Should We Send Robots to War?

Has the certain death of our young ones ever stopped the war makers in any country from making war?

No they and theirs never make the sacrifice so the sacrifice means nothing to them.

Instead they preach patriotism and hatred that the body bag parade and tears may inflame others to join the sacrifice with glad hearts. If a robot can spare one parents tears no matter the race, creed, color, or country then I say empty the scrap yards and build them by the ship load.

Imagine a droid army of insect size creeping into your childrens bed at night... which can not be exterminated. what is war?

would you put some radical/racist politician in charge of a droid army?

just because we can does not mean we should.

military means should not exceed military needs.

military use is the application of force of your will over that of another. right is assumed, but obviously any excuse will do.

chris

I basically agree with those thoughts, but I can't say I trust any power monger to use the technology appropriately. "National Security" covers an awful lot of sins it seems.

I agree that power mongers are not to be trusted regardless of what weapon they bear, because in the end they will use what ever is at their disposal, moral legal or otherwise to maintain their position on the backs of those who actually toil to provide them their riches and positions of power. If the war pigs had to go to fight in the trenches there would be no more wars.

Welcome to CR4! ga

Thank you for that I am currently working a world away form my home and friends are always welcome

I gave him a ga for that for defining a hard reality about war. "The human animal will always war", and several other statements. In my experience, these types of statements definitely help focus the conversation, as pivot points, or pitons. imho.

I also agree with your statements for the same reason. they are true. I don't require that they agree with anyone elses, or my own, so long as I can not refute them..

Chris (ga)

Welcome to CR4!

GA to you Chris. Your answer is the very heart of OP's question. War and technology have advanced to the detriment of all. Japan was rocked by atomic bombs but the same country that dropped those bombs were rocked by 19 radical young men to prove only that a weak enemy cannot win but neither can they be defeated.

Man has reached the age of science but is ruled by stone age politicians. It is always "manly" to attack and seek revenge. It is time to let women make the decisions of war and peace. Stone age man has proven to be just stuck in some sort of primate/genetic mind set. Women have, for the most part, been the biggest victims of any war and are less likely to be warriors. Unless we learn to tame our stone age urges, humans will not survive very long in geological terms. Males have too much of the basal competitive genes and posturing to be in charge of high tech anything that can be used in war. A good book on this subject is Sex and War by Potts and Hayden, 2008.

I agree.

I'm all for a women-only political party however, it is clear there can be some really crazy women that I wouldn't trust as far as I can throw them... (eg Palin) I feel certain that a women-oly political party would run rampant over all others. the women would be lined up down the street to vote. I'm frankly surprised it hasn't been done already.

I think we first need a vastly improved political quality control system, that allows the public to acheive their goals. I know most will say 'mob rule' and 'bread and circuses' and all that, but I don't think such a system as I'm thinking of has ever been implemented.

the founders of the 'free' countries never heard of ISO 9001. It's purpose is to acheive quality goals set by the organization, by using the ultimate process.

thanks,

Chris

Great Blog Guys.

I never saw war personally as "ethical" or not. Once you have been in one you will know where I am coming from....wars are sh*t, especially when lumps of lead are coming your way at very high speed!!!!

Wars are fought today with machines/robots where the actual man/woman is many miles away, so it has already really started.....

You could even say that someone dropping bombs from 40,000 up in an aircraft is also a long way away from the fight so to say.....

I see no problem in protecting our armed forces in any way possible (UK governements of recent times seem not to want to achieve this!!), it may put off some of our enemies though and thats a good thing, we just need to keep their hands away from be able to purchase such machines to use against us!!

Though the use of children, women and young men to carry bombs and commit suicide (or be killed remotely using a phone as in the case of some of the chilren used in this way), is totally unethical. So maybe ethics are on the line, I just did not realise it till now.....

I really do not see how certain religions can accept this as being "OK"....technically these people are not "Robots", but they do appear to have had their own wills reduced to allow such atrocities.......so are they really only "cheap" non mechanical robots?

There seems to be an endless supply.....sadly.

There is no such thing an ethical war. There are rules that the war mongers have put into place, (Geneva) to give a false sense of ethical conduct but as anyone who has come any where close to war will attest to once bullet meets flesh all the pretense in the world of the nobility or honor of war is gone and straight up save my but and those close to me by what ever means necessary. Those who don't do not have to look far for a war vet to ask. When the horror stories end come back to me and we can discuss your ethical wars. And the aid that the west pours on the staving masses of the poor nations of the world is holding them down? What planet are you from, my only problem with that aid is that most of the time it is taken by those very same people of those countries that are truly holding them down and used as a weapon of control.

I am somewhat amazed IF you comments were addressed to me personally (you did reply to my last comment!). Were they?

Your comment:-

When the horror stories end come back to me and we can discuss your ethical wars.

I am really dumbfounded about as it would appear to be a comment on my comment of:-

I never saw war personally as "ethical" or not.

Why?

Your further comment of:-

What planet are you from, my only problem with that aid is that most of the time it is taken by those very same people of those countries that are truly holding them down and used as a weapon of control.

Was really offbeat to say the least.......I do not like war (been there, done that!) and I do not like people being "used" as the bombers are being used in certain countries at this time........Israel, Afghanistan, England and Iraq to name but four....

Surely we are on the same side of the fence? Or did you simply not understand what I was trying to say?????

I have placed my whole last post here below again for you to read as I am completely dumbfounded at the way you are attacking me......please explain.

Original Post:-

I never saw war personally as "ethical" or not. Once you have been in one you will know where I am coming from....wars are sh*t, especially when lumps of lead are coming your way at very high speed!!!!

Wars are fought today with machines/robots where the actual man/woman is many miles away, so it has already really started.....

You could even say that someone dropping bombs from 40,000 up in an aircraft is also a long way away from the fight so to say.....

I see no problem in protecting our armed forces in any way possible (UK governments of recent times seem not to want to achieve this!!), it may put off some of our enemies though and thats a good thing, we just need to keep their hands away from be able to purchase such machines to use against us!!

Though the use of children, women and young men to carry bombs and commit suicide (or be killed remotely using a phone as in the case of some of the children used in this way), is totally unethical. So maybe ethics are on the line, I just did not realise it till now.....

I really do not see how certain religions can accept this as being "OK"....technically these people are not "Robots", but they do appear to have had their own wills reduced to allow such atrocities.......so are they really only "cheap" non mechanical robots?

There seems to be an endless supply.....sadly.

my comments were directed to Fredart not you, I agree with your comments. The people who talk people into suicide are no better than the people who wage wars from the safety of distant bunkers, they are cowards.

Then you should reply to his post, otherwise you can create misunderstandings....

Relief!!

mortoch, I think you are misunderstanding andy germany. he is saying the same thing you are. no ethical wars. recommend reading again.

Chris

Thanks Chris.

Those that do not, will not or cannot defend themselves will be enslaved.

history is in agreement with you.

but when the last superpower in the world spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on military applications to fight territorial squabbles, or conduct R & D, then that is far in excess of defense, and is clearly in the aggression zone. The purpose then is to enslave the world.

chris

If you compare a country's military spending to its GDP, North Korea is the warmonger. The US is on par with the rest of the world given this number.

Weapons are neither good nor ill. Those nukes in their silos aren't hurting anyone. Robotic soldiers will follow their programming (which could in fact contain ill intent).

I felt pretty good about American foreign policy and our use of our military until 2003.

Tripple B

Why are you a guest?

Repercussions?

Fear eats soul, Ky.

My humble apologies. I didn't check my numbers, just regurgitated what I remembered from a TED talk that I watched at bedtime about a month ago.

The point I was trying to make with my mis-use of numbers was that yes, the US spends a lot on "defense," but we're also a rich country. You're right in pointing out that it's not that meaningful, so I embarrassed myself for no good reason.

but we're also a rich country

Sorry but that is not true either. There is a clock some where on the net that counts how broke the USA is and it is the opposite of rich. This clock is not adding but subtracting. Like I said just plain denial.

I do admire your willingness to embarrass your self though. Admitting that takes or can take a chunk out of one.

I wish I could be more to the point but this is an engineering site. Hope all goes well, Ky.

but we're also a rich country

Sorry but that is not true either.

Rich is relative. We're still the big dog in terms of GDP, not counting the European conglomerate of nations. Properly used, debt is financial tool.

I must disagree with you on one particular:

"I see no problem in protecting our armed forces in any way possible (UK governements of recent times seem not to want to achieve this!!), it may put off some of our enemies though and thats a good thing, we just need to keep their hands away from be able to purchase such machines to use against us!!"

In asymmetric warfare, the objective is to "win the hearts and minds of the populace". The military is placed, or should be placed, in the position of a police force. The job is to protect the civilians from the terrorists without terrorizing them yourself. Anything else and you might as well go home because you are breeding more enmity.

The politicians here try to win our hearts and minds so you can bet that our police, except in Philadelphia, are not permitted to blow up a building along with the extended family inside it, just because they suspect that a terrorist may be in there.

I haven't been at the sharp end but I was a small boy in London during WW2 and, damn it, I don't understand the difference between being blown up by a suicide bomber and a stick of HE from an enemy bomber and a V2 dropping from the heavens. That was a symmetric war though.

p.s. I thought it was the US military where civilians were buying the protective armor for the humvees and personal body armor for their soldiers!

I see lots of sense in your comments, but you dropped the ball on one particular point when you wrote:-

p.s. I thought it was the US military where civilians were buying the protective armor for the humvees and personal body armor for their soldiers!

Look here if you don't believe me:-

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/170073/SAS-forced-to-rely-on-private-cash-on-body-armour-for-soldiers-SAS-forced-to-rely-on-private-cash-on-body-armour-for-soldiers-

Many UK soldiers have been buying their own body armour, long before a conservative government made it even less likely that they will get it supplied by the UK armed Forces....

By the way, watch the BBC news in the UK today at 15:30 UK times, it looks like the Ark Royal will be mothballed or scrapped......and more further cuts in the wrong areas.....

I am not personally bothered if the next version of the Trident missiles will be too expensive as I have convinced myself (rightly or wrongly) that its very unlikely that we will ever have another Nuclear War again.....but not be able to fight a conventional war or even terrorists makes me want to puke.

Wait up till another plane or building (in your hometown or nearby?) is taken over by terrorists, or another plane flown into a building or similar, especially if any of your near relatives happen to be in such a plane or building. That tends to change people's minds rather quickly about such things......

I am simply not one of those who wants to just wait till something drops on my head......I know that there are many pacifists around (thank God, generally I like them) but I am simply not one of them. So we may need to disagree on that point!!

1984 is here, although quarter century or more late but is here.

Robots will not fight for us, they will only distant us from the battleground. they will end up in the recycling bin and we will in the cemeteries just as well. Wars are part of nature, and not only of humans. Show me one animal or even a plant that is not territorial fighting for it's survival. So just save your tears mothers and make more cemetery space available at reasonable prices.

We started the move to, "Robots," the day the first caveman found that he could throw a rockat his enemy. That removed him from direct contact and all the immediate blood and guts that come with that.

Then the Spear.

Then the bow and Arrow, the Catapult and the rifle and pistol held in hand.

Then long distance guns, rockets and such.

Now we can launch weapons from thousands of miles away, either aimedr in ballistic fashion, or guided to destination via satalite.

War is failure !

If we had all the resources and time spend on this auto genocide we call war, from the beginning of history to now, we could be sipping martinis on a distant planet instead of slowly strangling this rock we call home.

yes.. or all would have enough food and clean water, and basic shelter.

I like the first part.. but the conclusion is highly controversial, as there are those who think conflict is essential for evolution. I'm undecided.

Chris

Animals fight for territory yes, one huge and glaring difference though. The animal or group of animals are fighting for their territory, all of them, there is no coward clown sitting high on a rock some place having the lesser animal fight his battles for him.

We are animals, granted, but we make such big deals of our superiority over those animals we feel are so much less than we are. Our children are sent to die not for the sanctity and protection of our nation, but to protect the interests of the rich.

The day the enemy attempts to crash our shores count me among the front line defenders but do not ask me to surrender up my progeny to be sacrifice's on the alter of the mad gods of war, regardless of their message of hate. Leave that insanity to the robots just please do not give them faces and names, there are to many of those on tombstones now.

I wish we realized (especially we Americans) that war creates victims. I happen to think that the high numbers of casualty estimates are closer to the truth than the white-washed official guesses.

If it's "us or them," I want it to be "us." But far too many of the wars we've fought did not need to be fought.

Robots will make the prospect of war even more sanitary.

And when the robots realize what a waste war is and refuse to go, then what?

Why not just move war somewhere else. We already have a few online battle ground. Let whoever wanna fight go there. Oh, cheating and hacking is allowed. Its part of the game.

perhaps death is the best inhibitor. we just need to put the politicians into the line of fire.

You are right. I believe Thomas Jefferson would agree as well:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."-Thomas Jefferson

These is good reason to include many politicians in that second group. In my opinion many CEOs of large corporation are tyrants and politicians (consider that corporation-hood is granted by the government and provides benefits not enjoyed by natural persons including limited liability, and consider that there is a privileged group that elects the CEO, it is easy to see that CEOs are politician of quasi government organizations)

Much of the problem extends from the advantages our laws have extended to corporations.

Anyone interested can google 'Money is not speech, Corporations are not persons'

BBB

Flee to me remote elF!

Everything else aside (but not diminished), someone will stand to profit from the manufacture of these robots.

We are the war.

We are the robots.

We are all under attack.

We are in denial.

Which god will help us?

What has this to do with the military industrial complex? They? They are innocent, just providing safe jobs for a safe world and using the best minds to get to their goal. Just having a superior weapons system will do, thank you very much.

Only a healthy minded human can avoid war. Chrisg288 is right, maybe a matriarchal society would be good for a change.

Robots for wars? Why not for cars? They cause many more deaths and injury than any war. What is the difference between grieving parents, family, house hold or a community when 5 young kids collide head on with a semi and are all smashed to pieces, or, the grieving displayed by the same during the procedure of a flag encased coffin coming home?

The innocent victims of the crash are not paraded as heroes. They are "just" victums.

Hah, I see, it is sadder when a soldier dies. I see no difference at all in the tortured faces of the survivors or relatives. They appear on TV. They are shown in silence in a never ending tirade of dead people. (Average age 22?). Killed by us and our inability to be modern humans.

Future generations of modern humans will see war as they can see now the passing of the stone age. How do I know? I am one.

At least they die as heroes were as the car deaths where guilty of taking part in day to day traffic. Robots for cars would save more lives than robots for war fare, any day of the week.

I will refrain from political statements here (as promised) but wish that this would all end rather sooner than later. All I can do is be the man in the mirror and protect my very skin, bones, mind, soul, plans and family from attack and avoid conflict as much as I can. I think we all have our daily wars to fight but we just can't buy a robot and let it solve the problems for us. Not even on the smallest scale. Why would it work in a war?

Robots in war? I don't think so.

Modern humans occupying this planet? Imaginable.

Which god will help us? (As promised)

Very sad state of affairs to be over come, Ky.

Man has been at war since Cain killed Able. There has not been any improvement since. Why should the future be different.

Death is tragedy regardless of the cause. When a dear friend or loved one dies the pain felt is not based upon the manner of death. What is based upon the manner of the death is the cause of that death. Senseless, meaningless deaths caused by the greed of those in power that feel that the lives of the general populous are theirs to play with as they see fit are, to me beyond tragedy.

A child dies because a auto maker couldn't sacrifice the bottom line to fix a known problem. A child dies because a government has this cool new plane that they just have to try out. A child dies because a president wants to prove to daddy that he is a man.

Examples would be endless, as the deaths have been and the tears of parents affect not the heartless, soulless demons in the mahogany board rooms as they plot the next batch of grieving parents and friends.

Death is never not a tragedy, but when it is brought about by simple heartless uncaring greed whatever its form it is wrong with out measure and unforgivable.

GA for a great comment.

Who are you really?

I think we are wandering from the original topic a bit. Should we send robots to war?

It has been said here that if it saves one life we should go for it, I feel that that comment misses the point by a wide margin. IF there is ever a robot vs robot war the enemy will not be sending his robots to destroy yours. He will be sending his robots to kill your people, any way they can. Robots killing robots would be just a waste of resources, if I wanted to gain an edge in such a conflict I want my robots to destroy your population, your ability to produce more robots and your willingness to oppose me. Civilians would be my target.

If wars have ever been subject to any sort of rules at all it is probably only because human soldiers are for the most part unwilling to follow inhuman orders. At least that was true at some time in the past for trained professional soldiers. Take the humananity out of the soldier and war would take on a whole new face.

Where past wars have been trying to destroy an enemy's strongest force a robotic war would first target the enemy's weakest and work its way up. Destroy the enemy's ability to create more robots while maintaining your own ability to produce them would be the new rules of war. This is a vastly different different concept than the old bombing of weapons factories. Consider that a robot attacker can be a small as a microbe.

A robotic war would be a nightmare compared to any military attrocity we have ever seen so far.

Nations at peace are said to always be preparing to refight the last war and tend to not be prepared for the next war. This conversation is truly about the NEXT war.

they grow smart people up thar in Edmonton! ga.

I would think that any enemies first objective will be to destroy the power base first. In any fight do you take out the weakest link first? I think you take out the strongest link while you are at your strongest and destroy or enslave the weak at your leisure.

Robotic or otherwise war will be our extinction and future explorers will marvel at our headlong rush to bloody oblivion.

If the Mayans math wizards truly did predict the end of time maybe they merely did the math on how long it would take man to progress to the point that we could quickly and efficiently wipe the earth clean of all life.

I didn't address the question before, so ....

The question I have to ask myself first is; "Is the OP asking a practical or a philosophical/ethical/moral question?"

The practical question answers itself, "practicality", if they can, or if they are pushed hard enough by industry, then they will use them. The scary question is whether they will be used to deliver chemical weaponry to the humans, the robots would not be affected by it.

The philosophical question boils down to whether we should go to war or not. The robots are merely the newest weapons.

Listen very carefully my friends:

The ultimate weapon of war is the human BRAIN.

All the rest be it robots or whatever are only supplements.

Wangito.

death by autonomous entity (robot) is a different aspect.

war between humans is reprehensible. war between human and robot is... inhuman.

that understanding will not change a thing. We have amonst us, some very inhumane people.

Good accurate philosphical point that many have missed. Thanks!!

Having watched this for awhile - and having had some involvement with some aspects - design wise - I think it is not so much an ethical question but a fraught High Command mindset, as losses of "young men and women" are bad PR.

As things stand; the massive US military is basically helpless against "dumb" "point and shoot" weaponry - specifically developed to bypass "countermeasures" against "smart weapons" (read; US Robotic Based Weapons)

So; Question 1. for the US is more like; "if we arm a bunch of robots, can we be certain they cannot be turned against us?"

The answer is "no"

Question 2. is; would invasion by robots "encourage" the deployment of "EMR counter measures".

The answer is "yes" - (hence the race to acquire such).

But Question 3. for the US is "why are we slaves to the notion that we are the Police of the World?"

I.e. every other nation is potentially "criminal" or "out to get us!"

So Q 4. "is this new robot idea just escalation of what we (allegedly) see to avoid?".

The hard technical reality is for a few billion dollars, the "right advice" and "applicable skill sets", the US militarily could be "made to stay at home". That has already been achieved in 3 'critical zones'.

Or why someone would "encourage this reaction/process" by publishing the "trigger," is beyond my ken.

May be I am on off topic.

Human labour is becoming costlier and lot of short falls is being suffered. Future could be like this, I buy robot master with master functions and programme and use it as per my option and jobs. No doubt it is worth using robots[ remote controllable with view camera] for areas where humans can not access [ deep seas. dense forests, mines, chemical, heat zones etc].Human controlled owner based robots will soon come in the near future. Tireless machines. That is all about the positive side of robotism, since humans will be evading tough work conditions.

We won't be requiring warrior robots to die in vain.

When there is not enough water, food or shelter (useable land) for everyone, there's going to be fighting. It's a simple unavoidable fact.

The USA spends a lot of effort trying to keep the peace through peaceful means as well as violent methods. If there is a World Cop, I want it to be US. No doubt the world would be different if the US didn't have such a large, active military. Pending careful analysis, I believe/hope it would be worse off without us.

Back on topic, I do suspect we'll never deploy autonomous hunter-killers. We'll keep humans in the loop.

Man; being the Ultimate Predator; preys not only upon all the species of the world, the world itself and preys upon himself as well.

Let us pray that we do not prey.

It appears there is a definite need for "sympathetic ideals/convictions pattern recognition software" before robots can be deployed. This would be in line with the "policing action" tasks given to human ground troops, whereby the human brain is utilized to to discern the "good guy" from the "bad guy" which is complicated by the fact that this human brain has recorded the negative input of the guy next to him getting converted into hamburger by an entity that by outward physical appearance, looks like the "bad guy" and/or "good guy" and further complicated by the fact that these ground troops were trained to kill, not police.(This last statement may not be accurate and subject to correction, as the troops might have policing action included in their training at this point).

Anyone here remember the original Star Trek episode where two planets were fighting via computers? When the computer said such and such a sector had been hit and all occupants in that sector killed, these "occupants" were then rounded up and semi-willingly submitted to being place in an incinerator to be destroyed.

definitely. how unforgettable, and prescient.

the thing is, with remote controlled vehicles, there is still real death, and real collateral damage. With computer simulations, there is no more real damage than the online gaming community.

I also think that the relatively new cyber-war attacks, in the information era, have real consequences, especially if financial systems, strategic info, or privacy info, are the targets... but I never forget that show. (although I don't remember the incinerator part... will look that up again on youtube.)

Chris

Any number of those shows would have shades of prophecy towards the events up to and including these times. Another favorite is the scene in Independence day where the president is mind melded by the alien and later describes them as being like locusts, stripping planets bare of all its resources and moving on. If that is not prophetic of our species I am not sure what is. I will reassert that robots are and will be used for war, the degree to which they are is up to us as a species, which scares the crap out of me.

Mortoch

GA lots of thought... My respect.

I wrote that after re-watching Woodstock and going into a funk wondering what ever happened to the wonderful promise of all those people longing for peace and in fact screaming for it. Now we discuss cleaner ways to war instead of ways to end war. Makes me sad.

well said brother! ^{_{(I assume)}}

"cleaner" and interesting word/thought.

Clearly whoever thought this up has ignored: an animal that thinks it's cornered or under attack - will attack. Countries are the same.

This reeks of ambition to "invade cost free".

If you want Peace, think deterrents - not massive strike superiority.

SOVIET RESPONSES TO SDI

Though this one was a bit touch and go - even though the players were 'evenly matched' - it's worth a read.

But don't be to maudlin about this. If it were 'real' it would not be published.

And let's hope the 'possible recipients' of a robot invasion are smart enough to know that it's myth, or just some idiot.

That was an interesting link. It was good to see all the responses of that time all in one place.....

Many credit President Reagan and the SDI initiative with eventually financially ruining the USSR and bringing about the downfall of the Soviet Bloc......certainly he and SDI played a great part in that, all credit to the US political strategy of the time, thanks Guys, well done. Honestly said and meant.

Very well said