Note: You are experiencing only the raw content of this site, without the intended layout and design. Either your browser has ignored the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) files for this site, or you are using an outdated browser which does not support Web Standards. Learn more.

EDS' Next Big Thing Blog: Read and Respond to What the EDS Fellows Say About Technology

Read and respond to what the EDS Fellows have to say about the future of technology on EDS' Next Big Thing Blog on eds.com.

More On Robot Autonomy

by Randy Mears

Even though we are in the early stages of robotic technology evolution, it is important for us to consider what our expectations for the future should be. This BBC article ahead of a public debate by a part of London’s Science Museum lays out a few scenarios that may not have occurred to many of us. I think that it is notable that the scientific arms of governments are beginning focus on this sort of debate.

The article is about autonomous robots; not like simple autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners of today but the highly sophisticated and potentially dangerous evolving military robots that will soon be with us. The article downplays “robot rights” as a sensationalist distraction and focuses more on the direct impact to humans, something to which we can easily relate.

It raises several important questions that will surely evolve into spirited debates as this technology progresses. Not that most of these arguments are new, they have been emerging abstractly in literature for over 50 years, but as we come closer to the realization of robotic autonom, we are transitioning from literary speculation to real action. This article does a good job by giving us an early taste of the unfolding controversy.

Published Friday, April 27, 2007 3:59 PM

Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS

Comments

Posted by Phil Drenth Sunday, May 20, 2007 9:50 AM

Mobile robotics for use in military settings will be an inevitability. Consider how the current cultural context is setting this up. Every day the network news revels in the latest body counts from Iraq. It may be the media's left-handed way of mincing, "and our editorial staff thinks we shouldn't be over there", but this public relations issue is countered by removing the human element from hazardous environments.

Few would object to noble advances such as mine sweeping robots. Another relatively primitive application would be a security guard whose sensors alert to significant events, triggering the attention of a live person who can toggle over to the IP address of the robot's viewcam to assess whether further action is needed.

The use of robotics also counters financial arguments against military actions. Mass production of specific robotic applications would be hard to oppose when, on a per-unit basis they would be infinitely less costly than a tank, or for that matter a foot soldier. Contrary to sci-fi mythologies of intelligent, expensive and semi-human robots such as Star Trek's "Data" or the Lost In Space robot, the future of military robotics will be an expression of our "throwaway culture" - cheap, plentiful, and ultimately disposable. IPv6 makes mass-scale implementations possible.

To date, artificial intelligence has ascended no higher than the evolutionary equivalent of insect level intelligence; any discussion of "robot rights" is nothing more than a red herring. Robot autonomy is less likely to be actualized as a shrewd C3PO; rather, it will more likely function as emergent behaviors that result from individual nodes using operational rules that mimic instinct rather than sentience.

There will be little legitimate controversy until firmware is implemented that successfully articulates a set of rules for autonomously identifying an enemy combatant and neutralizing that threat.