Thursday, March 08, 2007

More Machine than Man?

Look at this AP picture posted today on CNN.com of a soldier in Baghdad.


Hey whatever works, but these guys don’t even look human anymore. (Troll repellant: I’m not in any way being critical of this or any other soldier.)

It also got me wondering: If in fact we could build infantry machines that were operated remotely, would there be more or fewer wars?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's inevitable.

Nano tech, and quantum computing will result in artificially intelligent robots, that are faster, stronger, smarter, and far more easily produced, and replaced than human soldiers.

Politically speaking to send an army of droids into an area to occupy it would be far easier to get away with than sending in citizen soldiers who can be harmed, and lost in a battle, or occupation.

This will happen first in aviation (it already has), then in transportation, and in field surgery (already real), and is already being used in assisting with IEDs.

There are already some robots equipped with guns - still under remote control, but are soon to become autonomous.

So it's in the works.

What effect will it have upon humanity, and war in general?

Probably make it worse.

JP

Anonymous said...

johnny 5 is alive - a soldier and a gentlemen leads to fewer wars.

StrayDogGrunt said...

There wil,l always be human infantry, always have always will.

Mary said...

How dare you compare our soldiers to machines! >:-(