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The main issue is that this advanced tech creates a powerful lever for mad leaders. 1 clumsy cheetah robot at MIT may not be that scary, but 100.000 fully armed

The main issue is that this advanced tech creates a powerful lever for mad leaders. 1 clumsy cheetah robot at MIT may not be that scary, but 100.000 fully armed and armoured killing machines, which can avoid obstacles and track humans with all kinds of sensors, under the control of leaders wanting to 'right' the wrongs of history scares the shit out of me. At the same time, this progress cannot (and shouldn't) be stopped, but we need to quickly 'evolve' our moral and ethical standards in order to accommodate for these new powerful tools. Just like giving a loaded Ak-47 to a monkey is a bad idea, making this tech freely available to everyone is similarly stupid. And that's because a lot of monkeys are wiser than a lot of humans. Give those humans a button which controls an army of robot killers and they'll press it just to see what happens.

snops 11y ago
Your going to need some pretty advanced manufacturing to be able to make these for the forseeable future. I certainly can't see it being cheaper than humans with AKs for a long while, especially in the kind of environment where your "mad leaders" operate. Besides, the majority of "gain" is being able to fight wars without putting yourself at risk of casualties. A "mad leader" would not care about such losses. The moral issues in this are no different to those of the use of drones, which are very well discussed.
- kamaal 11y ago
  If there is sufficient demand, advanced manufacturing will just follow. Just see how much smart phone tech has grown over years and where it was before that.
paulmd 11y ago
At least at the moment, the limitation is power. Sure, they built a robot that can run and avoid obstacles, but its battery is probably dead in 10 minutes tops. There's a reason it's running on a power harness in the treadmill test. Unless they invent the Arc Reactor to along with it, those are a long way from the battlefield.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  Scale it up a bit and fuel it with petrol. I can't imagine this thing using more than 3 kW of electric power, and petrol generators are quite small these days.

snops 11y ago

Your going to need some pretty advanced manufacturing to be able to make these for the forseeable future. I certainly can't see it being cheaper than humans with AKs for a long while, especially in the kind of environment where your "mad leaders" operate. Besides, the majority of "gain" is being able to fight wars without putting yourself at risk of casualties. A "mad leader" would not care about such losses. The moral issues in this are no different to those of the use of drones, which are very well discussed.

kamaal 11y ago
If there is sufficient demand, advanced manufacturing will just follow. Just see how much smart phone tech has grown over years and where it was before that.

paulmd 11y ago

At least at the moment, the limitation is power. Sure, they built a robot that can run and avoid obstacles, but its battery is probably dead in 10 minutes tops. There's a reason it's running on a power harness in the treadmill test. Unless they invent the Arc Reactor to along with it, those are a long way from the battlefield.

mschuster91 11y ago
Scale it up a bit and fuel it with petrol. I can't imagine this thing using more than 3 kW of electric power, and petrol generators are quite small these days.