Military robots and the future of war [TED]

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html

by kvh • 17 years ago

19 32 17 years ago

endtime4• 17 years ago

He makes some good points, and it's interesting that soldiers who operate drones remotely (from the US) suffer higher rates of PTSD than soldiers actually in Iraq...but I felt like there was also a bit of dramatization, perhaps because he doesn't (seem to) understand robotics/AI very well. For example, he says that robots see an eighty year old woman in a wheelchair the same way they see a T80 tank - just "zeroes and ones". But that's like saying that humans see them the same way - just stimulus on rods and cones. I cringed at that.

queensnake2• 17 years ago

Do you see his point if you substitute 'digital blob' for 'ones and zeros'? Sure we see 'blobs' also, but we see the 'meaning' of the granny just about inextricably too; a computer won't.

endtime4• 17 years ago

No, substituting "digital blob" doesn't help at all. Have you ever heard of computer vision? I don't see any reason why a computer shouldn't be able to distinguish a tank from an old woman.

jerf2• 17 years ago

There may be a generation or two of robot that is deployable in some battlefield scenario in some autonomous capacity, but can not make that determination as well as a human. That will, however, be an anomaly that is rapidly corrected, followed immediately by it making the determination better than a human.

(It should be pointed out that we are hardly perfect at recognition tasks. When discussing robot/computer vs. human capabilities, people often slip in the assumption that humans are perfect at the task in question, usually unconsciously. That is never true. Humans have error rates too.)

radu_floricica2• 17 years ago

Then "some" soldiers actually in Iraq. And I cringed there too. The guy seemed to have gathered a decent amount of information, it's too bad he didn't organize it a bit better.

niels_olson2• 17 years ago

What concerns me is the completely vacuous presentation, complete with mention of Zune, and hopeful talk that they won't commit war crimes, and maybe humans are the problem. If this is the quality of philosophical thinking going in to this problem, Nazism isn't far away.

endtime4• 17 years ago

Huh? I had issues with the talk as well, but I don't see how anything he said leads to Nazism.

niels_olson2• 17 years ago

Lack of critical thinking (eg, completely automated rules of engagement algorithms have been deployed for decades). Military worship (toned down, but present).

ivankirigin3• 17 years ago

This was a horrible talk.

Some points were just false (war tech is not open source, china & india don't make US bots), lots of the visuals were misleading.

Some of his points were overly emotional and would better fit a middle school debate than TED.

Rod9• 17 years ago

Not to mention that the "72 virgins" joke [1] was distasteful beyond belief.

[1] I assume it was meant as a joke because I find it hard to believe that someone who gives a talk at TED could be that ignorant.

DTrejo• 17 years ago

If it was a joke, it flew over most everyone's heads, especially considering the way the presenter said it.

njharman3• 17 years ago

Ignorant of what?

pj• 17 years ago

Open Source projects are used in war technology. Linux powers a lot of robots.

Rod9• 17 years ago

Aren't all of Pentagon's cool toys programmed in ADA?

I never heard of an open-source project based on ADA...

ivankirigin3• 17 years ago

His point was that anyone could do it because it was open source. Robots indeed almost exclusively build in Linux. That doesn't mean their designs are open.

An exception might be the vibrant hobbyist small uav builder.

njharman3• 17 years ago

Watch "A Taste of Armageddon"

http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php?cid=61...

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/episode/687...

Many months ago when I first learned that USAF and RAF pilots in Las Vegas, NV were flying armed drones in a war zone "worlds" away I knew we were not far from the scenario presented in that episode.

War needs to be painful, it needs to be bloody and costly otherwise there is no reason to stop fighting and no arguments against starting wars and "nuke from orbit" becomes the 1st/easiest/best answer to every problem.

jerf2• 17 years ago

The historical correlation between the in-your-faceness of war, and the amount of war, is negative. (The news fools you; on a per-capita basis, the amount of war is going down. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth...)

There is no actual evidence that making war bloody and costly is an effective strategy for preventing it.

GrandMasterBirt• 17 years ago

Just the title statement iteself...

I always felt... why freaken robots, just have the leaders challange each other in a game of chess (Kasparov will be king) and basically we make rules based on technological levels, population, and other things, how many advisors you are allowed to have.

They just duke it out and after the one game war is over. Everyone accepts the outcome and the new overlords come to claim the country.

Its basically the same shit as war, except less death. We just need to figure out a way to incorporate nukes and suicide bombing into this game and a way to ensure propper resources are spent. After that why bother sending armies... Just send the chess team.

Military robots and the future of war [TED]

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