NewScientist: Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans

5 Responses to “NewScientist: Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans”

1. Ludwik Sujkowski Posted: Nov 6th, 2008 at 10:33 pm

   Considering irresponsible use by US forces of traditional and automated weapons systems available today and resulting loss of civilian life, it is not difficult to imagine how much more irresponsibly killer-robots will be used by individuals hiding safely behind computer screens. Amazingly, US is the only nation claiming higher moral grounds and developing clearly aggressive, uncontrollable weapons at the same time. We all know how easy it is to hack computer system now and how many things go wrong resulting in the loss of human life. Are we really a moral nation, letting our corrupted military getting these weapons in their already bloody hands? Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

2. Allen Rees Posted: Nov 13th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

   I think this is symptomatic of a peculiar sort of megalomania that has subsumed military “leaders” and “Strategists” throughout history. It does not take a vast amount of analysis to realize that, historically, a great many human beings have met various cruel and unnecessary ends because of the “brilliant innovations” of our morally crippled weapons sciences. The generals and admirals and whomever else of rank who guide these arch designs on other people’s death or incarceration, no doubt gain massive vicarious stimulation from the empowerment of the making of “…a single soldier the nexus for a large scale robot attack”. The Strangelovean echoes of this sort of thinking are so obvious that it strains the imagination that more people cannot be flatly horrified by the implications of the creation of such a system. The tangential effects of something like this are plainly ruinous. To literally create a robotic system which will execute the worst of our common instincts, by being linked to the fragile moral and emotional state of a single combat soldier? The folly of that is breathtaking. Just when you think homo sapiens has found itself in a deep enough hole that it might actually consider stopping digging and to begin to climb out. I do not express these, obvious, concerns as some sort of…oil lamp luddite. I am, in fact, an enthusiastic user and appreciator of technology and its contingent benefits. It is perhaps because I am generally pro-technology, that I am able to perceive the rank foolishness inherent in allowing it to be used to project our inner demons outward with ever greater efficiency. The “ghost in the machine” is us, and we should tread very lightly indeed before we give it even more free reign than we already have. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

3. George Foss Posted: Nov 23rd, 2008 at 8:03 pm

   The alternative to using these robots is dropping bombs and shooting people. I’m pretty sure that this will be an improvement. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

4. DeWayne Posted: Nov 24th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

   This program in the hands of the present (Cheney purged) Pentagon is enough for me to side against. Perhaps with the present Pentagon general mindset, they worry about losing control of the ‘human’ as was discovered during a human testing by professor Philip G. Zimbardo, the negative effect found to be degeneracy that he describes in his work he entitled the ‘Lucifer Effect’. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

5. Allen Rees Posted: Dec 5th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

   George, I won’t hesitate to point out that “robots”, i.e. the predator drone are already dropping bombs; with devastating effect I might add. You can only be so precise with a Hellfire Missile. It is the mind set that forms the crux of the problem, not the methods; in my opinion. Until force can be used with more precise discretion, it should be curtailed. The fact that our applications of force have been wildly irresponsible, a la “Shock and Awe”; demonstrates our lack of ability to show restraint. Deploying a partially automated, robotic, cluster weapons system is going to be highly problematic. No, really… Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this