Okay, so Reuters report that the Pentagon is starting to figure human grunts are less than cost effective and maybe remote controlled combat is a pretty swell idea. Which it might be, taken in isolation. Unfortunately few things can be taken in isolation these days, and if you factor in Ray Kurzweil’s prediction of the Singularity, when the machines become smarter than we are, and the fictional speculation of The Matrix, Skynet, and HAL 9000, the time may come when the robots decide they’ve seen the enemy and it is us.
"As the United States draws down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and cuts back on defense spending, its reliance on technology will only rise, benefiting a clutch of companies specializing in intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance. The U.S. military will need more equipment like infrared sensors, jammers and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems to counter threats to its troops, with the Obama administration planning to cut troops in Afghanistan by a third by 2012, and exit from Iraq by the end of this year. "(The United States) will have to continue to keep an eye on what is occurring in these countries. So, we will invest in intelligence gathering equipment to complement the decrease in actual forces on ground," Lazard Capital Markets analyst Michael Lewis said. Defense technology companies such as signal intelligence systems maker Mercury Computer Systems , night-vision systems specialist FLIR Systems and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) maker AeroVironment are expected to benefit from this shift in defense spending priorities." (Click here for more)
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The secret word is Terminator
"What would happens if they gave a war and nobody came?" Business as usual.
ReplyDeleteSo Mick, will we survive to lauch Hurbert's butlerian Jihad.
IMHO the humans don't cost too much. It's that the dead and maimed ones are a PR nightmare for the military.
I don't know if the machines will be smarter tan we are or the programmers will be stupider than the should be and will leave a few fatal (to the human race) bugs in the operational software for the new weapons. I know some wonderfully scary stories about such things.
And do you remember the Patriot missles. 12 for 12 kill record. The only problem was 3 of the 12 were friendly targets.
I'm worried about all this new tech being used for private security for the overly rich. Can you say "Blackwater Robot Security" not unless you account is current.
Seems like a great idea to DOD until some pissed of 15 yearn old hacker gets control of some Predators and uses them to blow up his high school
ReplyDeleteNatasha, eliminating education for the masses is a part of the plan. Peasants without education make better servants.
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