Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have killed 1,678 U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan since July 2003, according to Georgia-based Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. The death toll could have been much higher without the help of 5,000 IED-detecting robots that, according to CBS News, have found 10,000 roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the next step in the evolution… return to article
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Reader Comments (24)Page 1 of 1 pagesFor those who think the poor serve as cannon fodder (however misguided that view may be), the use of robots as soldiers should be welcome indeed. Still, making war too clean and sanitary does not make me more comfortable., but then again neither does the crazy Islamic nuts who place no value on human life.
Posted by wolf on Jan 9, 2008 at 6:34 PM I can see it now instead of kids saying, “My Dad can lick your Dad,” we’ll have Secretaries of State with, “Our Robos can whip your Robos.”
If you think you’re frustrated when your screen gives you a no can do message, picture the guy in the field whose robot’s batteries conk out.
We built fighter jets without machine guns, let’s not trash the small arms training (or Medics) quite yet.
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 9, 2008 at 10:46 PM I think the key reasoning is that a robot soldier insures that it will fire upon whoever it’s told to and without conscience. Our soldiers should have a conscience to decide (even in combat) whether a need to kill is there.
Posted by felixfelix006 on Jan 11, 2008 at 1:03 AM On the other hand, a robot soldier need not panic or even protect its own “life”. It could, in principle, reduce civilian causalities.
But if the Islamic crazies get them, they could become mobile IEDs. And these crazies have no compunction about killing and maiming anyone, children included (hell, they happily kill other Islamic crazies too!).
Posted by wolf on Jan 11, 2008 at 4:25 PM Felixfelix,
Robots are neither good nor bad in themselves, but rely on the ethics of the operator. Our soldiers have at least as much conscience as any of us and, like the currently used drone aircraft and missiles, they will be controlling these robos.
As Wolf points out, it is the other side which plants IEDs which kill without control or conscience and suicide bombers who kill as many as possible regardless of age, gender, or any other consideration.
The last couple of paragraphs of this article is foolish rambling. Perhaps I should say this may be the assumption of the author regarding the participants in violent conflicts and no serious reader of history would be so simplistic. But then I foolishly thought that was obvious.
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 12, 2008 at 3:14 PM You guys are scooping up and chowing down the bullshit propaganda like Bangladeshi starvlings at a banquet.
Human beings are human beings, with the SAME essential motives, fears, hopes and vices.
It’s so useful to the war machine (which now gobbles up over HALF the GDP on defense - shit that has no other practical use than to blow up other shit and spread misery and death) that you so easily swallow the propaganda that these guys are “animals”, “subhuman”, etc. This type of crap is straight out of CIA psyops manuals - if you make people believe the enemy is less than human, you can break down any moral restraints against commiting atrocities against them.
How handy for those who would sell you out and consign you to a horrible death without a second glance if it raised the margins of their stock portfolios a fraction of a percent.
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 14, 2008 at 6:53 PM And really, are their “crazies” any worse than our “crazies”, who, for example, butcher and roast six-year-old babies and their parents in front of preteens before raping and murdering them?
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com/2006/07/we-have-unleashed-hell-in-iraq.html<
or commit genocide:
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com/2006/10/over-half-million-deaths-after-fact.htm mlfor a few (well, maybe a few football fields full of) blood-encrusted dollars?
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com/2005/10/what-200-billion-dollars-4-billion.h html
or firebomb babies, mow down unarmed citizens with apache helicopters, and blow up ambulances transporting the wounded?
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com/2006/07/new-final-solution.html
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 14, 2008 at 7:31 PM And no, I’m not Middle Eastern or Muslim. Can’t stand crazy, uneducated, fundamentalist bastards of any stripe.
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 14, 2008 at 7:33 PM It aint a bad idea. Robots will save human lives maybe we can get a discount for ordering a few hundred not later but today!
Posted by anthony on Jan 16, 2008 at 12:14 PM MikieNes,
Can you explain WHY you believe the alegations on aliberaldose to be the truth?
If I sent you a URL which denied it would you still believe it? Why or why not?
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 20, 2008 at 10:54 PM whattheheck:
Did you actually READ the articles I linked to?
If you had, you probably wouldn’t be asking your questions. But, okay, I’ll play. Why do I believe the things I write on my blog?
Well, I studied journalism in university, and learned how to dig for the truth. I look for consistency. If there’s a consistent pattern, plausibility, and the sources of the information are truthful, long-standing journalists, the data comes from several equally credible sources who say the same thing, and none of them have any vested interest in lying, I believe them.
Conversely, I regard nearly everything the Bush Administration (sic) says with skepticism, because they have been proven to have been lying on numerous occasions, both in courts of law and out. And many, many many hundreds of thousands (arguably millions) of men, women, children and other living creatures have died or had their lives shattered by Bushco’s willful ignorance, sociopathology and insatiable greed.
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 21, 2008 at 12:47 AM MikieNes,
Yes, I read them.
The Soviet Union was quite consistent for 70 years. Hilter’s propaganda had a consistent theme. For centuries people wereconsistent in thinking the sun revolved around the earth.
I go one step further than you Γ’β¬β I am skeptical about everything. We cannot say that someone has no vested interest in lying. Truthfully, we can only say that we know of none. Neither can we be sure something is written and, while believed true by the writer, he is mistaken.
Your reasoning is overcome by your distrust of Bush & Co. That does not mean these wild accusations are true. You are believing because you want to believe.
As a former army cook I can tell you there was nothing in the TM-10-412 (cookbook) on how to cook children. You can believe me Γ’β¬β or not :-)
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 22, 2008 at 4:55 PM No, my friend, I’m believing because the ones you are referring to were convicted in a court of law after having admitted doing it.
But feel free to call me gullible, if you insist that’s not sufficient proof for you.
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 22, 2008 at 8:44 PM MikieNies,
Get a grip, Mikie.
I can accept that in war some go berserk murdrer, rape and they should be brought to justice. But your hyper-type statements, “...butcher and roast” and claims of our gullibility that “the enemy is less than human” is too much!
The comparison should not be their crazies versus our crazies, that only excuses the extremists on either side.
BTW, I see you are in Japan. How much do you know about their crazies in WW2?
Like the man said, “War is hell.”
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 23, 2008 at 3:49 PM I’m sorry; if you actually READ even the first of the articles (three minutes of your time) you’d know that my statements are an exact description of what went on.
Have a little courage, read the facts and THEN you’re qualified to make statements about the issues.
And saying “the Japanese of three generations ago (who are dead nearly to a man now) did it” is completely irrelevent, unless you’re suggesting that it’s therefore not so bad if we do too.
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 23, 2008 at 8:30 PM Right. I’ll repeat I read it. I read the exact description. So?
It is an undocumented accusation, on an internet blog, by who? Hardly what should be called “the facts”.
Have we become so stupid as to believe anything said that backs up our biases is enough to convict. If it is repeated enough does it become reality? I heard it on the radio. I read it on the internet. I actually saw it on TV. Therefore I know it to be true.
As for the reference to the atrocities of WW2
I was merely pointing out that in time of war such inhuman behavior is universal, timeless and to some degree to be expected. Not an excuse, just a fact. And always relevant.
It is far less common to treat enemy prisoners with respect. In general our POWs were treated better by the Germans than the Japanese. Perhaps it was due to a more common heritage with Europe than with Asia. Fear of the unknown is usually greater and met with a stronger reaction by both sides.
Some of the German POWs were kept in a camp in my home town and several remained and became citizens.
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 24, 2008 at 3:24 PM The account of the rape, killing and roasting of the 14-year-old child Abeer, after forcing her to witness the executions of her preteen sister and both parents was documented by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, CNN, Time Magazine and any of hundreds of other credible publications.
Oh, and all the participants gave lengthy, detailed confessions in court. But of course, why let facts get in the way of your preferred notions of the way the world works?
Conversely, I ask the question: have a large proportion of Americans become so stupid as to refuse to believe even the most meticulously documented and proven facts when they run counter to their preferred prejudices?
I disagree with your excusal of such inhuman behavior. Just because the Bush Mayberry Mafia have seized control of the state doesn’t mean we should reverse our generations-standing commitment to the Geneva Convention (as a direct response to the atrocities of World War 2). Prior to Chuckles the Chimp and his Merry Mayberry band of draft-dodging macho boys, we had evolved significantly in our treatment of prisoners of war.
To say acting like cannibalistic psychotics in wartime is an unavoidable inevitability is to compound the problem. Human beings have the ability to control their actions, and should be held to account.
Ostracism and punishment of those who stray so drastically from the public mores is a very effective deterrant to this kind of savagery, and we cannot afford to simply throw up our hands and say, in effect, “boys will be boys”.
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 24, 2008 at 3:49 PM Now wait a minute… Read what you are claiming here.
——————————— ;————-
You said, “...our crazies, who, for example, butcher and roast six-year-old babies and their parents in front of preteens before raping and murdering them “The Guardian put it this way…
“He claimed Green then shot Janabi several times in the head, and the soldiers poured petrol over her body and set it alight to try to hide the evidence of their crime. Cortez burned his own clothes and Spielman allegedly threw the AK-47 used to kill the family in a canal.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2019724,00.html
ͺ Bad enough, but not quite the way you phrased it. “...cannibalistic psychotics”
———————————& ————-“...refuse to believe even the most meticulously documented and proven facts when they run counter to their preferred prejudices?”
You gave no specific documentation such as Time or the Guardian initially.
——————————— ;—————
“I disagree with your excusal of such inhuman behavior. “
If you will look at what I actually said,not what you say I said, it was “Not an excuse, just a fact.”
——————————— ;————-
“To say acting like cannibalistic psychotics in wartime is an unavoidable inevitability…”
You are ad libbing once again. I said no such thing.
and here too. “...we cannot afford to simply throw up our hands and say, in effect, ‘boys will be boys’.”
——————————— ;————-
Geneva Convention(s): Actually they began even before WW2, but that is not important.Obviously you are not pleased with the present administration many of us are not but that does not mean that our military condones this sort of behavior among the troops. As evidence the perpetrators have been charged, tried and convicted something which throughout history was often not done in wartime.
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 24, 2008 at 9:07 PM One might say that the real point is that when our guys commit atrocities, they try to hide them because they *know* that they will be held accountable. When their guys commit atrocities, they are proud of their work. Mostly due to crazy Islamic thought patterns. . .
But much of the fault does lie with us. We should never have allowed middle age people access to modern technology, especially weapons. Best fix - massively fund solar energy in order to make the Middle East irrelevant. Let them remain in the Middle Ages until they evolve further.
Posted by wolf on Jan 25, 2008 at 12:04 AM What the heck: Contextual, my friend. Don’t sweat it.
Wolf: Again we’re circling back to the idea that “because they’re middle easterners, their mental and emotional attitudes when they butcher and torture are worse than ours when we butcher and torture.” And I still maintain that’s fantasy, based on propaganda you’re being fed.
However, I do agree with you completely in terms of the solution.
Now, rather than conituning to spend so much time here, let’s all get back into the real world and try to do something about this mess!
Posted by MikieNes on Jan 25, 2008 at 12:40 AM Wolf & Mikie,
Well, at least we agree on a solution to end the dependency on oil.
Cheers.
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 25, 2008 at 12:55 AM “Warrior, like SWORDS, is currently being designed to have human operators, but engineers are simultaneously testing the ability of robots to ‘think’ for themselves. This ‘disruptive technology,’ Dyer said, is ‘going to change the way we fight, the way we liveΓ’β¬βitΓ’β¬β’s going to change our entire lives.’”
I’m no robotics engineer and my acquaintance with AI is distant at best, so I don’t know for sure whether the reference above is even theoretically possible. However, just to throw in my two cents, regardless of what setting may be, I’d prefer it if no mechanical device anywhere had the “cognitive” ability to be self-thinking. Mechanicals should remain completely servile, and should not ever be programmed to be self-guiding beyond applications that are indisputably in the service of humans, e.g. autopilot systems on aircraft. Not that autopilot is a ‘thinking’ system. I don’t want it to become one.
Sometimes humans hesitate to act. I want that capacity to hesitate to be part of war for as long as war is fought (i.e. until we come to our senses).
This kneejerk enthusiasm for “chang[ing] our entire lives” through high-falutin’ tech developments is very poorly thought out, in my opinion. The Law of Unintended Consequences should never be forgotten.
Posted by Kuya on Feb 26, 2008 at 12:09 PM Listen. And Understand. That Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
Posted by badtimmay on Mar 6, 2008 at 9:54 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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