Look at the arms industry and you will see a similar pace of advancement - mostly due to the bottomless and nigh- unchallengeable defense spending of Uncle

Look at the arms industry and you will see a similar pace of advancement - mostly due to the bottomless and nigh- unchallengeable defense spending of Uncle Sam. But I don't think you're really disagreeing here. The DoD is a lot less squeamish than civilians about experimental projects that result in death. Leave aside the issue of whether this is good or bad. For them, they are going to be seeing dead bodies as a natural course of doing business, and they want fewer ones, and so they're (much) more willing to pursue riskier projects that may cost lives. Soldiers can be ordered to run into enemy fire, so they can also be ordered to test drive automatic cars (funded by DARPA). Autonomous helicopters that could slice someone in two if the programming goes bad nevertheless get the green light because there are already people being sliced in two, and DoD wants to reduce that number. DoD is really pushing robotics and cybernetics forward in particular because those two result in less dead soldiers and (in the future) soldiers who can function even after losing limbs and eyes[0]. Perhaps the most concrete example of this thesis is what happens when the priorities of DoD and FDA collide. Take a look at the Pathways to Innovation program that FDA just greenlit[1]. On a Tuesday afternoon call with reporters, Shuren said he expects just one or two devices to be approved through the new pathway each year. The first device up for review under the new pathway comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the Department of Defense. The brain-controlled prosthetic is designed to restore near-natural arm, hand, and finger function to patients suffering from spinal cord injury, stroke, or amputation. An implanted microchip on the surface of the brain records neuronal activity, decodes the signals, and activates motor neurons that control the prosthesis. The first chip will be implanted in a patient within six months, Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD, program manager at DARPA, told reporters. There is a very good reason why no private company has yet gotten this kind of fast track, but the DoD has. From FDA's perspective, DoD is a (more powerful) fellow agency which deserves professional courtesy. Moreover, FDA doesn't suspect DoD of just being in this to make money. Thus a dot mil is allowed to play by fundamentally different rules than a dot com. This is my point: when lives are on the line, people will be willing to risk lives to innovate. If not, then not. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN-WuU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN-WuU [1] http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/24762 http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/24...