The Pentagon is researching autonomous robots that will be armed and will make their own decisions as to whether or not to kill people.
I, for one, would be willing to see an amendment to the Geneva Conventions that would make the employment of such robots a war crime, punishable by death. The idea that "oh, we can program these things to obey the laws of war" is laughable.
If we are so stupid as a species that we are going to start making terminator robots, then we will richly deserve the consequences.
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It's not the robots that scare me... it would be the hackers that would manage to take over the network. I for one would not like an armed robot at my door telling me to buy some little blue pill.
The Pentagon is ruled by a buncha old farts who read too much science fiction. I work in the computer software field as a senior R&D design engineer, and what I'll tell ya is this: Right now, we have trouble making computers as smart as a freakin' pigeon, much less smart enough to make decisions as to whether someone is a good guy or a bad guy. That is, we have trouble making robots that can do simple visual recognition of previously-unencountered stimulae and react appropriately while routing themselves to their eventual destination with nothing but a compass and a "map" of their immediate surroundings based on an aerial view in their "heads" (which is all pigeons have). Right now the only reason those robots don't just circle aimlessly in the desert is that we outfit them with GPS's. Otherwise they'd be utterly lost...
So anyhow, this is just another excuse for the Pentagon to enrich cronies on the board of directors of defense contractors, rather than something that could, like, actually work. What else is new?
- Badtux the Computer Penguin
@Badtux: It's the exact same reason why there will always need to be human air traffic controllers. There aren't enough if/then statements in the world to cover the thought processes and experience of a human mind.
Oh, my GOD.....Please advise what is different from cloning which EVER SENTIENT person in the world and MOST who aren't oppose?
Today's science fiction is tomorrow's reality, and yes, as a species we are that stupid.
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