[lmg643]

Terminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"!

Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secession crisis, based on, say, widespread spying by the government on its own citizens, might be dealt with today versus fifty years from now.

-----

If you were a resident of Afghanistan, the concept of a war against the robots is already a reality. From that perspective, is a fairly minor detail that the robots are currently piloted by people and not computers. And I expect the AI would get effective pretty quickly - I'm sure they will develop some effective way to identify a potential combatant based on either holding a weapon or some body language/temperature cues.

This technology might not be field ready right now, but it won't be long. It's reasonable to expect that with some work, it would far exceed human capacity upon a few key dimensions - running speed, targeting ability, carrying armor/defensibility. Just like no human being can outrun even the crappiest car over any reasonable distance.

[speeder]

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked:

"Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless."

After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games...

Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

[adventured]

That assumes the robots won't be radically superior at balancing than humans are; they will be. It also assumes you can push one over to begin with; you won't easily be able to. They'll be able to withstand far more force against them than a human can before falling over, and they'll have a nearly perfectly calibrated response to achieve rapid re-balancing.

As to whether it's ideal (versus whether it'll work), that's a very good question. Perhaps if you can actually make it work very effectively, it's 1) maybe (?) cheaper than having three legs, 2) more agile than a tank tread style and 3) easily navigates in/around and uses human things.

Clearly in the future there will be a plethora of robotic war machine styles for different purposes, for the same reason we use different weapons for different purposes.

[stevenrace]

Perhaps it's worth noting that Boston Dynamics' earlier 'BigDog' robots were not bipedal and apparently built like a robotic pack mule. Bipedal examples may have uses as human analogs for misdirection in war, field testing testing equipment such as hazmat suits/armor, or for 'live fire' training exercises.

[krapp]

That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless.

That depends entirely on whether said machines can right themselves after being tipped over.

But, the way I see it, human cities and human technology are made for our bipedal forms, two legs and hands with five fingers and such. Having a robot match that form makes it easier to exploit urban terrain and implements in the environment. I mean, which would you theoretically rather have, a robot that is a vehicle, or a robot that can operate any vehicle it comes across?

[incision]

>Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

Off the top of my head...

1.) I'd have think there's something to bipedal locomotion considering the evolutionary success it has had.

2.) We're bipedal. As long as pilots we'd recognize as human are involved, having an analog to the kind of movement they've necessarily trained a lifetime for seems sensible.

[NegativeK]

What are you using to define evolutionary success? Most pedal species aren't bipedal, and the more populous species don't even have legs.

[jlgreco]

Evolution does not necessarily always find the best solution. It can get stuck in local optima: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_s...

[jlgreco]

Perhaps less important for war machines (particularly giant ones): the world that we have built for ourselves is built for bipeds. (ADA required renovations notwithstanding)

[SiVal]

If you find someone who has built a bipedal war machine, you should ask them. In the meantime, these machines were designed for disaster recovery. The author of the article is imagining what an army of them would look like on a battlefield but states pretty clearly that that's not what these are being designed for.

If I were designing robots for battle, I would probably make them something like armed jackrabbits with wings designed to attack in swarms.

[eli_gottlieb]

No, octopedal is plainly better -- especially given people's fears of spiders.

[DanBC]

> Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

People get confused operating other body-forms, and when strapped into a waldo style remote rig they need something close to human for ease of use?

[robotresearcher]

Pretty much all combat soldiers in history have been bipedal. "Just push them over" is not a great plan against the US Marine Corps, and probably wasn't great against a Roman legion.

[seanlinmt]

Hands? Being able to use tools like us humans would clearly be an advantage.

[methehack]

Because it's creepiest?

[mikegioia]

I think this all hinges on when or if these things can get produced/maintained for less than or close to the cost of a human soldier. Imagine if these got down to $10,000 to produce. Then it would be cheaper to arm a 1-2MM unit militia of humanoid robots than it would actual human marines.

[adventured]

Human soldiers are exceptionally expensive. You can see that in both traditional foot-soldiers and in other areas like ships and planes, where the costs skyrocket because of needing to design around / for the safety of people first.

Robot soldiers will be far less expensive than human soldiers in every respect 50 years from now. A robot soldier can be powered down, and stop consuming resources when not needed (which is most of the time).

If you could produce a robot soldier that did what humans do, with a 5 year shelf life, and you could sell it for $400k to $500k, they'd sell like crazy. Just match the 5 year cost of a human soldier, then by removing the human soldier casualty angle it becomes well worth it to a government.

[shubb]

The value of a combat robot is in avoiding casualties rather than cost savings. Casualties lose America wars, because it is a democracy, and it fights without an existential threat.

However, I think your numbers for the cost of humans are way low. The US army put the cost to train a soldier at $150'000. In addition, there is pay, and veterans benefits. The US will spend 1.5 trillion on veterans between now and 2022.

[adamio]

Isn't this a nuclear weapon vs nuclear power type issue? We'll always have the capacity for evil, I'd expect an international ban on the use of robotic soliders after some period of mass destruction (we'll still have them sitting in a bunker just in case)

[Lambdanaut]

I don't think so. I don't see them being as destructive as that. I think by the time they get to a level that's bannable, there will be far greater warfare threats, like millions of inch-long artificially intelligent flying swarm syringes(OF DEATH) filled with arsenic.

I think they'll be far more useful as support units.

[adamio]

Good point, These Darpa terminators are just the visible threat, its the classified nano robots that control us from inside that we should fear

[Lambdanaut]

I think you're joking, but what you just said would make a great parody of the nuts over in that other thread that are hypothesizing that the NSA is possibly keeping 5D glass hard drive technology a secret from us.

[MrBra]

classified nanorobot technology is no joke.

[eli_gottlieb]

I certainly hope not! They're going to need it when Cyber-Cthulhu gets loose.

[lukifer]

The difference is that nuclear weapons are indiscriminate, whereas robotic soldiers can theoretically limit targets only to evildoers (or dissidents, undesirables, etc).