Oldie But A Goodie.

Conditions: Rainy.


Hacking The Code.

The US Navy's secretive Office of Naval Research has produced a large report that warns about the nature of warfare in the future. It predicts that wars will not be fought with such ancient technologies such as guns or humans, but with autonomous robots that are programmed to kill. The report goes on to dictate that such robots, as and when they start to roll off the production line, need to be programmed by a "strict warrior code", so as to guarantee that they cannot run amok. I imagine the planners of mankind's doom, after writing this report, felt very pleased with themselves. I wonder if they played a violin at all.

"There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do," Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of the report, said.

The reality, Dr Lin said, was that modern programmes included millions of lines of code and were written by teams of programmers, none of whom knew the entire programme. Accordingly, no individual could accurately predict how the various portions of large programmes would interact without extensive testing in the field -- an option that may either be unavailable or deliberately sidestepped by the designers of fighting robots.

The solution, he suggests, is to mix rules-based programming with a period of "learning" the rights and wrongs of warfare.
[...]

A simple ethical code along the lines of the "Three Laws of Robotics" postulated in 1950 by Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer, will not be sufficient to ensure the ethical behaviour of autonomous military machines.

Dr Lin said: "We are going to need a warrior code."

- independent.ie/

Don't you love how unutterably wrong smart people can be? Don't get me wrong, pointing out that programs today are so complicated no one person can understand it all, and in those cracks lies the mistakes that will doom us all, is on the nose. But the entire approach here is flawed. It's the first rule of holes, again: If you're in a hole, stop digging.

Since building killer robots ensures that eventually they will run amok, then the solution logically does not lie in the building of said amok-running robots. Of course, such logic is being ignored, especially when there's money to be made.

In 2001, the Defense Authorization Act directed the Pentagon to "aggressively develop and field" robotic systems in an effort to reach the ambitious goal of having one-third of the deep strike aircraft unmanned within 10 years, and one-third of the ground combat vehicles unmanned within 15 years.

To make this a reality, federal funding for military robotics has skyrocketed. From fiscal year 2006 through 2012, the government will spend an estimated $1.7 billion on research for ground-based robots, according to the congressionally funded National Center for Defense Robotics. This triples what was allocated annually for such projects as recently as 2004.

The centerpiece of this roboticized fighting force of the future will be the 14 networked, manned and unmanned systems that will make up the Army's Future Combat System -- should it ever get off the ground. The creation of the weapons systems is also one of the most controversial and expensive the Pentagon has ever undertaken.

And the shiver that just ran up your spine is shared by every half-intelligent human on the planet. The military's current metallic robotic nightmaric project is named SWORDS, which stands for Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-Action System. They stand three feet tall and roll on two tank treads.

...you freaking kidding me?

"They don't get hungry," Gordon Johnson, who headed a program on unmanned systems at the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon told the New York Times in 2005. "They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes."

They can't be reasoned with! They don't feel pain, or fear! And they absolutely will not stop, ever!

Ahem, excuse me.

Ronald Arkin, a leading roboticist at Georgia Tech, whose research the Defense Department funds, argues without a sense of irony that autonomous robots will be more humane than humans. Atrocities like the massacre by U.S. troops in Haditha, Iraq, would be less likely with robots, he told The Atlanta in November 2007, because they won't have emotions that "cloud their judgment and cause them to get angry."

Robots are also promoted as being cost-effective. On top of the annual salary and extra pay for combat duty, the government invests a great deal in recruiting, training, housing and feeding each soldier. Not to mention the costs of healthcare and death benefits, should a soldier be injured or killed.

By comparison, the current $245,000 price tag on SWORDS -- which could drop to $115,000 per unit if they are mass-produced -- is a steal.

So at this point there's little to stop the mechanized roll out of our future masters. Rather than watch your son or daughter go off to fight in Afghanistan, giant factories in Mexico and South Korea will suck in steel, plastic and rubber, and pump out automated killing machines to go do the same. And we'll all be safer on our cosy couches with a nice view of Armageddon on the TV. Is there anything that can stop our fate?

A different perspective is gained when the price of the robot is compared with the low-tech, low-cost weaponry that U.S. forces face on a daily basis in Iraq.

"You don't want your defenses to be so expensive that they'll bankrupt you," says Sharon Weinberger, a reporter for Wired's Danger Room blog. "If it costs us $100,000 to defeat a $500 roadside bomb, that doesn't sound like such a good strategy -- as pretty as it may look on YouTube and in press releases."

- alternet.org/waroniraq/

Ahh, the economy. Our one, last, hope is that building such a complicated system is far too expensive, and will take too long, for any nation to attempt, especially given how cheap life really is.

Of course, the exact same argument applied to building nuclear weapons.



Cartoon Commentary O' The Week.

- Ben Sargent

Film Review: Gran Torino.

I dunno what it is about Clint Eastwood movies, but the man can make a damn fine film. He doesn't do anything revolutionary, you'll never remark about how his film showed you something you've never seen before, it's just sheer good old-fashioned straight up and down filmmaking that makes it all work. Clint knows what the point of the story is, and he just plain tells it.

Gran Torino is essentially a story of redemption. Clint plays, essentially, an old Harry Callahan, now a grumpy old man, isolated from his family and who's just lost his wife, who's given a last chance to make a difference in his community. It's a story about death, community, differences and life and just sheer gutsiness. Maybe it's a little cliched, maybe it's a little hoky, but it's so well put together, and so earnest that you just go with it.

You'll laugh at the funny moments, be shocked by the awful moments and be sad at the sad parts, it's film that knocks you down old school, and does exactly what it should. There's even a bit of a twist in the tail. Clint may be old, okay, maybe he's really, really old, but like that car of his he's just as cool as ever. I hope to grow up to be just like him. Four grimaces out of Five.



- Peace out