The assurance of mutual destruction was a profoundly effective peace keeper between the USA and the USSR. There is no equivalent threat today against the scattered terrorists deliberately embedded within innocent society across so many countries–a tactic that only works against their civilized enemies such as the USA. Our effort to create and deploy robotic technology on the battlefield is the result of our value for human life and our desire to surgically weed out our enemies.
John Pike wrote a powerful article in the Washington Post in which he describes the trend well. Here’s an excerpt:
Within a decade, the Army will field armed robots with intellects that possess, as H.G. Wells put it, “minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic.”
No truer words were ever spake. With the coming Singularity riding on the tsunami of Moore’s Law, this suggestion is entirely plausible. With the coming generation of autonomous robots such as Northrop Grumman’s X-47B fighter, a foundation is being laid for robots to make more and more decisions on their own in the field.
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I don’t get it. Cold War is over.