DARPA Researches Avatar Surrogates

kgeiger writes "Feeling blue? DARPA is funding a program to investigate the feasibility of battlefield cyborg-surrogates: 'In its 2012 budget, DARPA has decided to pour US $7 million into the 'Avatar Project,' whose goal is the following: "develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier's surrogate."' Power and bandwidth constraints aside, what could go wrong? Chinese hackers swooping in and commandeering one's army?"

Comments

What can go wrong...

[mark-t]

... ironically, is that soldiers will not be risking their lives in the field of combat.

Not that I am advocating soldiers dying per se, but if a cause is not worth dying for, then why is it worth going to war for in the first place? If one is prepared to kill their fellow man for whatever cause they might believe in, however true, and however noble, and however right, but they themselves are not prepared to die in the name of that same cause, then their so-called virtuous beliefs are nothing but hollow claims.

Nothing of any real worth or value has ever been achieved without making some sacrifice... and it is the virtue of the people who *have* made such sacrifices that gives us that much more a profound appreciation for the victory that was gained by it.

Take that away, and war becomes just a pointless exercise in killing... without purpose, and maybe even without end.

This is a bad idea.