[mooneater]

Its been said before, but needs to be repeated every time:

The implications of this line of R&D are horrific.

Removing the risk of say, US soldier casualties, combined with media control, and with "merely" the current level of inhumanity of political leadership, would be a very ugly mix indeed.

So yeah, its hard for me to get excited about the tech in this case.

[bh23ha]

Unlike the A-bomb which is lovely.

Or the decidedly low-tech genocide in Sudan. Or the genocides and crimes against humanity in all the other places.

Bottom line is Homo homini lupus. It's not like the risk of US soldier casualties is that much of deterrent.

Bombs, A-bombs, robots, not that different, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[rimantas]

So existence of A-bomb or low-tech genocide somehow justifies creation of new means to kill people?

[seldo]

The same tech can also walk into a burning building to locate trapped people without endangering the lives of firemen, crawl through rubble to find survivors after an earthquake, power household robots to assist the disabled, and more. I know the source of funding here is distasteful, but this is a dual-use technology if ever I saw one.

[bh23ha]

It doesn't justify anything. It just shows that we are already killing people in almost every way imaginable so another new one would not be anything all that new.

[puredemo]

Sure. It'll be more transparent at least. And there might even be some due process eventually.

[GrandMasterBirt]

This argument is moot.

As long as humanity will want to kill eachother, everything will be used as weapons. Computers are used as weapons (hell would computerized bombs and missiles be possible otherwise?) boats are used to kill people. Airplanes used to kill people. So now robots, why not its the next step. Knowing the US government they will manufature them without any bit of encryption and with a radioshack remote control someone can hijack one of these :P

[CapitalistCartr]

We are rushing headlong into robotic automation. Civilian and military uses will abound. The day when hiding our head from technology was a solution is long past. Responsibility is the only option left that doesn't involve war. Our "leaders" will only be as insane as we allow them. People don't get the government they deserve; we get the one we'll tolerate.

[motters]

They're only horrific if they're misused. Robots like this will also have plenty of non-military applications - especially in agriculture. Legged locomotion opens up the possibility of cultivating land which was previously inaccessible to conventional farming automation.

It should also be said that there is nothing inevitable about the close association between robotics and the military - it's just an artefact of American culture and the idiosyncratic way in which high tech research gets funded in America.

[StrawberryFrog]

They're only horrific if they're misused.

Given that this whole line of research is funded by the US military, what do you mean by "misused" ? Wouldn't "used" be more accurate?

[motters]

Under "misuse" I would include things like:

Use of robots for the purpose of prosecuting a war crime

Use of robots to carry out an act of terrorism

Indiscriminate use of deadly force by autonomous robots

Use of autonomous robots in a military context without proper supervision (for example, not being able to deactivate them once deployed).

[po]

Perhaps you will change your mind after viewing this horrific weaponized version of BigDog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptyV1cpE14o

[modeless]

Don't worry, we're much farther from that than you might think from this video. This robot can't see where it's going. It requires external cameras watching it from known fixed locations to figure out where it is. Not only that, but the cameras cannot look at a piece of terrain and figure out the 3D structure; the terrain must be mapped out in advance as a 3D mesh, down to the millimeter.

[Todd]

Agreed. Computer vision is a steep challenge and will limit autonomy. The derivatives of these types of devices will likely be deployed as drones in the meantime.

[abstractbill]

I know I probably should be worried about this kind of technology, but I just can't help it - I see this and I'm excited like a little kid again. I want one of these :)

[melling]

Until we devise a system where consumer products, or government grants, drive more research like this, the military war machine is necessary for this type of funding. Most public company's with deep pockets live quarter to quarter. Gotta beat those earnings estimates, by a lot.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I suspect that if you were rescued from a collapsed building by a descendant of this robot, you might possibly change your mind!