
One in 50 combatants in Afghanistan is a Robot. - iuguy
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/04/last-look-war-of-the-machines/
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johngalt
One of the benefits of nuclear weapons was that they made total war too costly
to contemplate. Any leader considering it would have to weigh the cost of a
billion lives versus whatever his country sought to gain.

While I like the idea that robots vs robots could reduce the number of lives
lost, I worry that it will also make war an easy option to choose.

Edit: Compare it to police tasers vs. guns. A decrease in lethality results in
an increase in the application of weapons. Jevon's paradox for violence.

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jerf
It doesn't change the nuclear calculus.

It's also worth at least pondering the question of whether or not a "war" of
robot on robot is as big a deal in the concrete as human vs. human. I don't
have an answer, I could argue in either direction. It's an interesting
question. Especially when you try to consider second-order effects.

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jbm
Wouldn't the beneficial effects of using robots be like the beneficial effects
of a broken window?

You are still destroying industrial production and diverting other production
into warfare / war-related devices.

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jerf
I would agree that one conceivable economic failure case would be an endless
incentive to pour resources into war, instead of real wealth.

In fact one can argue that Orwell's 1984 had this economic setup. IIRC he
explicitly had it set up so that all excess economic output went into an
endless war, so that the proles never got wealthy enough to have enough spare
time to rise up. He never addressed the question of how the military was
structured but in a way it makes even more sense for the militaries to be
fully robotic, rather than placing humans in command of powerful machines that
could be used to start a coup against the State.

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jws
The Grumman X-47B verbiage may have come back through a time portal. The X-47B
had its first test flight on February 7th. It's a little soon be doing carrier
landings and operational deployments. Carrier trials are slated for 2013.[1]

The cost is stunning. The entire 6 year program cost appears to be only about
$600m. That is, the whole development was done for the cost of about 4 manned
fighters.

[1] There is a similar looking, much more secret Lockheed RQ-170 operational
in Afghanistan, but it probably doesn't carry 2+ tons of bombs.

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camtarn
Combat robotics goes back further than I thought. I found mention of Soviet
'teletanks' being used in the 30s-40s - the remote controlled armed robots
being developed at the moment look a bit puny by comparison :)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletank> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster-
Miller_TALON>

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drpgq
The Goliath tracked mine wikipedia entry linked in the teletank entry was
something interesting I've never heard of before (although I hadn't heard of
the teletank either).

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lukeschlather
9 in 10 combatants in Afghanistan is a grenade.

At least for the moment, robots don't kill people, people kill people using a
variety of weapons including robots.

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dmooney1
An RC car with a camera and a shotgun is not a robot any more than a toy you
buy at Radio Shack or a hobby shop.

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sp332
I would call both of those things robots. Why would you say that they aren't?

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camtarn
From what I can tell, the ground based bots don't have any onboard
intelligence - they require an operator at a remote terminal at all times,
more like telepresence than autonomous or even semi-autonomous robotics. In
contrast, the UAVs presumably have the equivalent of an autopilot, and the
X-47B referred to in the article appears to have a very good one. The
equivalent ground-based robot would probably be something like a backpack
scout that you could chuck into a building and have it autonomously map it.

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dmooney1
Definitely the X-47B could be called a robot (or an autonomous, mobile robot
if robot takes on the broader definition used by a few of the other
commenters). I wonder how it reacts if it is engaged or damaged. Does try to
self-preserve by evading or moving to a safe place without human interaction?

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GiraffeNecktie
"One in 50 combatants in Afghanistan is a robot"

Uh. No. There is one robot for every 50 _US_ soldiers. The Taliban are not
using many robots at the moment.

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johnohara
I'd like to see a number like this derived from manufacturing. Seems to me
much innovation is going on there, albeit quietly.

