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What happens when two enemy countries/entities have sufficiently advanced robotic troops to have robots fighting robots?

by ph0rque 17y ago

ivankirigin 17y ago
Like two robotic missiles that can attack the other country automatically? Like ICBMs? Or landmines? Automated tools of warfare aren't new. That this is brought up every fucking time a robot comes within a mile of the military is a really tired meme. Seriously. Go read every single issue of wired. I dare you to find a mention of robotics that doesn't bring up Terminator. It's just lazy thinking.
- ph0rque 17y ago
  Wow... didn't mean to set you off like that. Can you expound on why my comment is an example of lazy thinking?
  - whacked_new 17y ago
    Probably isn't about your comment specifically but about the robots -> all-robot war connection.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    It was more the trend for discussions about robots in the military to degrade that annoyed me. This thread is going down that path. You specifically were lazy in that we already have automated tools of killing each other and each others automated tools. It is heavy influence of hollywood that makes us think something without a human on board is fundamentaly different. Robot armies fighting each other and super AI taking over military robots are two of the most common topics brought up in the context of military robots, and two of the least realistic or likely. It's particularly irrelevant in a story about a mini robot used as a radio relay, 100% human controlled, with no weapons. This thing is a wi-fi repeater with a camera on top of an RC car.
    - noonespecial 17y ago
      You're not alone. The over-hyped "terminator case" is not only tiring, its also ridiculously unlikely and not even very scary. These are just wifi AP's on rc cars. With openWRT, and $40 at the Rat-Shak, you could make one too. And that's whats really scary. It only costs $40 now to make the land mines walk.
      - ivankirigin 17y ago
        I'm much more concerned about suitcase nukes and a grad student that could make a super virus. I'll almost certainly die of the latter :(
    - endtime 17y ago
      While I don't disagree with you overall (i.e. that military robots are not necessarily Skynet), there is a fundamental difference between having military decisions, even at the tactical level, being made by machines vs. having them made by humans, at least until we have AGI (and possibly even afterwards).
run4yourlives 17y ago
One combatant will circumvent the weaponry in question, as has happened throughout our existence. Our capacity to kill each other is only outweighed by our capacity to survive.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  Given how close we came to killing every human on the planet during the Cold War (and avoiding it through dumb luck), I'd have to say our capacity to kill each other far outweighs our capacity to survive.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    I'd have to say our capacity to kill each other far outweighs our capacity to survive Well, we're still here aren't we? Seriously though, when push came to shove (Cuban missile crisis was the closest) we (collectively) backed down. It seems nobody really wanted to fight when it meant certain death to themselves.
    - icey 17y ago
      There have also been narrow misses that could have gone either way: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/... [TLDR version: Stanislav Petrov prevented nuclear war by correctly guessing that the nuclear launch his station detected was a false alarm, and not a true attack on the USSR. If he had decided the other way, nuclear war may have ensued.]
chaosmachine 17y ago
Sounds like war is about to get a lot more fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuB3PyjHQFE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuB3PyjHQFE
whacked_new 17y ago
http://www.battlebots.com/BattleBots.com/Home/Home.html http://www.battlebots.com/BattleBots.com/Home/Home.html ... for nations. But, one can only dream.
dustov 17y ago
Read Rossum's Universal Robots -- the play wherein the term "robot" was coined, for one vision of this exact scenario.

What happens when two enemy countries/entities have sufficiently advanced robotic troops to have robots fighting robots?

by ph0rque 17y ago

What happens when two enemy countries/entities have sufficiently advanced robotic troops to have robots fighting robots?

ivankirigin 17y ago

Like two robotic missiles that can attack the other country automatically? Like ICBMs? Or landmines? Automated tools of warfare aren't new. That this is brought up every fucking time a robot comes within a mile of the military is a really tired meme. Seriously. Go read every single issue of wired. I dare you to find a mention of robotics that doesn't bring up Terminator. It's just lazy thinking.

ph0rque 17y ago
Wow... didn't mean to set you off like that. Can you expound on why my comment is an example of lazy thinking?
- whacked_new 17y ago
  Probably isn't about your comment specifically but about the robots -> all-robot war connection.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  It was more the trend for discussions about robots in the military to degrade that annoyed me. This thread is going down that path. You specifically were lazy in that we already have automated tools of killing each other and each others automated tools. It is heavy influence of hollywood that makes us think something without a human on board is fundamentaly different. Robot armies fighting each other and super AI taking over military robots are two of the most common topics brought up in the context of military robots, and two of the least realistic or likely. It's particularly irrelevant in a story about a mini robot used as a radio relay, 100% human controlled, with no weapons. This thing is a wi-fi repeater with a camera on top of an RC car.
  - noonespecial 17y ago
    You're not alone. The over-hyped "terminator case" is not only tiring, its also ridiculously unlikely and not even very scary. These are just wifi AP's on rc cars. With openWRT, and $40 at the Rat-Shak, you could make one too. And that's whats really scary. It only costs $40 now to make the land mines walk.
    - ivankirigin 17y ago
      I'm much more concerned about suitcase nukes and a grad student that could make a super virus. I'll almost certainly die of the latter :(
  - endtime 17y ago
    While I don't disagree with you overall (i.e. that military robots are not necessarily Skynet), there is a fundamental difference between having military decisions, even at the tactical level, being made by machines vs. having them made by humans, at least until we have AGI (and possibly even afterwards).

run4yourlives 17y ago

One combatant will circumvent the weaponry in question, as has happened throughout our existence. Our capacity to kill each other is only outweighed by our capacity to survive.

ivankirigin 17y ago
Given how close we came to killing every human on the planet during the Cold War (and avoiding it through dumb luck), I'd have to say our capacity to kill each other far outweighs our capacity to survive.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  I'd have to say our capacity to kill each other far outweighs our capacity to survive Well, we're still here aren't we? Seriously though, when push came to shove (Cuban missile crisis was the closest) we (collectively) backed down. It seems nobody really wanted to fight when it meant certain death to themselves.
  - icey 17y ago
    There have also been narrow misses that could have gone either way: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/... [TLDR version: Stanislav Petrov prevented nuclear war by correctly guessing that the nuclear launch his station detected was a false alarm, and not a true attack on the USSR. If he had decided the other way, nuclear war may have ensued.]

chaosmachine 17y ago

Sounds like war is about to get a lot more fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuB3PyjHQFE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuB3PyjHQFE

whacked_new 17y ago

http://www.battlebots.com/BattleBots.com/Home/Home.html http://www.battlebots.com/BattleBots.com/Home/Home.html ... for nations. But, one can only dream.

dustov 17y ago

Read Rossum's Universal Robots -- the play wherein the term "robot" was coined, for one vision of this exact scenario.