Calls for restrictions on war robots

[TarJak]

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/curbs-on-war-robots-urged-20100917-15g98.html

[ETR3(SS)]

Sounds like somebody is afraid of Skynet.

[Skybird]

War is mankind's most beloved hobby. That call for restrictions on tools of war, is in vain.

[Diopos]

We don't want robots killing people.
We want to do it ourselves!



.

[Bubblehead1980]

I do have a problem with too much automation, bad things COULD happen.

[TLAM Strike]

"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."

-The Simpsons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_of_Lisa_Simpson)

I think of it this way instead of facing groups of trigger happy, pimple faced kids they will be facing cold unfeeling robots bend on conquest. I think this should scare the $h!t out of our enemies! Remember deterrence anyone? When you and your Mujaheddin friends blow up that tank your not killing any Americans you are just blowing up a piece of hardware. No matter what you do short of sending a ballistic missile at the US will you kill an American serviceman. All the 'bots you destroy are just rebuilt at some factory (perhaps by other robots). Think of what the CNN worm will say every day:

27 Mk 8 battle chassis were destroyed in separate attacks in occupied Siberia today...

Would you care?

A robot under fire can just sit there if it wants! It has no sense of self preservation. Just sit there and locate who is doing the shooting, it can just see oh this is a situation where there are non-combatants near by, don't shoot and just take the hit.

Just think about it... no more flag draped coffins just boxes of metal and silicon marked battle scrap. :hmmm:

[Rilder]

Wouldn't robots fighting on enemy soil give the enemy an advantage unless conquest is assured?

I mean all the robot wrecks might be able to be salvaged/scrapped for parts;resources/etc, so given an overly long war attacking armies would expend drastically more resources then the defenders. :hmmm:

[tater]

We can have proportional response and send our own suicide attackers, except ours will be robots!

[TLAM Strike]

We can have proportional response and send our own suicide attackers, except ours will be robots! We got those, they are called cruise missiles. ;)

Wouldn't robots fighting on enemy soil give the enemy an advantage unless conquest is assured?

I mean all the robot wrecks might be able to be salvaged/scrapped for parts;resources/etc, so given an overly long war attacking armies would expend drastically more resources then the defenders.

Same could be said of a conventional human focused army. Rifles, armor, vehicles even uniforms can be salvaged from defeated human troops.

The advantage a robot army would have would it be harder to kill an individual "trooper". While a human trooper can be killed by a single gunshot to the head or torso (assuming the rifle is powerful to penetrate the body armor), a robot can be redundant one single hit to a CPU would not kill it since it would have a backup "brain". Lose a leg? Make it walk on its hands as well (like a ape) or be able to self repair and reattach the leg.

What would it take to kill a basic "trooper" battle chassis? Small arms fire? Nope it had skin stronger than several sets of body armor. Concussion from blast? CPUs mounted on shock absorbers. RPGs? Allow it to use its minigun as a CIWS. Arty? Link its brain to a counter battery radar and have it fly on a jet pack out of where the shells/rockets will land. Air strike? Pack a few Stingers, it can carry the extra weight!


Also if you made the factories automated themselves and capable of gathering and refining material cost becomes meaningless, you pay once to build it and it keeps going until you tell it to stop.

Destroy the factory you say? Why not armor it with an inch or two of Depleted Uranium!

Oh and make the factory mobile...

Think of the meeting at the Pentagon when that is proposed...

Scientist: Its armor will be an inch of Depleted Uranium.
General: What! How much will that cost!
Contractor: 60 billion for the armor, automated robotic construction systems another 30, resource gathering drones another 20... per unit...
General: What will it be able to do?
Scientist: Defeat the combined armies of planet Earth...

[GoldenRivet]

fire all the missiles


get this crap over with


:yep: