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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 billi

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.

jerf 16y ago
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.
- jbm 16y ago
  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.
  - jerf 16y ago
    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.
  - jws 16y ago
    That sums up the end of the Cold War. The US and the USSR were competing by devoting huge portions of their production to wasted[1] war materials. Finally the US out crazied the USSR under Reagan and Gorbachev conceded. The benefit of using robot war to compare nations' will power is that you aren't one glitch away from Armageddon as when you use nukes, and you don't kill a generation of people like a human war. [1] "wasted" in the sense that they were never actually used in combat. The deterrent aspect was part of the "cold".

jerf 16y ago

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.

jbm 16y ago
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.
- jerf 16y ago
  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.
- jws 16y ago
  That sums up the end of the Cold War. The US and the USSR were competing by devoting huge portions of their production to wasted[1] war materials. Finally the US out crazied the USSR under Reagan and Gorbachev conceded. The benefit of using robot war to compare nations' will power is that you aren't one glitch away from Armageddon as when you use nukes, and you don't kill a generation of people like a human war. [1] "wasted" in the sense that they were never actually used in combat. The deterrent aspect was part of the "cold".