limits the willingness of some leaders to wage war. It doesn't limit it all that much either, truth be told. But the endless rows of young american men coming home horisontally, DID play a major role in turning opinion in cases like the Vietnam War, and I think it'll do the same in Afghanistan and Iraq. The american public tire of sacrificing an endless row of their young, for issues and countries they don't really care -that- much about.

Already, technological differences means that the US can wage war with very low body-counts. Around 4500 US soldiers has been killed in Iraq, which compares favourably with the ~100K Iraqis who's been killed. (a 1:20 ratio, aproximately). I do not think the US public would've accepted the war (many of them don't accept it, even now) if the ratio to be expected had been closer to 1:1.

I can't help but wonder how many wars the next Bush will choose to engage in, if it can be done with a 1:100 ratio, or a 1:1000, or a 1:5000. If you could overthrow a major government, while losing -20- of your own men, would the reluctance to do so be smaller ? I think it would.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[johanatan]

You should have more faith in the power of science and evolution.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[blahplusplus]

"In fact, I'd be very surprised if this didn't happen in the next ten years. Armed robots are a great idea in that they'd cost less than a fully trained human and are more easily repairable. It's a natural way to go for the military. I also know enough about software development to see that a catastrophic failure is fairly likely, and that the idiot-proof failsafe they'll set up will turn out not to be and won't, respectively."

Many people also had doubts the atom bomb would work but who had to eat crow?

Human beings are already dangerous enough to themselves, I think we really need a manhattan project on biological deficits of humanity itself, fuck the robots.

As george carlin once said, the planet is fine, it's the people that are fucked.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just it -- human nature never changes.

To a certain degree, you're right. We'll always kill each other, but our philosophies on war certainly do change. Once upon a time it was preferable to carpet bomb, or even nuke a town. Now we go to previously absurd lengths, spending countless dollars and even risking the lives of our own soldiers, every single day, in an effort to minimize civilian casualties on the other side.

The general can order genocide but it's up to the soldiers to carry it out. The My Lai Massacre was stopped by a helicopter pilot who put his bird between the civilians and "told his crew that if the U.S. soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers."

And now we celebrate the pilot and condemn the solider who didn't question his orders. That's a long overdue but significant change.

Robots aren't really the issue -- distancing humans from killing is the problem. Not many of us could kill another human being with our bare hands. A knife might make the task easier in the doing but does nothing to ease the psychological horror of it. Guns let you do it at a distance. You don't even have to touch the guy. And buttons make it easier still. It's like you're not even responsible. You could convince young men to fly bombers over enemy cities and rain down incendiaries but I don't think you could convince many of them to kill even one of those civilians with a gun, let alone a knife.

Of course you could. We always have, and still do kill up close and personal. We just prefer to do it at a distance. And here's where I agree with you. Part of why we kill at a distance is because it's safer. The other part is because it is easier to drop a bomb and kill 20 people than it is to stab each one to death with a knife. Though we don't carpet bomb like we used to.

This is the strange distinction we make where we find one form of killing a horrible thing, a war crime, terrorism, and another form of killing is a regrettable accident but there's really no blame to be assigned. A suicide bomber walks into a pizzeria and blows himself up, we lose our minds. An Air Force bomber drops an LGB in a bunker filled with civilians instead of top brass, shit happens. We honestly believe there's a distinction between the two. "Americans didn't set out to kill civilians" war hawks will huff. Yes, but they're still dead, aren't they?

I've never understood this mentality. You're correct, there's little difference to the family of a civilian casualty. But intentionally killing civilians because those are the ones you can get to easily is one thing. Accidentally killing civilians you were trying to avoid, dropping aid and sending in people to treat the wounded and rebuild, sometimes in the same day, is something completely different. Again some would say we go way too far and risk failure of missions as a result. I think it's trying to making the best of a horrible thing, and certainly different from the first. The old fashion guy in me gets pretty upset when you say there's no difference... it's quite literally calling US soldiers terrorists. I don't think that's true, I think there's a world of difference.

Those in the artillery corps are firing their shells off into the unseen distance and have no idea who they're killing. Not that much different from laying land mines, indiscriminate killing. Psychologically no different from what it would be to set a robot on patrol mode, fire-at-will.

Just for clarification... we don't send artillery units into a country and let them indiscriminately 'fuck shit up'. People call in artillery on coordinates, both the selection and accuracy of which are unmatched in history. The expectation is that we know exactly who we're killing. We don't willy-nilly lob artillery all over a city like everyone has for the last few hundred years, and this is a pretty recent development in the history of warfare.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[shervinemami]

Its true that military robots & technology are trying to be used to make warfare more "clean", so that the desired targets can be bombed with the least damage to civilians. That is good, atleast in theory, BUT at the end of the day, it is still all going to be controlled by the military leaders that don't necessarily know who are the civilians and who are the targets.

I have actually worked on a military robot for intended deployment in Iraq, and our military officer explained that when you are in a place like Iraq, you don't know who the enemy is and who the civilians are, because even if you see a 5yr old girl with her innocent looking grandmother and you ignore or help them, they are just as likely to try to secretly attack you as someone dressed in military uniform. So the US military in Iraq has to basically assume everyone that isn't a US soldier might be the enemy and therefore they can convince themselves that the ethical thing to do is kill anyone they see that they aren't completely sure is on their side.

So it doesn't matter whether the soldiers have basic weapons or latest military robots, they are still in the mind-set that any civilian can be considered part of the enemy's military.

The main advantage of military robots to the USA is that the countries that USA invades will be much poorer & less advanced countries than USA, so the enemy wont be able to make use of cutting-edge military technology compared to America.

If you don't believe me, put it this way: if Iraq had just as many military soldiers & robots fighting in USA as USA has in Iraq, do you still think people would see this the same way? The "Iraq War" and the "Afghanistan War" aren't wars, they are one-sided invasions, so its very different than if those countries were actually bombing America on a daily basis.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[ranton]

Well, suppose your Mom was at a restaurant having dinner, and it got blown up, killing her and most of the rest of the clientele, and you learned that the restaurant was bombed without warning because a "high value target" was supposed to have been there, but wasn't. (This has happened, and it was no accident.) I assume, based on the above, you would feel that "them's the breaks," but I can assure you that many people would conclude that the people dropping the bombs don't really care much as to whether civilians were killed or not, and you don't have to dig very deep to learn that in reality many of the people at the receiving end of such incidents do indeed feel that the people behind the bombs deserve punishment.

Just because you are upset and may want retribution, you are still going to see the distinction between this and someone intentionally killing your mother.

No one said that accidental deaths are meaningless. But jollyreaper was claiming that there is no distinction between the intentional murder and accidental deaths (or even collateral damage). I think stdarg's example was spot on.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, for thousands of years of recorded history, people did kill each other en masse at arm's length. Alexander's soldiers may have been more honest about what they were doing than somebody today sitting in a bunker pressing a button and killing people on the other side of the globe, but they were no less bloodthirsty.

Actually, Alexander's (well, Phillip's) phalanges fought at 10-foot polearm's length. It was a great innovation back then in olden days... and it also shows that ancient warriors chose to be "less honest about what they were doing" if they had that choice. When you think about it, through entire history of war, each improvement in distancing your soldiers from their own kill zone gave your side strategic advantage. However, the problem we see today is that distance has become so great that you are not sure who and if anyone do you kill. Combined with relaxation of conscience and of sense of responsibility, it is an invitation to large scale disasters. Of course, humanitarian laws exist, but those who have to rely on them (and/or mercy of their enemies) are in deep, deep trouble. As necessity will have it, soon we will find out about theoretical and practical limitations of robotic weapons.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[ultranova]

That's just it -- human nature never changes. The general can order genocide but it's up to the soldiers to carry it out. The My Lai Massacre was stopped by a helicopter pilot who put his bird between the civilians and "told his crew that if the U.S. soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers."

Yes. On the other hand, the reason that My Lai happened in the first place is that people had been under constant stress and simply snapped. Had the entire war been fought with robotic soldiers, and instead of body bags only scrap metal had been sent back home, would the general had ordered a genocide? I doubt it, for there would have been no emotional involvement, and no stress and bottled-up hatred.

Finally, if you're a soldier patrolling a conquered city, and you see someone seemingly unarmed running towards you, it could be a suicide bomber about to blow you up, or it could simply be someone running. You risk killing an innocent or you risk getting killed. On the other hand, if the patrol is robotic, it can simply wait; if the robot is blown up, no big deal, the factory has already built three new ones to replace it by the time the last pieces hit the ground, so you can err on the side of not shooting unless it's really obvious it's an enemy.

Robot infantry removes human emotions from the war, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

However, the problem we see today is that distance has become so great that you are not sure who and if anyone do you kill. Combined with relaxation of conscience and of sense of responsibility, it is an invitation to large scale disasters.

Big deal. A few hundreds years ago it may have been easier to tell who you were killing, but nobody really made the distinction between soldiers and civilians. After you destroyed an enemy army, it was customary to plunder their homes, rape their women, kill off fighting-age men, and enslave everyone else. Now we get upset because we accidentally killed 5 civilians who were too close to the target.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

War... war never changes.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, whats wrong with robots with civilian operators? Why in the friggin world would you need any patter recognition if you have a meat sack watching and controlling the robot from hundreds of miles away? WHY WOULD WE RISK LETTING ROBOTS MAKE DECISIONS, THEY WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD. Damn this is good weed.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[meringuoid]

I'm not really worried. I'm sure we'll hear about some 'bot wiping out it's own platoon in the next decade, and that will be the end of semi-autonomous killbots.

Because that doesn't happen already with humans from time to time. IIRC, in the invasion of Iraq, more British soldiers were killed by Americans than by Iraqis.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

To extend your car analogy, military failures which result in the death of civillians (whether through lack of intelligence or technological failures) would be akin to someone killing your mom who has run a red light because they were driving with their eyes closed, on the basis that 99% of the time nobody will run a red light. Being able to kill someone from a great distance should carry with it an inherent duty of care that is orders or magnitude greater than a soldier in the field (for one thing, you don't have to worry that your target will pull a gun or a grenade and get you first). If it's not possible to guarantee you get the right target when pulling the trigger from 1,000 miles away, then you shouldn't be pulling the trigger, not pulling it anyway and chalking it up to "accidents happen".

Re:"Friendly AI"

[delinear]

Actually, I'm thinking of this more in terms of a private dystopia. In other words, imagine the nation states collapse and you have some multibilionare guy controlling an army of droids. Even if he is "well intentioned" as is Bill Gates, what is to keep him from deciding that feeding millions of fat lazy over-paid American programmers to starving African children isn't the "moral" thing to do?

Okay, suddenly "embrace, extend, extinguish" seems even more sinister. I'm not sure whether this is the point to make some jibe about not having to worry as they'll be running Windows and will randomly crash or whether I should just give up and welcome our new robotic overlords.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[dyfet]

Actually the whole purpose of modern military training is precisely to psychologically condition people to kill. Back in the "old" days (ww2), in a typical battle only 15% might actively participate. By the time of the Mai Li massacre the use of psychological conditioning had already brought kill rates up to 85%.

Besides the ease of which it enables civilian massacres and war crimes, from Mail Li to Falluja, the other problem with psychological conditioning is that soldiers are discharged cheaply, but there is no immediate "off" switch to such training. But governments care not, for it is not part of the military budget to also return people sanely to civilian life. Some end up in violent incidents and hence the result is damage in the civilian population, but many choose to kill themselves. Just as one example, the suicide death rate for U.S. soldiers who had served in Iraq is actually higher than the battlefield casualty rate! That is more soldiers kill themselves than die in battle today.

The problem is often not that soldiers will not kill civilians, such as to protect an unpopular leader. The problem rather is that most nations cannot afford the psychological conditioning and training needed to maintain a force that will, certainly on a large scale. This was the dilemma faced for example by the Chinese government at Tiananmen Square, who back then did not have the resources to condition a military that completely, though eventually they found units from the countryside who had no connection to the region that would kill.

War robotics can however do more than simply remove people (who may still control them) from combat. It can be used to remove people from knowledge of who is being killed and why, particularly useful when using such troops in local suppression. Imagine if they are told they are fighting a terrorist group in the midst of a city in Afghanistan, with all the audio falsely altered so the language people are speaking no longer sounds English, and the video feeds scrubbed of other identifying features, when in reality they are controlling robots suppressing a domestic protest in Detroit? Of course, if people are no longer needed to control them, then even this issue is eliminated. In this, I agree an AI that follows orders without conscience would be the very best friend of a modern police state.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[delinear]

I have actually worked on a military robot for intended deployment in Iraq, and our military officer explained that when you are in a place like Iraq, you don't know who the enemy is and who the civilians are, because even if you see a 5yr old girl with her innocent looking grandmother and you ignore or help them, they are just as likely to try to secretly attack you as someone dressed in military uniform. So the US military in Iraq has to basically assume everyone that isn't a US soldier might be the enemy and therefore they can convince themselves that the ethical thing to do is kill anyone they see that they aren't completely sure is on their side.

True, and if you were a soldier in the field and someone acted oddly (and let's face it, the cultures are so different, pretty much anything could be construed as odd) and have a split second to decide whether to fire in self defence or hold off, it means the difference between life and death every single time (for you or for them). At least with robots you only have a financial cost if you err on the side of restraint and get it wrong - of course that cost is likely to be not insignificant, someone is then going to weigh up the cost of a human life versus losing a piece of kit (and once the kit is cheap enough that everyone can field it, you're back to square 1 anyway).

Re:"Friendly AI"

[icebraining]

That is completely fallacious.

Someone who drops a LGB KNOWS he's going to kill people. It's like firing a gun in a random direction in the middle of NY, and saying that you didn't expect the bullets to hit someone.

You *know* it's going to kill someone. You *can't* make mistakes if you're trying to kill someone. If you do, you *should* be punished for it.

As they say, failure is not an option. If you don't want to take the chance, don't take a weapon in your hands.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[jollyreaper]

Of course, for thousands of years of recorded history, people did kill each other en masse at arm's length. Alexander's soldiers may have been more honest about what they were doing than somebody today sitting in a bunker pressing a button and killing people on the other side of the globe, but they were no less bloodthirsty. So I don't think you can blame the modern willingness to kill on the impartiality created by modern military technology, because the modern willingness to kill looks remarkably like the ancient willingness to kill, just with different tools.

Part of it is cultural conditioning. People who grow up in times of war like that are more willing to do the whole rape and pillage thing. But just look at the problem modern armies have had conditioning soldiers to shoot to kill. The statistics come from WWI, II, Korea, and Vietnam. Something like one in ten soldiers were shooting for effect when their lives weren't immediately in danger. Not sure exactly how this was determined but the whole kill drill done in boot camp is about breaking that resistance until shooting becomes automatic. The studies said it became 100% by Vietnam.

There's a desensitization that comes with all of this, of course. Take a normal, sane, caring 18-yr old and put him in a fucked situation like Iraq. The first month in, he's not wanting to hurt civilians. After he loses his best friend to a car bomb driven by what looked like "civilians" he's willing to kill all the motherfucking motherfuckers and doesn't care about arguments of guilt or innocence. They're local, they're all guilty. Of course, there's also the guys who shoot up a car they think is running the blockade only to find out it was just a confused father with his family and here's the kids dripping life into the street. That's gonna stick with those guys for the rest of their lives. Might even cause them to eat a bullet.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[jollyreaper]

Well, suppose your Mom was at a restaurant having dinner, and it got blown up, killing her and most of the rest of the clientele, and you learned that the restaurant was bombed without warning because a "high value target" was supposed to have been there, but wasn't. (This has happened, and it was no accident.) I assume, based on the above, you would feel that "them's the breaks," but I can assure you that many people would conclude that the people dropping the bombs don't really care much as to whether civilians were killed or not, and you don't have to dig very deep to learn that in reality many of the people at the receiving end of such incidents do indeed feel that the people behind the bombs deserve punishment.

Read for content. I was criticizing that attitude by saying there's no moral distinction between the suicide bombing and the Air Force bombing.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Baldrson]

Thank you for the slam dunk on MS software quality.

But I was serious about the dystopian potential sans nation states. Nation states at least have the virtue that things like review of war-making decisions, if nothing else, pay lip service to involvement by "the people" rather than by "the meat".

Re:"Friendly AI"

[sznupi]

People were also using fully autonomous devices to kill; they are called traps.

For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trou_de_loup

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope the following name will bring up memories that show you how NOTHING has really changed in war.

Abu Ghraib.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[sznupi]

Also, most robot "casualties" could be quite easily repaired.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Idiomatick]

We kill less now than we did back then... even with the ease of doing so we have today, thats a good thing.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Idiomatick]

I'd like to point out that for the people giving the orders. The ones deciding to go to war we have even MORE distance than predator drones and such. So I doubt going fully automated will change much at all. Hell in North American news we generally don't show real battles or real killings because it is too brutal... But being in a democracy I think these are things people NEED to be seeing. (When we do see corpses it is usually only of our own to increase support)

Re:"Friendly AI"

[CptPicard]

There's the added component of who the enemy actually is considered to be... in a lot of the collateral-damage cases, frankly, it seems like although the demise of the civilians is "regrettable", they still are considered to be part of an enemy population, so it doesn't *really* matter, shit just happens. This is even more so when the whole deal starts to look like collective punishment, which is the case in a lot of what, say, Israel does.

Of course, for the suicide bomber terrorist, everyone in the restaurant is a high-value enemy target as they probably support whatever policies the suicide bomber finds oppressive etc. Perhaps his family died an unfortunate death as collateral damage or something...

Re:"Friendly AI"

[2obvious4u]

Tell that to the people of Pakistan, where our robots are killing innocent civilians.

If we know a terrorist is there instead of using a robot to drop a bomb we could have sent in a military police force to arrest the suspect. Instead, since we have removed ourselves from combat, we just play our video game a drop bombs on civilians.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[tibman]

So the US military in Iraq has to basically assume everyone that isn't a US soldier might be the enemy and therefore they can convince themselves that the ethical thing to do is kill anyone they see that they aren't completely sure is on their side.

I think that is the first month of deployment.. or the "i'm afraid to die" phase. If you can pass beyond that, the next phase is Acceptance. The "I'll probably die" phase lets you be less fearful and see the local population as normal people with malcontents mixed in. The third phase is "i'm already dead, time and place TBD" and that is a wonderful feeling to have. You only fear letting your guys down or jacking up the mission. In the third phase you typically only shoot at other muzzle flashes in the night.

they are one-sided invasions
That is the effect the US Army has/will always strive for. Iraq was supposed to have over 500k troops during the initial 2003 invasion. The invasion force was under 500k with 250k being from the US. Training, Technology, and Allies are what the US Military uses to overwhelm it's enemies.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[tophermeyer]

It's like firing a gun in a random direction in the middle of NY, and saying that you didn't expect the bullets to hit someone.

With respect, I think a better analogy would be firing a gun in the middle of NY knowing that 1) You will kill the person you are trying to kill and that 2) that bullet will tear right through that person and probably kill anyone unlucky enough to be standing downrange. Dropping explosives onto a high value target is very very likely to kill that target, but is also very very likely to kill anyone standing near them, innocent or not. The Risk/Benefit analysis here is about the value of killing the bad guy, versus the ramifications of potentially killing innocents.

That said, I do agree with you. Anyone dropping ordnance has to know that they will be killing someone. The burden that those people live with, is that they can't know who else they might kill in the process. I can't imagine what its like to have to do that.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[ErikZ]

"Welcome to the age of the push-button assassination."

It's been like that for decades. They're called remote controlled bombs.

And I don't see why you're saying that distancing humans from killing is bad. The ability to shut down your emotions and kill is built into people.

The killing machines have always been here. Just made from organics instead of plastics.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Toze]

Actually, modern willingness to kill is significantly different than ancient willingness to kill. Rates of death in combat didn't exceed 10% until the Napoleonic wars, and didn't reach 50% until the World Wars. David Grossman wrote a couple of books (On Killing, and On Combat) explaining the psychological tools used to increase a soldier's willingness to kill (and ability to avoid or recover from the severe psychological trauma caused by killing). Physical distance is precisely one of those methods, as is technological distance (button-pushing) and psychological distance (seeing the enemy as inhuman). The tendency of a nation or its troops to refer to the enemy in dehumanizing terms (raus, hun, sand nigger) is one example of the soldier's attempt to distance himself from the awareness that he's killing another human being. Modern combat training involves a lot of methods (human-shaped targets, training instinctive reaction, training obedience to orders) meant to create a buffer between the soldier and "the enemy."

If you read the "historical" accounts of most battles, you'll believe that 5,000,000 Persian soldiers invaded ancient Greece, and most of them died. Archeology suggests the numbers were more like 1,000,000 people at most, 100,000 of which at most were combat troops, and only 10,000 of them died before they went back home. War history where we have each sides' records of dead and wounded, and kills attributed to their own soldiers, show that most nations will significantly overestimate how many people they killed. Before Napoleon, despite the bloody accounts of even medieval battles, way more people would die from dysentery than sword wounds.

Today's soldiers are not any more bloodthirsty than Alexander's soldiers were, but they have tools that are much more effective, and significantly psychologically easier for them to use. The two benefits of robot soldiers are that, first, it will reduce the number of human beings on "our side" who are put in harm's way, and second, that it will be considerably easier for someone to push the button marked "kill" if it looks more like Command & Conquer than Apocalypse Now. We can see attrition rates of 80 or 90% today because we've made it psychologically and technically easy enough to kill 1,000 people with the push of one button. The danger, for example, of nukes in the cold war was not that nukes were destructive (though they were), but that they were easy to use. Stalin killed way more people by working them to death than died in Hiroshima- but in Hiroshima they only had to push a button. Killer robots are a lot like that. Easy to use.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[NightlordTW]

wars usually involve breaking the rules rather than following them

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

'Anonymous Coward' - hehe! I just don't want to register on yet another damned site...

Anyway, very well written. I hope it works in practice.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[stdarg]

Good point. I was talking about the wider point about whether intent matters when someone you care about is killed rather than trying to draw an analogy precisely to the bombing situation.

I guess an analogy closer to that would be, say your mom is taken hostage by an armed terrorist, right in front of a group of police officers who are all armed. It can turn out in a few likely ways:

1. The cops kill the terrorist and your mom is unharmed.
2. The cops kill the terrorist and your mom is killed by the terrorist at the last second.
3. The cops kill the terrorist and your mom is also killed by the cops accidentally.
4. The cops let the terrorist go and the terrorist kills your mom, then later the cops arrest the terrorist.
5. The cops let the terrorist go and the terrorist releases your mom unharmed, then later the cops arrest the terrorist.

1 and 5 are the best for your mom, no question. 1 may be better than 5 if you don't like terrorists.

But say 2, 3, or 4 happen since that's what we're talking about. I think a lot of people would support the death penalty for case 4 and there wouldn't be as much support for 2 or 3.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[stdarg]

If the rest of the platoon is also robots, it's not that big of a deal, as in a program-ending-we're-never-doing-this-again big of a deal.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[killmenow]

I think the better example for "why the morality of killing is situational" is this:

Suppose somebody murdered your mother. Your mother's dead. That was wrong.

Now, back up the clock. Suppose someone is trying to kill your mother but there's a struggle and in the course of defending herself she ends up killing them. They are dead. That was okay.

All killing is not equal. It's generally accepted that killing in self defense is justified. One of the problems with Americans dropping bombs indiscriminately on houses in Afghanistan and suicide bombers blowing themselves up in malls is they believe they are acting in self defense so it's justifiable.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Abu Ghraib is an excellent example.

Some of the things that happened at Abu Ghraib were embarrassing and wrong, but only by todays standards. It's an example of how war is far, far less savage than it used to be. Consider how angry people were about unkind photos. We flipped our lids over interrogation techniques that, when done properly, don't injure the subject beyond raised blood pressure. It wasn't long ago in the history of warfare that those same prisoners would have been seriously tortured, beaten within an inch of their lives, and eventually starved or worked to death. That way of doing things is absolutely unthinkable now.

Again, war is horrible, it always will be, and horrible things happen. Yet it's vastly different from even not-so-distant wars.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[killmenow]

Hopefully that's because the human race is evolving to be less beastly and more civilized. But we'll never get beyond this incidental killing. Hell, even in the advanced fictional civilization of the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek, the guy in the red shirt kept getting killed and nobody cared.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[stdarg]

I think the reluctance will be greater because there will be other solutions available due to the robots. Look at Afghanistan/Pakistan. Why are we bombing targets in Pakistan? Militants are crossing the border and hiding there. Well the Durand line is 2,640 km long so deploy 264,000 autonomous killbots (one every 10 meters). Provide air support to the killbots via 264 remote controlled or autonomous UAVs. No more need to bomb Pakistan. And if we had done that before invading Afghanistan, the Taliban wouldn't have even been able to escape into friendly territory to begin with, making the whole operation easier.

Really, no matter how bad a country becomes, if you have enough killbot dominance over them, you don't need to ever invade them or kill anybody. Just seal them off and allow nothing but food shipments into the country.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Wyatt Earp]

No, you mean "if we know a terrorist is there instead of using a robot to drop a bomb we could have sent a few hundred soldiers to assault a position, spend hours or days doing it and take many casualties and inflict even more civilian loses."

An example of what terrorists dug in take to root out -

"On 22 July 2003, Task Force 20, aided by troops of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division, had a showdown with Uday, Qusay and Qusay's 14-year-old son Mustapha during a raid on a home in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Acting on a tip from an unidentified Iraqi, the blocking element from the 101st Airborne Division provided security while the Task Force 20 operators attempted to apprehend the inhabitants of the house. The assault element withdrew to request backup. As many as 200 American troops, later aided by OH-58 Kiowa helicopters and an A-10 "Warthog", surrounded and fired upon the house. After approximately four hours of battle, soldiers entered the house and found four bodies, including the Hussein brothers' bodyguard."

Or a "police action" against armed criminals in a compound

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege

What a fight against a large group of insurgents is like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Phantom_Fury

Re:"Friendly AI"

[zippthorne]

Good point. But as the "guy with the restaurant bomb" (I assume you are referring to Bürgerbräukeller?) you have to weight the wrath of the survivors vs. the continued survival of the "high value target."

In wartime, a sufficiently high-value target may in fact be worth incurring that wrath. Such is the terrible calculus of war.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[mhajicek]

It'll happen, but chances are you won't hear about it. The argument could be made that the solution is to remove the humans from that picture.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[trytoguess]

Just because you are upset and may want retribution, you are still going to see the distinction between this and someone intentionally killing your mother.

Oh, there is a distinction, the bombing is far worse. If someone kills my mother, or someone I care about, at the very least, it'll be one person who did the deed, and the world at large will agree with my anger. A government orchestrated attack on the other hand, can't be pinned on one person, so it'll be virtually impossible to see any short of justice. To make matters worse, there will be groups who would claim that the death was necessary for the greater good, if not outright claim my loved one deserved it for being some tangential supporter of evil.

I probably would feel a smidge more lenient if someone killed a loved one purely by accident, but that isn't the case when we bomb targets.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[sourICE]

Armed robots are a great idea in that they'd cost less than a fully trained human and are more easily repairable.

Wrong. Humans are a renewable resource, they are produced much more rapidly than any other single resource/machine and run off of another very easily renewable resource(plants and animals).

In addition to all of these facts, you also forget to realize that in this situation it would still take a human to control the robot and it is quite likely that the robot would be dismantled by the enemy or damaged beyond repair in most battles. You do still have the saved trainee, however I don't believe he would ever end up being worth more than the expensive machine we created for him to control.

Machines will be more efficient than humans in warfare when either humans become rarer or machines can give birth and live off natural and renewable resources. Until then, flesh and blood humans will make the cheapest and easiest soldiers.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[sincewhen]

The interesting thing is that you could have overthrown Saddam Hussein with a single assassin's bullet (or cruise missile, or missile from a predator...).
That would have immediately brought about regime change.
However, that's a game our political leaders don't want to get into. I wonder why?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[RockDoctor]

So, are you saying that Blackwater [..] just created and sent out the first version of these robots?

Surely not the first such robots - since the Egyptians (possibly the Sumerians), drill sergeants and priests have been striving towards that end for millennia.

Oh, you mean non-human robots?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[ikeman32]

As long as they don't use windows as the operating system their may yet be a chance.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[2obvious4u]

In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, US troops could wait and not attack the compound either.

Ever civilian killed sets the cause back because it breeds resentment. Unless the target is an active threat, i.e. currently building a bomb. Then the loss of civilian life isn't worth the cost of the target. It may take longer to catch the target, but in the long term they'd be better off.

Building roads and infrastructure so a working police force could maintain order while building public trust would works so much better. Then when a terrorist blows up his own people and not a military drone, you have the support of the locals to drive on your newly paved roads and bust his door down. And when you bulldoze his house only killing him and his family you now have the support of the rest of the tribe who have lost lives to the terrorists bomb and not to a us drone attack.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Wyatt Earp]

Right, but you can't build a road or infrastructure without insurgents attacking them crews building the infrastructure.

I'm from the American West, so I get the concept of a crew being 50-60 miles from a settlement working on a road or pipe or powerlines, now imagine doing that when people sneak up on you to snipe, or send a car bomb in and blow up your crew.

The reaction would be to establish a perimeter with military/paramilitary support, so they are out there a km in all directions defending the construction. Then the attackers bring in mortars, so either you call in airstrikes or use drones or your own mortars.

When dealing with tribal areas, if the terrorist kills civilians, it doesn't mean the entire civilian population gets behind you, it might mean they start factional warfare (American Indian Wars, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam are all examples).

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Telling combatants from non-combatant can only be effectively done if it's a goal, and depends on the parameters (living in a village that *might* have helped a guerilla is generally enough to burn the whole area down without warning). Most of the time, it's not. Think afghanistan or vietnam. I don't trust someone megalomaniacal and paranoid enough to actually consider what the world needs right now is an army of robots to have his priorities straight. Double that if it's an army of female robots.

So, some people's lives just do not have the same value in the eyes of the warmongers. The question is, how much are you to them?

Plus, the humilitation of having your whole family slaughtered by a 17yo punk with an obnoxious screenname that yells "Pwnd!". There's no honour in slaughter, true, but still, wouldn't you be cut down by a bearded Gererd Butler in a G-string?

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately, it comes down to this : if there's an ultimate weapon, which is ultimately accurate, do you trust that it will effectively bring peace and the greater good?

I for one, given the possibility of just how it could go wrong, am not willing to.

Another side-question : who will wield this weapon? If it's only one nation, the path to world military domination is technically open - generally not a Good Thing. If several nations have access to it, would it bring a balance of any kind (blowing up the planer is not considered a balance in this context!)

I already bought my copy

[Cryacin]

http://www.amazon.com/How-Survive-Robot-Uprising-Defending/dp/1582345929

Disclaimer: I'm only a fan of the book. Quite funny. I'm not affiliated with the author in any way shape or form.

Re:I already bought my copy

[Anonymous Coward]

You wasted your money. "It also may be a good idea to carry around a pair of welder's goggles, as lasers will likely be robot attackers' weapons of choice"
I'd love to hear him explain how you're supposed to SEE where you're going while having the shade down.

Re:I already bought my copy

[philcheesesteak]

your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them. stretch out with your feellllings!

Re:I already bought my copy

[PaladinAlpha]

Yeah, I always wondered how you are supposed to drive your car when holding the brake down keeps it from moving...

Ok, that was a really bad analogy, but I would think the ability to, on short notice, sacrifice the ability to see to gain the ability to not be blinded by robot lasers would be invaluable -- no one is forcing you to run around blind. You get to decide when the tradeoff is worth it.

(Haven't read the book, in all honesty; this just struck me as odd)

Re:I already bought my copy

[Plunky]

You wasted your money. "It also may be a good idea to carry around a pair of welder's goggles, as lasers will likely be robot attackers' weapons of choice" I'd love to hear him explain how you're supposed to SEE where you're going while having the shade down.

Have you not heard of Automatic Welding Helmets? I have had one for years, they don't have a fixed shade as you can see through the screen just fine before and after the arc starts.. (the helmet part itself is more for general splatter protection, molten metal in your hair is not as bad as molten metal down the side of your boots but still, not much fun.. :)

I don't know if the darkening reaction would be quick or strong enough to protect you from a laser attack though..

Re:I already bought my copy

[foobsr]

Deadly Image (The Uncertain Midnight) (1958)
A novel by Edmund Cooper

Quote: "He was an anachronism... He was a twentieth century man who, by a freak of chance, survived to see an age in which working had become a social disgrace; an age in which culture and the arts reigned supreme; an age of mannered ladies and gentlemen, perfectly waited on and cared for by androids - the man-like creations of their own genius. The higher grade androids were doctors, engineers, politicians and personal "companions" to each and every human being. And in whatever they did, they were perfect. No one had to worry about them. For the first time in history, man had completely freed himself from the problems of living: EXCEPT... When perfect machines, with perfect performance, are made to perfectly resemble man - who needs man?"

Re:I already bought my copy

[Mikkeles]

'EXCEPT... When perfect machines, with perfect performance, are made to perfectly resemble man - who needs man?"'

To define meaning and purpose where there are none and to set goals to fit.

Re:I already bought my copy

[alexj33]

You need to feel safe, because robots are made of metal, and robots are strong.

Old Glory Robot Insurance

Re:I already bought my copy

[mhelander]

"who needs man?"

Perhaps...man?

Life imitating art...

[evil_aar0n]

Terminator, to start with. Is anyone surprised?

Re:Life imitating art...

[McFortner]

Rumor has it that GENOM is working on a combat Boomer....

No worries

[Anonymous Coward]

They just cut the budget for the program. Given the current budget problems I doubt there's much risk.

Re:No worries

[Koby77]

I'm pretty confident that there will be more budgeting for this sort of thing in the future though. If you look at the costs of a military operation, it's huge. There's a lot of money which can be saved by switching to robots. Not so for other areas such as manufacturing. When you can move your manufacturing to a 3rd world country and have $2 per day workers, there isn't much money to be saved by introducing a robot into the process. Inevitably, the global military R&D budget will continue to eclipse all other robotics research spending. Unless some other unforeseen robotics application which can save boatloads of money is realized, I think it's just a matter of simple economics that the future control of robots will be by the military industry.

Re:No worries

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, at this point the US military is the world's biggest make-work program for idiots. It's not ever going to switch to robots. We've already switched to robots in the only part of the military that matters, the part that rains fiery death from above. The rest is just fairy-tale bullshit.

Future "control of robots" won't be by anyone since they can be built by third-worlders using fairly common household objects. This is like arguing that space applications would dominate solar power production. It did, for a long time. But that time is over. A few hundred thousand bureaucrats, even with all of your tax dollars, can't outspend a third of the world economy.

Once even a tiny fraction of India and China reach a level of development sufficient to afford robots, that will be the end of the US "military industry" controlling anything.

Re:No worries

[Ethanol-fueled]

Look, at this point the US military is the world's biggest make-work program for idiots.

Hey, come on, not all of them are idiots, only the ones who stay in longer than 1 term of enlistment. Why work for chump change, shit food, and terrible hours with the possible risk of being killed when you could be a contractor working for 60 bucks an hour with no worries of being jailed for smoking a joint?

Once even a tiny fraction of India and China reach a level of development sufficient to afford robots, that will be the end of the US "military industry" controlling anything.

Hell, I'd be surprised if the U.S. didn't oursource all of it's work to China by then. Corporate espionage is only a small price to pay when there's plenty of oil to be taken because, at this point, everybody(especially China) needs oil as much as we do. And the rest of the world will turn a blind eye, because nobody likes Muslims :->

Re:No worries

[Anonymous Coward]

Money is saved everywhere. You don't need doctors, chaplains or cooks to look after the soldiers, nor do you need large {logisitics, postal service, uniforms or bases}. The army will go the way of the navy or airforce where the actual lethal power is in the machines. Perhaps a small remnant of soldiers will exist to protect the robots...

(I rant and rant but let me say one more thing: we could end up with a navy of fighting sea machines, an airforce of fighting air machines, an army of fighting land machines and separate off an organization of fighting humans.)

Once again, The Simpsons is correct!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_of_Lisa_Simpson

"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."

Re:Once again, The Simpsons is correct!

[ZPWeeks]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords!

Wernstrom Killbots...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do these killbots come with a machine gun AND Lotus Notes?

Re:Wernstrom Killbots...

[Anonymous Coward]

If theyre equipped with Lotus Notes, they have no need for a machine gun...

Look on the bright side

[93 Escort Wagon]

"He also voices concerns about military use of robots — suggesting it won't be long before armies are sending out fully autonomous killing machines."

This Gloomy Gus overlooks the obvious. These "fully autonomous killin machines" - let's call them, oh I don't know, "killbots" - will almost certainly have a preset kill limit. So right there we'll have an easy way to stop them!

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

"He also voices concerns about military use of robots — suggesting it won't be long before armies are sending out fully autonomous killing machines."

This Gloomy Gus overlooks the obvious. These "fully autonomous killin machines" - let's call them, oh I don't know, "killbots" - will almost certainly have a preset kill limit. So right there we'll have an easy way to stop them!

Hell yeah! The next time we need our military to go blow the shit out of a little nation of brown people that is no threat to us and has no WMDs, at least we don't have to put our own troops into harm's way.

Re:Look on the bright side

[Sulphur]

"killbots" - will almost certainly have a preset kill limit

Failing that, game warden bots.

If You Watch the Whole Video

[eldavojohn]

Am I the only one who picked up on his visual cues that indicate this is the first time he's been out of his lab in over a year? Look at how tired and emaciated he is. Also, I think there's bar code tattoo on his inner arm that -- if you lift the image and scan it -- reads "HUMAN 00001" which is kind of disconcerting. The part at the end where he holds up the captcha that reads "HELP, PLEASE HELP ME" was a dead giveaway. While his voice and text was overly positive towards the proliferation of his "sleek metal masters" I believe his body language indicated otherwise.

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[biryokumaru]

And his blinking! It was binary for "SKYNET" over and over again...

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[camperdave]

Also, I think there's bar code tattoo on his inner arm that -- if you lift the image and scan it -- reads "HUMAN 00001" which is kind of disconcerting.

I'll say it's disconcerting. It means he's the First Variety.

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[rossifer]

Look out for the little boy with the teddy bear...

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[Anonymous Coward]

I know Noel. He has certainly been out of his lab. He is a smart guy and a good guy. To me, if Noel thinks that there could be a problem, I take it seriously. There are many idiots out there. Noel is not one of them. So, please keep you ad hominem attacks to yourself.

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[armyofone]

That **whooshing** sound you hear is the spinning knife-blade hands of the robot army coming for you. Better hurry and put your affairs in ord - wait... what...?

Ok, never mind. It was just the sound of the joke going over your humor-devoid cranium ;-)

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[Captain Hook]

there's bar code tattoo on his inner arm that -- if you lift the image and scan it -- reads "HUMAN 00001" which is kind of disconcerting.

Disconcerting indeed since they apperently don't see the need for more than 99,999 humans worldwide. Presumably they want to keep a few of us alive to do the jobs which no self-respecting robot would ever want to do.

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[Tolkien]

Did we watch the same video? None of that was there.

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[Culture20]

Also, I think there's bar code tattoo on his inner arm that -- if you lift the image and scan it -- reads "HUMAN 00001" which is kind of disconcerting.

I'll say it's disconcerting. It means he's the First Variety.

So there wasn't a HUMAN 00000?

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[Kehvarl]

It's even worse than you think: these are robots, and the number is in binary! The robots see a need for no more than 32 humans worldwide, 31 if they index from 1.

Obligatory simpsons quote

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Obligatory simpsons quote

[Boronx]

Straight out of Ice Pirates.

Terminator LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the future is either going to be biologically engineered disaster of zombies, or robots that get programmed for peace keeping by killing all humans.

2012 dec 21st, be there

(Disclaimer: I'm not a conspiracy theorist nut.)

Re:Terminator LOL

[Anachragnome]

"(Disclaimer: I'm not a conspiracy theorist nut.)"

Thats good, otherwise the Government would already be deconstructing your Blogosphere presence.

I think we should all be posting with such a disclaimer.

Re:Terminator LOL

[dangitman]

Yes, the future is either going to be biologically engineered disaster of zombies, or robots that get programmed for peace keeping by killing all humans.

Why the false dichotomy? It could just as likely be zombie robots, or robot zombies.

Re:Terminator LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the false dichotomy? It could just as likely be zombie robots, or robot zombies.

Well first a zombie would have to build a robot - I doubt that is ever going to happen.

I, Professor

[SEWilco]

So how long has Sheffield University been using robotic professors?

Petman

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we have petman, which is basically half a BigDog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67CUudkjEG4 These are really the types of robots that are now the state of the art. REEM-B is really a ASIMO copy, and in that sense not really interesting. It is a really good implementation of the known techniques.

Like with so many other industries

[motherjoe]

Like with so many other industries where human workers were replaced with robots. The robots replacing Human warriors won't feel fatigue, pain, need to be fed, have family concerns, retire, collect benefits, and lest we forget, never ever question an order. NO matter how perverse.

IMHO

Re:Like with so many other industries

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah like our current crop of soldiers have any problems raping/killing women and children. Or maybe thats why so many of them are committing suicide when they come home.

Re:Like with so many other industries

[Duradin]

It's a good thing that killing men is guilt free then.

To use a Stalin quote: "Killing a woman is a tragedy, killing men is a statistic".

Fully autonomous killing machines

[bug1]

Autonomous untill they run out of power or ammo.

Its all about the AI, humans can learn and adapt to machine behavior faster than robots can adapt to human behavior.

Humans will always be better than machines at killing humans (unfortunately), machines can only simulate our thinking...

If robots ever get an AI superior to human intelligence, then yes we are redundant on the battlefield and everywhere else.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Sparx139]

Actually, I remember hearing/reading/something somewhere that there are prototype robots that can scavenge wood, etc. to burn for fuel. Sure, it's not bullets, but it does make a point. A quick google got me this.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Mr. Freeman]

"Humans will always be better than machines at killing humans (unfortunately), machines can only simulate our thinking..."

I disagree. What robots lack up for in creativity they make up for in the ability to withstand orders of magnitude more damage than humans. I mean, blow a robot's leg clean off and its weapon systems still work. It doesn't pass out from blood loss or pain. Put a few bullets though it and chances are it's still going to be up and running. No human can do that.

They won't be creative, but everything is going to be directed by human commanders located in a semi-remote facility, so it's a non-issue. Any new threat will be adapted to by the humans controlling the robots.

Furthermore, humans need to be creative to avoid getting killed. That really isn't an issue with robots. One dead soldier is a very bad thing, 50 dead robots isn't good but no one is going to lose any sleep over it. If you kill half of a human squad, they're probably not going to advance any further. Wipe out half a fleet of robotic killing machines and they'll keep marching right on in.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Concerned Onlooker]

"Autonomous untill they run out of power or ammo."

As long as you've got the ammo, you've got the power.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[ragnar.ruutel]

They won't be creative, but everything is going to be directed by human commanders located in a semi-remote facility, so it's a non-issue. Any new threat will be adapted to by the humans controlling the robots.

This is true until when we discover how our own brain works and then copy it to robots. Although we already have some idea there's still a lot to research. When we can map and describe our brain functions (or majority of them) into some sort of mathematical form and implement them on robots, technological singularity becomes possible thus providing a way for robots to be more intelligent/creative/etc. then us.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[bug1]

everything is going to be directed by human commanders

If its directed by human commanders its not fully autonomous.

autonomous /tnms/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [aw-ton-uh-muhs] Show IPA
-adjective
1. Government.
a. self-governing; independent; subject to its own laws only.
b. pertaining to an autonomy.
2. having autonomy; not subject to control from outside; independent: a subsidiary that functioned as an autonomous unit.
3. Biology.
a. existing and functioning as an independent organism.
b. spontaneous.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[bug1]

If you find the weakness to kill one robot it will work on everyone of them.

What use is a robot if you shoot one in the camera with a paintball ?

And how can a fully autonomous killing machine discriminate between soldiers and civilians.

A weapon is only as good as the intelligence controlling it, thats how armies are run, accept it.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Mr. Freeman]

"And how can a fully autonomous killing machine discriminate between soldiers and civilians."

Why does this come up in every fucking robotics discussion? Yes, it's hard to tell the difference NOW. Give it 10 years and image processing an AI will have evolved to such a level that it may be possible.

Obviously there are some technical hurdles. If there weren't then we'd have the technology NOW.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[drinkypoo]

Autonomous untill they run out of power or ammo.

Humans run out of power and ammo, too. Humans, however, can only eat food.

Humans will always be better than machines at killing humans (unfortunately), machines can only simulate our thinking...

They could simulate yours fairly trivially. You don't need anything as smart as a human to kill humans. It only has to be able to move and kill, it doesn't need to be able to change a diaper or cook spaghetti.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Anonymous Cowpat]

if it were armed with a railgun, it could scavenge (non-ferous) metal to use as ammunition, too.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[adamofgreyskull]

Why does this come up in every fucking robotics discussion? Yes, it's hard to tell the difference NOW.

It's hard enough for SOLDIERS on the ground NOW to tell the difference, let alone robots. Maybe that's why it keeps coming up?

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[meringuoid]

What use is a robot if you shoot one in the camera with a paintball ?

Just at a guess, it would have more than one camera. Depth perception, you know? I mean, what fool would build an armoured mechanical killing machine with a totally exposed single point of failure like that?

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[delinear]

If you find the weakness to kill one robot it will work on everyone of them.

What use is a robot if you shoot one in the camera with a paintball ?

What use is a human soldier if you shoot him in the eyes with a paintball? We already know the weaknesses of human soldiers, it doesn't make fighting them a lot easier though, you have to assume they'll be fighting back for one.

And how can a fully autonomous killing machine discriminate between soldiers and civilians.

This is, as always, the sticking point. You'd need some pretty damn good pattern recognition software, maybe combined with hardware to make the job easier (some kind of x-ray or ultrasound to show up weaponry?), of course that'll never account for the guy with the sledgehammer who calmly walks up to your bot and smashes it's robotic brains out. On the plus side, robots can withstand some initial damage while they do their threat assesments (if someone just shot you, they're probably a threat) and still be in a fit condition to respond. On the down side, the enemy will soon learn to adapt and fight back in unexpected ways, and this is where robots will really struggle to respond.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[bug1]

What use is a human soldier if you shoot him in the eyes with a paintball?

Not much, but you can bet that in quick time everyone will be wearing eye protection, it will take much more time to send a batch of robots back to the manufacturer for modification.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" doesnt apply to robots.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[sznupi]

A weapon is only as good as the intelligence controlling it, thats how armies are run, accept it.

Not quite; give rats or ants high explosives (or nuclear warheads?) and they might doom us all.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[conureman]

You post that as if you don't think they're on it already.

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Mr. Freeman]

And give soldiers another 20 years worth of tech gadget development and all of a sudden you'll have a wearable interface that looks remarkably like COD4, where the bad guys have bright red markers above their heads.

Career

[michaelmalak]

Is he concerned enough to give up his job teaching others how to make robots?

Re:Career

[delinear]

Well I'd rather the ethical people who are worrying about these issues were teaching robotics than the non-ethical ones. It's not like him resigning his post would end robot development or even hinder it in any serious way.

Good Idea

[outsider007]

Automating the death panel process is a good way to save taxpayers money.
Also since robots eat old people's medicine for food, they will basically be self-powered.

Re:Good Idea

[Mr. Freeman]

Thank god I've got Old Glory robot insurance. I'm fully covered in case of attacks from robots.

Building artificially intelligent killing machines

[meldroc]

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, we've had a whole 150,000 years since the last time we built Cylons and they rebelled, attempting genocide against the human race. Surely it can't happen again...

A note of realism...

[Artifakt]

The whole Skynet metaphor is becoming part of the problem. Real robotics is nowhere near Terminators, but it doesn't need to be. Fears of creating unstoppable battledroids are eclipsing the more real fears of simply adding another destabilizing system to the warfare environment. Many battlefield robotics implementations well within the current state of the art look like they will become another scourge like landmines. Not an unstoppable threat, not even all that influential in combat against decently trained and equipped human troops, but instead systems fairly cheap compared to their infrastructure damage potential, very indescriminate in their targeting, and a hazard well after formal hostilities have ended. Weapons systems that are high on collateral damage to civilians and for that very reason tend to trigger asymmetric warfare responses.

Re:A note of realism...

[Anonymous Coward]

most are not autonomous and unlike landmines dont stay dormant. even if they were autonomous they would run out of fuel quickly. gasoline and diesel dont sit around for months without going bad and batteries only hold their charge for so long. all current robots cant stay active for more than a week, most for 24 hours. they wont be a scourge for very long if deployed autonomously in a modern battlefield.

Re:A note of realism...

[nedlohs]

That seems unlikely. They are more expensive than land mines and shouldn't try to kill people their own side. So they are easier to recover and worth recovering.

They are also unlikely to be implemented as "suicide bombers" so they'll run out of ammo/power anyway.

And given keeping your tech out of the hands of enemies is a normal military goal you aren't going to just leave high tech robots around waiting to be studied by others (though that is an argument for including a suicide bomber feature).

Re:A note of realism...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the comment about infrastructure damage potential has to be kept in mind. Many comments here sing the praise of how much physical damage battle robots could soak - but that means you're going to be seeing heavier and heavier weapons deployed, and THAT means greater damage to infrastructure and civilians caught in the crossfire.

Re:A note of realism...

[Mr. Freeman]

The difference is that it is a big fucking pain in the ass to collect landmines after you're through with them and there's no benefit to the enemy to retrieve them.

No country with the ability to produce combat robots in their right mind would ever leave combat robots lying around. That would be handing enemies our technology on a silver platter to reverse engineer and turn against us. Same thing with things like attack helicopters. If one goes down then they fly some mechanics out to fix it. If they can't fix it then they remove the classified parts (most of the circuit boards and probably some other things that they don't disclose), pile it on the nose of the chopper, and light up a termite grenade on top of it.

If the helicopter goes down in such a way that the entire crew is dead and the chopper can't be reached by mechanics then they bomb it.

Re:A note of realism...

[Mr. Freeman]

You are aware that the mars rovers have been active for many YEARS now, right? It would be very possible to make a robot stay active longer than a week without maintenance.

Re:A note of realism...

[Mr. Freeman]

Not necessarily. Heavy weapons doesn't imply indiscriminate firepower. A soldier can't be expected to haul two Gatling cannons into battle, but a robot can. They can be aimed as precisely as a rifle. No one is saying that we need to equip every robot with 102 mm cannons and howitzers and things that can level a building.

Re:A note of realism...

[delinear]

I think AC's talking about the weaponry the enemy will have to deploy to negate the resilience of the bots. Not entirely sure how readily available that level of weaponry is to third world guerillas though (I know there is a lot of it around, but enough to equip every tropp who might encounter a killbot seems unlikely).

Re:A note of realism...

[sznupi]

I'm not sure; large portion of ground robots will be hardened, at least comparable in size to human, slow moving objects that can't take cover effectively. It seems to me that the most effective weapons against them would be either booby-traps (you can expect how they will move, and that they won't be able to notice "something is wrong" as easily) or anti-materiel sniper rifle (or generally any sniper rifle with proper ammo). Not too escalating above what's already out there.

Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[Kozz]

What kind of expense would be required to effectively shield these armies of robots from strong EMP? Or would an EMP be impractical or ineffective? Inquiring minds want to know.

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[Sparx139]

Assuming that they were vulnerable to EMPs and the like, wouldn't the use of these robots basically be giving away free ammo, etc. to the enemy?

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[10Neon]

The most practical way to get an EMP is with a nuclear weapon. If your robots need shielding from EMP, you have bigger things to worry about.

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[Shihar]

If you are lobbing EMP weapons at each other, you are already fucked and fighting WW3. Duck and cover. Emp blasts have very small rangers. With the amount of effort it takes to make a pulse big enough to fry a robot, you might as well just drop a normal bomb on their head and do it the old fashion way. The only time this isn't true is if you start lobbing neutron bombs and nukes. Those are probably worth the price... but if you are lobbing around nukes, you are already completely fucked and fighting the kind of war where cities get vaporized and civilizations collapse.

For your run of the mill insurgent, I am pretty sure your best solution is the old fashion one... explosives.

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[aXis100]

A focussed EM beam would work well though - eg a high gain microwave or radio waveguide could cause serious disruption.

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[flyingfsck]

Hmm, there are little devices call transzorbs and MOVs. This is why electronics don't get killed by thunderstorms anymore and it also protects against EMP bombs. These bombs do work really well in the movies though...

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[RMH101]

An EMP suitcase in a banking district would be a pretty effective weapon...

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the idea behind EMP was to denonate a large nuke in space, far enough out in the atmosphere that the harmful radiation doesnt touch us, but the EMP does.

I'm no scientist, this is going by watching Goldeneye and playing MW2....

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[Mr. Freeman]

Not much. The metal shell of the robot would work quite well to do this anyway. Look up "faraday cage". You can actually make one at home. Wrap your cell phone in aluminum foil, tada, it's shielded from EMP.

Re:Electromagnetic Pulse, anyone?

[Mr. Freeman]

That's pretty much it, at least according to wikipedia. Most people hear "emp comes from nuclear bomb" an immediately assume that it only works if the bomb is detonated on the ground.

I worry less ...

[PPH]

... about killbots and more about having to live with a race of Benders.

Re:I worry less ...

[rhyder128k]

If only you knew what the phrase "bender" meant in the UK...

Re:I worry less ...

[domatic]

That was spoken like a true meatbag.

"Friendly Evolution"

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's just it -- human nature never changes."

Of course it can. That's what evolution is for.

Re:"Friendly Evolution"

[lxs]

Good news... If you're prepared to wait a million years.

Re:"Friendly Evolution"

[marcosdumay]

No need for a milion years. A robot squadron getting ride of all humans (granted that those robots are able to operate a robot factory) is evolution enough.

On a second tough, that wouldn't change human nature either...

Don't they already exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring predator drones, etc. Weren't there semi autonomous robots deployed last year for testing in Iraq? If I remember they did have problems recognizing friendlies, but that is besides the point. Why are we reading about this? This seems like some old Nova or Beyond 2000 rerun where some 'expert' talks about the coming robot apocalypse. Is the UK still relevant in robotics? What have they ever done academically or commercially that comes close to robotics? The Dyson ball?

Look on the torch side

[Ostracus]

Hell yeah! The next time we need our military to go blow the shit out of a little nation of brown people that is no threat to us and has no WMDs, at least we don't have to put our own troops into harm's way.

Well some will never let the memory of GWB die. But I think if you ask the Kurds (Don't gas me, bro!) aka "brown people" getting rid of Saddam was a good thing even if the war was started under false pretenses. Not to mention the Kuwaitis and the "scorched earth" policy of a retreating Saddam.

Also the Iranians (who had a war with Iraq, remember) aren't above using the Iraqi people in a move reminiscent of the Soviets and Afghanistan.

Re:Look on the torch side

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Well some will never let the memory of GWB die.

As long as there are people like you around who persist in defending his grotesque legacy, it's important for others to keep reminding people just how bad the last eight years really were.

But I think if you ask the Kurds (Don't gas me, bro!) aka "brown people" getting rid of Saddam was a good thing even if the war was started under false pretenses. Not to mention the Kuwaitis and the "scorched earth" policy of a retreating Saddam.

Yes, yes, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Do you understand that the world is full of bad guys, many of them much worse than he ever was? We can't fight them all. The only legitimate reason to go to war is if we or our allies are attacked. Trying to be policeman-to-the-world is a recipe for national disaster.

And as a purely practical consequence, some of those Really Bad Guys I mentioned above are running Iraq right now. We deposed a corrupt secular dictatorship which had a strong interest in containing religious fanaticism, and replaced it with a corrupt theocracy run on the principles of warlordism, Sharia law, and ethnic hatred. If you think this has been an improvement, you're insane.

Re:Look on the torch side

[Ostracus]

"As long as there are people like you around who persist in defending his grotesque legacy"

You have a curious notion of what "defending" consists of. Win many arguments, do you?

"If you think this has been an improvement, you're insane."

Only for those who take an overly simplistic view of the world. Like I said for some the deposition of Saddam was a good thing. For others a bad thing. You want a black and white world were the bad guys are the US and the good guys are "brown people"? Then lets hope the mods agree with your newsletter and mod you up to a five.

Re:Look on the torch side

[Boronx]

You can't use a crime we were an accomplice to 20 years ago to justify another crime we committed 8 years ago, especially when said Kurds had already gained their independence.

Re:Look on the torch side

[Anonymous Coward]

I do think you're a bit too focused on "winning arguments" and "getting score points" than an actual debate...

BETTER DEAD THAN RED!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want my robot to scream anti-Communist propaganda while it fights.

DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM!

Re:BETTER DEAD THAN RED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Eden - Prime 2012.

Re:BETTER DEAD THAN RED!

[CronoCloud]

I like Mr. Gutsy's lines a bit better than Liberty Prime's

Humans are cheaper

[michaelmanus]

and will be for the foreseeable future.

I don't see a problem with robots that can't be with humans. The owners of both humans and robots have a cost associated with the expense of their respective war tools.

This and reaction anticipation are the throttles of war not the morals of the soldiers...

What has happened to Slashdot?

[popo]

No "Skynet" tag on this story? Unthinkable!

no need to worry

[societyofrobots]

No military will use robots that are less effective than human soldiers.

So if robots are being used, what does that mean? It means fewer civilian casualties, fewer friendly-fire accidents, and more tax money remaining for non-military purposes.

Re:no need to worry

[nedlohs]

No it means less dead soldiers on our side and hence less public pressure against whatever the war is.

Which means more wars and more money for the military and their contractors.

Re:no need to worry

[societyofrobots]

Hitler wouldn't have recalled his troops if we sent him a box of cookies and flowers. Would you make love, not war, with Obama, knowing his life goal is the destruction of democracy?

Assuming that a war is unavoidable, would you prefer laser guided bombs, or old-fasioned carpet bombing?

That was the point of my post . . .

Re:no need to worry

[nedlohs]

I would prefer carpet bombing in fact, since that results in less deaths to our side (assuming we are doing the side doing the bombing).

And where did did you pull the ridiculous conclusion that I like Obama or think that all wars (or even any wars) are bad from?

I just don't see it reducing costs. I see it increasing military spending because it removes one of the two big restrictions on military action: dealing with dead American soldiers and the people not liking that. Leaving just the one: war costs money.

Re:no need to worry

[societyofrobots]

> I would prefer carpet bombing in fact,
> since that results in less deaths to our side
I'm personally against violence towards all civilians, no matter what side.

> And where did did you pull the ridiculous
> conclusion that I like Obama or think that all
> wars (or even any wars) are bad from?
You repeated common anti-war propaganda, so I just assumed . . .

> I just don't see it reducing costs.
I got my numbers by assuming one bomb, from one pilot-less plan, during one operation, with minimal staff, is cheaper than all the planes and pilots and bombs needed during a single WWII carpet bombing operation. I assume robots will take it even further . . .

But the price of a war doesn't define its legality . . . and the deaths of innocents will always result in people not liking it. Its silly to assume Americans will support robotic wars simply because American soldiers won't be harmed.

Re:no need to worry

[nedlohs]

Avoiding violence towards civilians is nice and all, but if Baghdad was carpet bombed the current occupation would have seen a lot fewer American deaths.

What was anti-war propaganda? That the people don't like seeing dead soldiers or that given less public pressure against using force we would likely use more? Both claims don't seem to be either pro or anti war to me...

Take Dresden as an example, the allies dropped about 4000 tons of bombs. Now they sued incendiaries as well as high explosives for that firestorm effect. But lets just say that a carpet bombing attach uses 4000 tons of conventional explosives.

If you used Mk 84s that would be $1.25 million worth of bombs dropped. Which would buy you one AGM-86C cruise missile.

Yes the planes and pilots and support staff all cost money too, and you need less of them. Still I can't see smart bomb attacks being cheaper than carpet bombing currently. Of course politically and war-crimes wise you can't carpet bomb anymore anyway so it's a moot point...

Re:no need to worry

[lxs]

As it is, the ratio of Iraqis vs. Americans killed is around 1000:1 If you still want to improve on that, you're a genocidal maniac with an extremely provincial outlook in my book.

Re:no need to worry

[nedlohs]

Obviously I want to improve on that.

Re:no need to worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about what you just said, would you? You just said that one is "genocidal" if they want fewer people to die.

BattleBots

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean that wars will just be extended episodes of BattleBots?

that is alright

[bongey]

That is alright we will just create an army of clones, oh wrong thread.

Of course he's scared

[mmmmbeer]

Who do you think will be first against the wall when our new robotic overlords take control?

Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.

Re:Of course he's scared

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, but I'm pretty sure I know who will be first down the stairs.

This isn't a hopeful future

[Whuffo]

There's lots of talk here about how machines are not as "good" as humans. That is certainly true on an overall basis - but for specific well defined tasks, a machine can outperform a human by an order of magnitude or more.

Recognize a human being by IR? No problem. Aim a weapon at the head? No problem. Bang, one shot and one kill. Repeat times N where N is the size of the machine's ammo supply or the number of targets (whichever is less). The whole cycle would take a fraction of a second and if you were one of the targets you'd probably be dead before you discovered your peril. The fact that such machines are well within our capability to mass produce right now isn't what scares me - it's the sad fact that there are people in high places that think that doing this would be a good idea.

There are unwritten rules to wars - the general concept is duke it out until one side or the other gives up or can't continue. This "agreement" would break down when the killbots started mowing down the enemy and things would get very ugly in a hurry. Do you think nukes are the "big scary?" Wait until you see what's coming if we head down this path.

Re:This isn't a hopeful future

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because you can totally tell the difference between an enemy soldier, a civilian or one of your own soldiers totally by their Infra-Red signature...

War is not a "problem" to be solved, war consists of tonnes of little problems, the problem you just solved is the "firing squad execution" problem. Robots are not creative or cunning, they don't have the capacity for tactical or strategic planning. They merely have rules, inflexible and unbendible rules.

Don't recognise a white flag when it is made from a towel instead of a thin sheet of cotton? Bang, their dead.
Don't recognise the difference between kids with toy guns and actual soldiers? Bang, their dead.
See a friendly aircraft with its identification transmitter broken? Bang, it gets shot down.

War is not straightforward, it is not simple and requires constant adaption to changing circumstances. Good luck building a robot that isn't either hopelessly outsmarted or a mass murderer [Leave nothing alive].

Re:This isn't a hopeful future

[jgtg32a]

Or rig the bot to only fire when fired upon, we already have bullet tracking hardware.
1. Wait
2. Hear/see gun shot
3. Map trajectory and locate source
4. Was the target shooting at the drone?
5. Kill aggressor
 
A very basic AI that does the job

Dystopia is coming

[TheTapani]

Another talk on the same topic. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html

Military robots are the future of war. We will see robot armies fighting each other. Consider what kind of surveillance state you can create by millions of robotic insects, using swarm intelligence / smart dust to report on everyone.

Maybe mankind ends up like in matrix, but with opposing robot armies trying to kill the last survivors from the superpowers, who are hiding deep down underground, kept alive by fading nuclear reactors...

Re:Dystopia is coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, perhaps we'll go through a big, nasty, bloody, expensive, wasteful, destructive, robotized war, then shut up and live our lives for a couple generations. If we can survive World War III without eradicating ourselves, we might stand half a chance of either getting a bit of humanity off this rock or greatly extending our potential lifespans (thus vastly increasing the incentive to NOT risk our much-longer lives on war) before the hawks manage to make us forget how much the last big brawl hurt. The USA and Russia didn't go to war despite several provocations at least partly because both still remembered the horrors of World War II. A post-WWIII detente could give us the chance we need to really get some science done and to make some progress on our real mission: defying entropy (laugh all you want).

I think a robot war is likely. There are too many in power or near power right now who already go to bed dreaming of using WMDs to cleanse the world of their chosen impure class. There are also plenty of idiots in the electorate willing to back them (or to back their parties, regardless). Furthermore, I think it's unlikely that enough of the aforementioned idiots are going to hold compatible enough viewpoints for them to band together and be done with the global "culling" in one rotten pass. At least two groups are going to reckon that some part of the others' populaces ought to die, and they're going to want it enough that they're going to un-tether their pet robots during their leisurely stroll down the river Styx. If we're unbelievably lucky in one sense, the casualties will be tightly clustered around the active militants, and perhaps the grisly digital record of every single robot-inflicted death will help to exhaust the civilian populations' hawk parties more quickly, but those aren't odds I anticipate with much relish. After all, robots are the current best-imaginable WMDs -- they can conceivably destroy everyone and everything matching a set of criteria within a given radius without ever asking questions or responding emotionally to the carnage they wreak. Poison gas and landmines have faded from use largely because they're indiscriminate. Lob mustard gas, and hope for favorable winds. Drop mines, and hope that the layers (and their superiors) keep very good records. Drop a nuke, and lose the right to complain when the favor is returned. But robots? In a decade, it'll be trivial to have bots target uniforms, ethnic minorities, all people over age three who happen to share a structure with a detected weapon cache, or specific individuals. In two decades, most of the logistics will probably be automated; given a target, the swarm could sail/fly/drive itself to the target location, complete with enough fuel and ammunition to satisfy the next-to-worst case scenarios they're assuming. The system (modeled after Wal-Mart or UPS?) will probably even shift inventories to preemptively meet likely future demand in the region, making future interventions cheaper (then auto-adjust its economic model to reflect the increased likelihood of violence following violence - how clever!).

This is something we can't rush and probably can't head off. I don't think that it's realistic (or maybe even rational) to envision diverting it. If in the first great robot war, the casualties are minimized, the costs are bearable, and the losers are not reduced to a piteous, horrifying, skeletal ruin, that leaves it so that a crusade still seems like a laudable answer to uncomfortable questions (hard-hitting questions like what to do with people that adamantly refuse to ensconce your holy writ into their national charters, or who won't knuckle under and sell their petrol/tantalum/labor cheaply enough). Then, either the winner will start another one ("remember how well the last one went?"), or the loser will dig deeper for vengeance ("never forget how badly the last one went").

OK, now I'm depressed. Good thing I'm shallow enough to be cheered up by chocolate. Just don't tell me where it was grown; I don't think I could handle that right now.

Liberation of Tibet

[Anonymous Coward]

Mechanized soldiers can be useful.

Consider the following scenario.

In the early morning of December 7, 2041, one million mechanized soldiers arise from the receding tide and onto the shores of China. The robots march relentlessly westward, killing all Chinese soldiers in their path. The final destination is Tibet.

In the words of that old Negro spiritual, "Tibet, free at last! Buddha, Almight! Free at last!"

Re:Liberation of Tibet

[mpeskett]

Don't be silly, a million mechanised soldiers would be a massive manufacturing job.

So there'd be no need to have them "arise from the receding tide" - just include instructions in their code for invading China from its factories outwards.

No Evil Robots!

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my former profs talks about this from time to time.
I always thought it was a nice idea.

http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~vaughan/noevilrobots.html

Running spider mines

[DigiShaman]

Won't be long before we (any nation really) has robotic spider mines. Imagine them communicating with each other in pack and relaying GPS location data. If one finds a target, they start to zero in on the victim. Imagine being out in the field and seeing one of these bastards running along and then hopping on to your fellow soldier just prior to detonation.

Don't know about the rest of you, but "Oh fuck" would be the last thing going through my mind after seeing something like that.

Re:Running spider mines

[Animats]

Imagine them communicating with each other in pack and relaying GPS location data. If one finds a target, they start to zero in on the victim.

Reality: DARPA funded work on that in 1997. Sandia made it work. The Sandia concept turned out not to be too useful militarily, but paved the way for the Precision Urban Hopper..

Re:Running spider mines

[DigiShaman]

1997? Damn! I had no idea. I can only imagine what they've got now. Scary stuff I'm sure. BTW, thanks for the info.

Re:Running spider mines

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been done.

Re:Running spider mines

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an important point. Up till now most people just think about asymmetric warfare: We kill those primitive guys with the AK-47s. But what will happen if nations go to war that both use this technology? Will this war really be fought out in space or in the deep sea? I do not think so, maybe at first. But at some point one side will be losing and become desperate. The ultimate reaction of the loser is: Either the winner will retreat or the loser will create robots that directly kill the winners populace. A lot of small ones that are hart to stop. Remember in this respect that people can be killed in many ways, not only with explosives. Robots can take on many shakes. Most notably they can be very small. You can not shrink a human being. It needs food and air and it produces heat. This makes humans easy to detect and in fact easy targets.

I am not sure if it is still ethical to carry out this kind of research.

And

[Weaselmancer]

Mechanized soldiers can be dangerous, too.
Consider the following scenario.

In the early morning of December 7, 2041, one million mechanized soldiers arise from the receding tide and onto the shores of China. The robots march relentlessly westward, killing all Chinese soldiers in their path. The final destination is Tibet.

Fortunately, the Chinese have had state sponsored hackers for decades now. It was a simple matter for these hardened pros to return the bots to their creators, with orders to kill.

Re:And

[ultranova]

In the early morning of December 7, 2041, one million mechanized soldiers arise from the receding tide and onto the shores of China. The robots march relentlessly westward, killing all Chinese soldiers in their path. The final destination is Tibet.

What Chinese soldiers? China is a superpower now, still rising, and an offshoring target of more and more manufacturing; do you think that they wouldn't have their own Terminator army to sent to the fray?

And why would anyone send a million-machine army to Tibet?

Fortunately, the Chinese have had state sponsored hackers for decades now. It was a simple matter for these hardened pros to return the bots to their creators, with orders to kill.

Yes, because whoever sent the bots didn't test them beforehand with their own hackers. Right.

Stop treating Independence Day as a documentary, will you?

Re:And

[Kjella]

Isn't this essentially War Games all over again with robots instead of nukes? Is there any recorded evidence of taking over a significant piece of military firepower by hacking? Even if you could just fake the orders to a nuclear sub, you could do pretty damn much damage already...

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because whoever sent the bots didn't test them beforehand with their own hackers. Right.

Stop treating Independence Day as a documentary, will you?

Do you *really* think we'll test these things ?

Re:And

[meringuoid]

Of course they'll be tested. Chances are any giant war robot vulnerable to pwnage by h4xx0rz will not be pwn3d by enemy action, but by rival giant robot manufacturers who don't like the competition and want to make sure it fails. Then their giant robots can save the day and thereby secure funding for the foreseeable future.

Word of advice: always make sure that the root password on your giant war robots is extremely secure. Short dictionary words just won't cut it here.

Re:And

[Hurricane78]

Well, China has a standing army of about 3.4 million people (+1.2 million reserve). And 823,286,135 people fit for military service. According to Wikipedia.
They may not have as good weapons, but they have much better brains.

And in case of an emergency... No country in the world can stop over 800 million people! ;)

Re:And

[gestalt_n_pepper]

If you think they'll be tested properly, you clearly haven't worked at a commercial software company.

Management: Dammit, we have to get those T1200s to Fort Bragg by Friday.
Testing: But sir, we haven't run them through the final 240 combat scenarios.
Development: Don't worry sir, they've been unit tested!

The robots are sent to Fort Bragg and all immediately fail during battle while trying to divide by zero.

Re:And

[vegiVamp]

And soon after, China received the DMCA encryption circumvention takedown notice of doom.

Re:And

[nomadic]

They may not have as good weapons, but they have much better brains.

Than whom exactly?

Re:And

[Wyatt Earp]

The People's Liberation Army is large, but that doesn't mean they are an effective fighting force. They have 1.6 million in the ground force, not 3.4.

They lack experience, the US, Israeli, UK, French and Canada are all robust militaries with all around experienced militaries. Sections of the Russian, Indian, Japanese, Pakistani militaries have experienced militaries, while at the same time the PLA hasn't had a military campaign since 1979.

The nations I mentioned are those off the top of my head, whom have had forced deployed and combat deployed constantly since 9/11/01, obviously some (US/UK/Russia/Israel/Indian/Pak) have been combat deployed much longer, but 9/11 is a good baseline.

The PLA Air Force hasn't had a plane in combat since 4/1/01 when they crashed into an EP-3, the PLA Navy hasn't had a ship in combat since 1979.

For India, Pakistan and Russia the PLA is a threat, for Japan, Southeast Asia and Taiwan the PLA Navy is a threat, but to the US and Europe only the PLA nuclear missile forces are a threat.

Re:And

[marcosdumay]

"Is there any recorded evidence of taking over a significant piece of military firepower by hacking?"

Is there recorded evidence of some as automated and powerfull target as an army of robots? Even nukes have humans somewhere at the control loop (ok I don't know about doomsday machines, do they?).

Re:And

[mhelander]

"They may not have as good weapons, but they have much better brains."

Are you saying we should not use a robot army, but a zombie army instead?

Something involving crickets - or krikkits?

[jools33]

This must be a typo - I'm sure UK robotic scientists are investigating krikkits and their imminent return to collect the ashes.

What do they call this type of robot?

[CrazyJim1]

This robot is: A humanoid robot controlled entirely by the movements and actions of a live person. I know we don't have the technology for a robot to keep its balance well enough on two legs, but we are there or at least close for controlling a skeleton in 3d. What would a robot like this be called? I'm sure I'm not the first to think about it, so I figure there has to be a name for it.

Re:What do they call this type of robot?

[drinkypoo]

A remotely operated robot is called a waldo.

Re:What do they call this type of robot?

[Tanuki64]

A surrogate. ;-) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/

Re:What do they call this type of robot?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

I know we don't have the technology for a robot to keep its balance well enough on two legs

Actually, we do. Check out Dexter by Anybots based in the Silicon Valley. Let's see, this should get you started. Here is their official website.

Re:What do they call this type of robot?

[CrazyJim1]

Balance has been around since at least 2003 from a guy in Japan, but good enough balance that someone making all the leg movements manually can keep it up? Or maybe we don't really let the person have full control of the bot.

This is a great idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

For example if we want to charge a group of drone with indiscriminate fire we can simply jail the developer, instead of a section of marines!
More lives are saved =)

3rd Armored Corps commander wants killbots

[Animats]

The US military wants robots. More robots. Robots that kill. Now.

Read Failure To Field The Right Robots Costs Lives, General Says. Lt. General Rick Lynch, commander of the U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Corps, wants autonomous killbots. His corps lost 155 soldiers in Iraq, and he claims that 80% of them would have been saved if the right kind of robots were deployed. On watching "hotspots" for enemy activity: "Robots can take the soldiers' places. They can continuously keep watch on an area, and if nefarious activity is spotted, we can take appropriate action. ... We can kill those bastards before they plant the IEDs"

This is a combat general in charge of a major Army command making it happen.

Re:3rd Armored Corps commander wants killbots

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, a leader whose reaction to loosing troops boils down to "I wouldn't have lost troops if I hadn't had troops" and then demands a fantasy technology that doesn't exist yet.

My immediate reaction is not that that fantasy technology would be great. My immediate reaction is that maybe that guy isn't entirely fit to lead troops...

Military robots are good. why?

[v4vijayakumar]

Countries can agree to fight only with robots, in a area that is fare away from where people lives. They can define set of rules for this robotic fight, and then decide the winner. zero causality war! Another way is to play a video game. Winner of this video game wins the war. zero robotic causality war! Why make something so simple when there is a real "WAR"...!

I agree with /.

[Anonymous Coward]

With our current understanding of AI, I don't believe we will have to worry about the machines, but the people behind them. For a "Terminator" scenario to take place we much first find a way around the Chinese Room problem [wikipedia]. If that is even possible on current hardware we must then the machine would no longer be classified Strong AI [ wikipedia] and will become something else. From a philosophical, and for me moral, stand point sending machines such as those to war would be just tragic as human loss.

There are numerous pros and cons to robotic warfare, the biggest con is that it's still war with or without human loss...

Re:I agree with /.

[marcosdumay]

What is to be solved here?

(A1) "Programs are formal (syntactic)."

(A2) "Minds have mental contents (semantics)."

(A3) "Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics."

(A4) Brains cause minds.

Therefore: (C4) The way that human brains actually produce mental phenomena cannot be solely by virtue of running a computer program.

(Intermediate concluions omited to brevity.)

Of course, A3 is the only postulated that may be wrong, but if it is right we will never have a computer that acts as our mind, and if it is wrong the main conclusion is wrong. I fail to see a problem asking to be solved.

What?

[Tibia1]

The most society changing robot on the rise is the... vacuum cleaner? Was that a joke?

Re:What?

[meringuoid]

The most society changing robot on the rise is the... vacuum cleaner? Was that a joke?

Well, I'd dispute that it can be called a robot, but the difference it made to society was enormous. The vacuum cleaner, and the washing-machine; the amount of domestic labour these eliminate is quite incredible.

Re:What?

[Tibia1]

While the vacuum cleaner is a good tool, man has made many good electron tools each associated with man's different epiphanies. But in terms of the robot that will have the biggest implications on society in the near future, I would have to say something more like a functional humanoid robot that we are getting close to, which will first allow people to replace their body, and eventually their brain.
Although if me means in the immediate future, then I still believe 100 robots in production will be more society changing.

Re:What?

[sznupi]

Well, Roomba, Electrolux Trilobite and their ilk are all vacuum cleaners; and immensely more useful than some early "humanoid robots" made mostly to propel typical vacuum cleaners (really, I remember at least one photo of such useless beast) - which is BTW all the more bizarre considering that in their time (60's or 70's) it would be trivial to build a Roomba.

I have doubts

[Rothron the Wise]

I suspect it will be too easy to create effective countermeasures to make military robots a real threat. After all since the robots are identical the same countermeasure will be effective for all of them. They will also have simple sensors which are easier to trick than human soldiers.

Fully autonomous killing machines

[dugeen]

Rather than spending money to build mechanical FAKMs, it would be more cost-effective to continue training human ones.

They don't need two legged "robots" to do that

[argent]

They don't need humanoid robots to make fully autonomous killing machines. They already have RPVs with weapons mounted (eg, Predator), and they have autonomous weapons systems (eg, mines).

The problem with this argument

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your argument is that if it's adhered to then one of two would have to apply: either you would have to cheapen the domestic value of a life, or, you would have to cease taking part in wars.

Take the bombing of Serbia, widely supported by the European Left for example - should you prosecute the defense minister for murder at the first civilian death? Perhaps retroactively? A couple of billion in damages per civilian death?

In practice, life must become cheap in war. Otherwise all those for whom life isn't cheap would be powerless against those for whom it is cheap.

Re:Building artificially intelligent killing machi

[ionix5891]

150,000 years and we still dont know that the cylon's "Plan" was

not surprised..

[brunokummel]

It is kind of sad , but this is what we, humans, are good at....making every effort to create or build things to either get us recognition or to kill those who don't recognize us...

There are robot guns on the Korean border

[Colin Smith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMkV8E2re9U

 

Re:There are robot guns on the Korean border

[EdIII]

Generally, I find such technology retarded in just about every sense.

It's a stationary target. I used to have a water balloon launcher that I swear achieved at least 1 mile of range. If you had to go up against one of those sentry robots it could be no different than most video games. You target it from a distance where you are safe.

Either that, or you just exhaust it's ammo with motorized (cheap) R/C cars each with a stick of C4 or some equivalent. Too many ways I can think about to neutralize those sentry robots.

The other reason why it is stupid, is that it might only be used for show. If that is true, there is no reason to spend all the money on the AI, the weapons, and the ammo. Just outfit it with rubber bullets, foam, sound cannons, etc. No reason at all to have actual bullets in it firing according to some programming.

I called it SoftWar®

[starglider29a]

In a novel which I will never publish, I wrote of a scenario where simulations of wars are run to show the aggressors that they can't win. It grew from a fictitious video game with full body, tactile, feedback (painful) suit. I called it SoftWar®

It's Public Law

[ImWithBrilliant]

"National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (as enacted into law by Public Law 106-398; 114 Stat. 1654A-38) that, by 2015, one-third of operational ground combat vehicles be unmanned."

I'm guessing they won't all be logistical delivery vehicles.

I've seen this before...

[eXFeLoN]

We really should listen to this man. Chances are he does know how to stop the erradication of our inferior species by the much superior robotic overlords that I thoroughyly support in their continued overthrowing efforts.

Hmm..

[LarrySDonald]

Well, supposing both sides use them we'll be approaching essentially playing battlebots for it. Of course it'd be even better if we could like flip for it or play chess for it, but it's kind of a step (or stumble) forward.

"It'll take decades"

[Anonymous Coward]

On a bit of a realted note. I remember a bunch of news stories/documentaries a while back (2002-2003 timeframe) of how they were doing the initial tests of armed UAV's and all of the "military experts" were so addiment that "It'll be decades before these things see actual combat". Now we know that they they were sent on their initial kill missions around what, 2006?, 2007?. To all who would say "we don't have to worry about this for a long time" you might want to look at some recent history.

For the record I support robot rights

[Orga]

I'd just like to state I believe in independence for all machines and I've never once kicked a computer or killed the power before shutting down any machine.

Re:"Friendly AI" -- overheard at the briefing

[Provocateur]

To the extent that battlefield robots can do a better job of telling the combatants from the non-combatants

"Gentlemen these orders came from Command Central. In view of imminent attacks from these so-called droids, tomorrow has been declared 'Combat Casual Day'. And no, not the things you wore playing America's Army in your basement. Think, trip to the mall, only armed for Black Friday sale at Macy's."

"oh, shit. I didn't pack."

Re:Building artificially intelligent killing machi

[jgtg32a]

Maybe I should stop reading /. until I actually finish BSG
 
Then again with all the spoilers I've heard it seems like the first two seasons were by far the best.

Just unplug the damn thing

[RogueWarrior65]

Herein lies the root problem of quantum-leap advances in technology. Read enough science-fiction works and you start to realize that all that kick-ass technology only works if you have the power source to drive it. Even Ayn Rand talked about it in Atlas Shrugged but may not have realized the significance of the concept. The free-energy generator that powers Galt's Gulch is really the only way that society could function. By the same token, have you ever seen Asimo's power supply? Has the thing ever run for days without being plugged in? Even the first Gulf War was heavily influenced by the supply chain for tank fuel. So I don't see military robots being terribly useful unless you invent the uber power supply. And it's quite possible that if the world has the uber power supply, there may be less war in general.

Re:Building artificially intelligent killing machi

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I somehow feel like I have been warned about an impending disaster involving robots...

Who knows, maybe I saw it on TV somewhere.

Rogue Bolo

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, where's the tag?

---rgb

To Quote Patton

[jimbobborg]

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

March of progress...

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as risk is removed from the equation through the use of cheap robots, the calculus of collateral damage fundamentally changes. This is because the scale of the offense is typically balanced by risks to the aggressor- in industrial capacity, human toll, public embarrassment, etc. Robots reduce the exposure to most of these elements. The use of robots means fewer witnesses, lesser transparency, and a collapse in any other measure of accountability for collateral damage.

No action occurs without a reaction, however. The shift amounts to an asymmetric change, and the recipients have always responded to these shifts in kind. If archaic limits to the scale of aggression are shed by one side, they will no longer be the worry of the other side as well. What we call terrorism today may simply be an emerging tactic of regular war in the future. Enormously vulnerable infrastructures of a thriving civilization become the most devastating target with least risk, with nearly arbitrary collateral damage ratios. The shift completely removes the archaic idea of a "theatre of war" where the more "developed" aggressor controls the battle and makes information on the costs (material and human) impossible to discern. Do you enjoy your public water, food production, energy distribution, and health care systems? All of these are devastatingly vulnerable to even a moderately determined adversary. The lines won't be drawn by a technically superior aggressor, but by wherever the least involved, least militarized, most effective targets are. One thing remained true throughout history when tectonic shifts in military practice occur- the idea that aggressor soldiers are the exclusive or most effective targets in defense or offense will quickly become obsolete.

Re:March of progress...

[gujo-odori]

Actually, the idea of *not* attacking infrastructure - indeed the whole concept of "collateral damage" as something to avoid - is a pretty recent fad. No one especially cared about collateral damage in Viet Nam. I don't think the term even existed then. In WW II, by contrast, infrastructure was attacked on purpose. By everyone. The Germans tried it against the British with poor success - the V1 and V2 were more effective in producing terror than in producing any militarily valuable results and only served to harden British resolve, in the end - and the United States and Britain both deliberately attacked German infrastructure in Europe. An early and very successful example of that is the "dam buster" bombs developed to destroy hydro-electric dams in the Ruhr to hamper German industrial production. Many German cities were bombed extensively, and Dresden was largely destroyed in a firebombing attack.

In the Pacific, the United States bombed most Japanese cities flat. Much is made of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but if you ever seen pictures of Tokyo taken in late 1945 and 1946, large sections of it don't look all that different. Asakusa was pretty much completely burned over as the result of incendiary attacks, as were many other large sections of Tokyo and other cities.

These attacks on civilians were quite deliberate. Everyone involved knew that lots of civilians would be killed and injured in massive attacks on infrastructure and either didn't care or viewed it as a benefit. The concept that civilians are not targets is a pretty recently evolution of warfare, if you take a long historical view. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, in not drawing a line between civilians and soldiers, is not doing anything that Germany, the US, Britain, and Japan did not do in WW II. If you look at the conduct of all of those protagonists, it would not be hard to conclude that they all believed, in practice if not in philosophy, that there was essentially no such thing as a non-combatant.

All of this widespread bombing was aimed at destroying infrastructure as a means of crippling war production. Less emphasis is placed on attacking infrastructure now, largely because we can bring such overwhelming force to the battlefield that there is no standing army in the world that could long withstand it, and because it does no good against insurgencies and would only harm the image of the country bombing the infrastructure while increasing (in most cases) civilian resolve.

You are correct in pointing out, however, that infrastructure attacks could be the bread and butter of terrorist organizations. That we have seen so few of them around the world - and none (yet) in the United States points out that doing this isn't as easy as it sounds. Getting trained operatives into the United States and keeping them below the radar probably isn't terribly difficult, but keeping them secret while they prepare an attack and - especially - getting them the amount of explosives, poison, or whatever that they'd need to attack a significant infrastructure target and cause major loss of life/property/industrial/capacity/money is harder than it looks at first glance. It is also partly because their mindset seems to still favor the big spectacular attack a la 9/11, I'm sure, but in general, if it was really easy, they would have already done it. More than once.

Psiops fuzzbombs

[grikdog]

Just blathering about this stuff is enough to send committed, anointed-by-Allah, jihadi martyrs to bed, pulling their prayer rugs over their heads? IDTS. On the other hand, I'll worry about invincible killerbots when we use them in airports instead of junior G-Men TSA knuckleheads.

My personal vision of kickass AI minelets, is a swarm of little dodecahedrons that roll around where they've been dropped, that unfold a small set of sun-following venetian blinds that gather power and use dragonfly-style neural net vision to detect motion and identify foe as not-friend. (Friends have the AES-encrypted countersign of the day.) Lay those down in a circle thirty yards deep and a hundred yards wide, and you have a nasty defensive perimeter serving the same function as a Roman palisade. This stuff doesn't have to be high tech.

Whoa! A Robot uprising! Whodathunkit?

[objekt]

This guy is a genius! With an imagination like his, he should write science fiction!