Came across this website and was shocked to see the statment below.
To help protect American military personnel, the U.S. Department of Defense has been mandated by the U.S. Congress to have one-third of its ground combat force unmanned by 2015. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research agency for the U.S. Department of Defense, created the Grand Challenge to encourage the development of an autonomous ?thinking? ground vehicle capable of navigating totally on its own.
This "Grand Challenge" started in 2004, but the farthist any of the "thinking" robots got was 7.4 miles (must go 154 miles for the $2 million prize). Click on the image to go to the site.
Only the the pain of human sacrifice can end the threat of war!
In an old episode of Star Trek, Kirk said something like this: Death, destruction, disease, horror, are what war is all about, what makes it a thing to be avoided. If we make it neat and painless, there is no reason to end it!
Do you think the threat of being attacked by robots will force less developed contries to seek peace? What do you think about robots fighting your wars?
Last edited by tltrude on Mon Sep 12, 2005 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
i think everyone says that if peopel felt no pain there would be more wars.
there've been wars for over 2000 years, with only humans involved in the casualties. it's not going to stop because we kill more people with wars.
so bots for the future i say.
note the phrase:
To help protect American military personnel, the U.S. Department of Defense has been mandated by the U.S. Congress to have one-third of its ground combat force unmanned by 2015
i thought 2015 made games? i cant imagine them taking our forces into wars... :S
I think using Robots in limited roles could have potential as far as supplementing an army. I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them a larger role, because robots could be easily manipulated and exploited in ways that a human soldier couldn't. How do you teach loyalty to a machine?
tltrude wrote:
Do you think the threat of being attacked by robots will force less developed contries to seek peace? What do you think about robots fighting your wars?
On the contrary, I think using robots would only encourage those countries to acquire their own robots or some other means of effective deterrance (i.e., nuclear weapons). And what about the threat of using nuclear weapons on non-human lives? That's one of the major reasons that has prevented nuclear weapons from being used in the past.
Morally and ethically, would we be as adverse against nuking robots as we are against other humans?
"The work of a thousand years is nothing but rubble."
- Dr. Carl Goerdeler (1943)
Visit my mapping site: http://www.freewebs.com/axion9
Axion - I think you are mistaken about, "...the major reasons that has prevented nuclear weapons from being used in the past." It is the threat of mutual destruction, or self annihilation, that keeps the nukes grounded. And, I don't think that would change--even if the target was non-human.
Robots could be defeated with simple "lion pit" traps at first, but sooner or later the robots would just hover over them, or sence them and go around. My fear is that robotic warfare may lead to a "Nintendo effect" where death and distruction becomes just a game--an addictive game.
tltrude wrote:Axion - I think you are mistaken about, "...the major reasons that has prevented nuclear weapons from being used in the past." It is the threat of mutual destruction, or self annihilation, that keeps the nukes grounded. And, I don't think that would change--even if the target was non-human.
I meant using nuclear weapons against countries with no nuclear capabilities, or any instance where a nuclear retaliation has no chance of occuring.
"The work of a thousand years is nothing but rubble."
- Dr. Carl Goerdeler (1943)
Visit my mapping site: http://www.freewebs.com/axion9
You dont see the sublety here, it's the HUMANS that dont have loyalty. men will run away, defect, double-agent, betray, etc
a robot will take it's orders and execute.
Well, what if those orders are to run-away, defect, or betray? A robot doesn't have a conscience, or any emotional capacity to understand the implications of its actions. A robot would have no long-serving loyalty to any one side if it were being used in a war. If it were reprogrammed or stolen it would take commands just the same from an enemy as it would from an ally.
ALL robots fall under that description. The same can't be said of humans.
"The work of a thousand years is nothing but rubble."
- Dr. Carl Goerdeler (1943)
Visit my mapping site: http://www.freewebs.com/axion9
I agree, but I think it might be different in about 100/200 years, if you just look at the technology from 20 years ago to today.
Anyway I don't think something will happen like in the terminator movies, that the robots are getting their own way and fight against humans. But what would be possible is that robots can do things without the help of humans.
Maybe you should read my first post again. It says, "...an autonomous ?thinking? ground vehicle capable of navigating totally on its own. And, that means those weapons are being made right now and not 100-200 years in the future.
I'm sure they will have anti-tamper devices, and will explode if they're hopelessly trapped or stopped by the enemy. Also, it says, "...one-third of its ground combat force...". So they are replacing combat troops and will not just be spies or servents for them. In other words, these "thinking" robots will have weapons, and they are probably only 15 years away from being used!
relax guys; as long as america trains it's soldiers that when their giant attack robot gets it's giant right robot arm (the one with the rocket fist, mind you) sliced off and the american robot pilot is knocked to the ground with the opposing country's giant robot advancing....scramble to the your robot's giant fist , rewire the circuts so you can fire the rocket fist at the last possible second to smash the unexpecting opposing country's robot in the nuts.
Actually I meant that robots don't have a real conscience or emotion yet. They are moving like insects at the moment and they react on stimuli.
But what I meant about 100 to 200 years was that robots might have their own conscience, thoughts, emotions or whatever. They say this robot is thinking but exually it just works on simple commands, stimulants etc, but it is able to drive arround alone and do its job like an insect.
