Posted on 06/14/2013 9:48:17 AM PDT by nickcarraway
It sounds like something out of the Terminator movies: automated drones that can identify, track and eliminate individual targets without explicit human approval.
Today’s U.S. drones require a person to make the decision to fire. But, according to novelist Daniel Suarez, autonomous robotic weapons are virtually an inevitability.
In this TED talk from the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, Suarez walks us through two scenarios: one where governments used automated war machines to undermine democracy, and another where publicly tracked drones improve the quality of life for us all.
His 13-minute presentation provides a lot to ponder as drones become ever more popular and sophisticated.
That has been a subject for sci-fi writers since before WWII.........
To anyone who has not read Suarez’s novels, I highly recommend them. Daemon and its sequel are fantastic.
Could drones kill on their own?
Sure, just give the drone access to the meta-data collected by the NSA.
Of course, a couple accidental butt dials to the number of a known terrorist and boom—the drone dials up your butt.
They will no doubt hunt and seek Tea Party activists, NRA members, and CAGW deniers.
And when found out, those in charge will admit it was very wrong, and say that we need to have a debate about it.
No one will know who ordered it, but the finger will be pointed at two janitors in Cincinnati.
I hope I’m correct saying this is sarcasm.
SkyNet is pending...
They will be used to police the ‘people free’ agenda 21 no go zones.
Only selected ‘elites’ will have the codes to disable this. For their own personal enjoyment of beautiful nature.
Now back to your soviet style rabbit warren, taxpayer!
Practically speaking, anti-drone drones are a given. In fact, they should exist in many forms. They should be able to intercept, jam, even assert control over other drones.
If the drones being used are local, then an anti-drone might not only be able to target a drone, but target the drone operator.
Since the larger drones still generally fly low for ground targets, an anti-drone might be launched on a model rocket to attain the proper altitude.
etc., etc., etc.
Of course we are, or soon will be, able to do this. As technology advances, we should be having more frequent debates about many things, such as some of the variants on human reproduction, and of course use of drones, that we decide not to do even though we could.
But such would require debates about first principles and absolute moral judgments, and those make many people very uncomfortable, so for the most part I suspect we will allow many of these technologies to be approved by default.
That said, I don't think such tech changes the legal situation much. Whoever makes the decision to turn a computer program loose with a "shoot to kill" authorization will be legally responsible for whatever that program does. Whether he will be prosecuted when the program makes an oopsie is of course an entirely different question.
Yes, and eventually they will.
They will also dogfight each other and human piloted planes, and the human piloted planes will lose catastrophically. Planes manned by humans are limited by human limits, planes manned by computers have only the limits of their engineering imposed on them.
We’ll also start to see this in land warfare. An M1 that doesn’t have to keep it’s crew alive can slap on even more armor without being any larger. Smaller, less armored units could be designed to take much over many infantry roles.
Machines don’t need to eat or drink. That takes out most of one major logistical hurdle. They don’t need rest longer than it takes to refuel/re-energize or swap batteries. No one is going to mourn the loss of a machine, making it more politically palatable to wage wars this way.
Einstein wasn’t quite right about WW3.
Sounds a little like the movie Oblivion
Drones will use Microsoft Active Directory. They will be placed into a group policy with only law enforcements local policy to override it.
Maybe drones will be fitted for reading DNA and tracking based on it. A sweat module on the skin gets picked up, matched against an uploaded DNA database and BOOM! Shouldnt have eaten the kung po chicken.
Youtube of an "Ultimate Weapons" episode: The Crusher, robotic armed vehicle.
I have thought about this a lot. Videos I have seen of current drones and robots are pretty scary. We think of the Terminator movies as sci-fi, but we’re very close to getting there. Even the current machines are MUCH faster and more accurate than humans, with much better sensors, so only stealth and intelligence would give humans much of a chance against them. I vote not to give the monkey a gun.
Facial recognition and iris-scanning systems would allow the robot to look at each human it meets and check if it's on a list of "wanted" people. Anybody wearing a hoodie, reflective sunglasses, or other article which would hamper the identifier-system's operation could be detained until the robot IS able to identify the person.
One of my favorites.
No.
At some point, somebody says “launch a drone to attack such and such target.”
The drone might decide HOW to attack the target, but the decision to attack the target was made by a human.
Well, at least they didn’t name it the “Penetrator.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.