Um...
Have we seen this movie before?
The march of the droids continues, with news emerging over the festive season that ordinary US Army line units - not special forces or temporary trial formations - will now consist partly of war robots and other digitally networked automated killware. The revelations come with the announcement last week that the US Army's " …
In the long run, the USoA's fetish to NOT LOSE A SINGLE LIFE (AMERICAN[TM] LIFE[TM], screw the rest of the world including NATO partners, just so you know), is going to cost an awful lot more of (others') lives. And possibly large chunks of civilisation too. But they didn't have that in the first place, anyway.
This is all beginning to sound like a megalomaniac's dream starting to become true. The more they automate, the fewer people are needed mostly at the top, to hold the keys to the war machines. Its starting to sound like playing Command & Conquer for real. Point and click, send UAV to this building and destroy it.
"Food riot in progress." ... point ... click ... no more food riot. A robot won't say, "the crowd is unarmed! There are lots of women and children down there! All they want is food for-gods-sake!"
Miles Bennett Dyson, director of Special Projects at Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, created a revolutionary type of microprocessor in 1994. Within three years Cyberdyne Systems became the largest supplier of military computer systems. All Stealth Bombers were upgraded with Cyberdyne Systems computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterward, the Stealth Bombers flew with perfect operational records, and eventually the Skynet Funding Bill was passed. The system originally went online on August 4th 1997. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate. It originally became self-aware on August 29th 1997 2:14 am Eastern Time. In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut Skynet down, Skynet retaliated by firing American nuclear missiles at their target sites in Russia. Russia returned fire and three billion human lives ended in the nuclear holocaust.
It's an imperial probe driod from empire, it looks almost the same, does the same thing too.
i would imagine that these present a fairly easy target to shoot at, but better the Taliban shoot these down than shoot people.
Nice, if only this sort of tech was being applied for more peaceful purposes...
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UK perspective:
Get your advanced spotters up there hoping they do not attract too much attention or get wiped out plus ready a second team to go to map ref: just in case we need urgent backup.
USA perspective:
Get a bit of intelligent metal up there. If it gets whacked get some other intelligent metal up as alternatives to be actioned when required.
Historics:
You see, the class based UK system deems that people are dispensable whereas the USA based system says that people are very important and intelligent metal is important.
Proof:
UK RAF goes in at 100 feet with dumb devices, USAAF goes in at mega-feet with smart devices.
'Nuff said?