Not that I disagree with the impracticality of using machines like those described, I just don’t think that impracticality will stop them from being designed and deployed…

I also note that if soldiers killing children stopped fighting…well, there probably wouldn’t be so damn much of it going on…

Let’s say the U.S. Army has designed a terrific remote-controlled armored vehice with legs AND wheels, armed with machine-guns, tear gas, flamethrowers, laser-guided rockets, landmines, blinding lasers, you name it.

And it can dodge rocket-propelled grenades, has lightweight armor that can withstand machine-gun fire, and is resistent even to jamming signals.

So in a fit of hubris, the Army sends a batallion of robo-tanks to Sudan.

On day one, the local Janjaweed are cautious. They fire some RPGs from a distance, but avoid a direct battle with the tanks. Also, they acan see that surveillance drones are watching their every move from the air.

On day two, they give hundreds of poor kids money and cans of black and silver spray-paint.

An army of children, most of them even without shoes, swarm the tanks in narrow alleyways and spray them with graffitti. And they target the sensors and camera lenses.

On day three, most of the vehicles must be recalled for repair. Spray-paint dries fast in the North African sun, and has to be removed manually.

On day six, the engineers have replaced the damaged lenses and sensors, and coated them with a teflon film that repels paint. Plus, they have attached remote-controlled squeegee-bottles under each lens, so it can be cleaned on the spot.

The robo-tanks are sent out on patrol again, this time with a support crew of human soldiers. Wearing gas masks.

On day seven, the militia leaders figure out that the tanks are remote-controlled and guided from a communications center hundreds of miles away.

So they send out street kids again — who sell dope to the soldiers, and pimp some of the local women. While the soldiers are getting stoned and laid, other kids swarm the robo-tanks. The tanks spray the street with tear-gas, but a few kids with wet rags tied around their faces get through. This time they attack the lenses with battery-powered power-drills.

Someone shoots a kid. Someone records the event with a video camera, and posts it on the Internet. Soon the robo-tanks are called “child-killers” in the media. Congressmen ask for them to be recalled.

Something like this scenario will occur. Because the engineers thought machines are unstoppable and unaccountable.

Unless you are designing for the military, in which case its a pretty good assumption that everyone involved, friend or foe, will be doing their best to break whatever impressive devices you put in front of them…

I’ve been working in the IT industry for over 10 years. And the more I learn about computers, the more I realize how vulnerable and dependent on humans computers in general are.

Consider this: even if MILITARY computer systems are well shielded against EMPs and potential electromagnetic weapons, the CIVILIAN infrastructure which supports the military is not.

And if an enemy can’t afford the expensive robots, he will invest in the relatively cheaper and simpler means of sabotaging them.

Engineers tend to overlook the ingenuity with which humans can sabotage fragile machines. I unserstand why: if you’ve worked hard to design an impressive device, you don’t want to think of the many ways in which humans might break it.

UAVs are a completely different kettle of fish, in that the logistics of keeping them running are more or less the same as those of keeping a conventional aircraft operational. Even the network systems needed to tranfer data to and from remote vehicles has been around for a while, in the form of JSTARS. In fact, advances in combat UAVs have come so fast that its beginning to look as if the next generation of combat aircraft (Typhoon, F22, JSF etc.) is going to be obsolete before they even enter service.

This, to me, is a far more worrying development, as it dramatically reduces the costs of operating the most potent convetional weapon systems, to the point where, for example, the CIA can carry out its own airstrikes without even needing the cooperation of the military. And I don’t know about you, but to me the thought of bodies even more secretive and unaccountable than the regular military having access to that kind of firepower is just a teensy bit frightening.

Your comments about bot maintenance staff is well taken. However those people are much fewer in number and probably stationed in highly secure facilities. They don’t seem to be leaking stories to the press now and I doubt this situation will be changed in the future.

I agree that its too much to expect militaries to abandon these technologies. Their implementation is inevitable. What I think we should be looking at is ways we can ensure that civilian oversight of our militaries remains rigorous.

Nothing to fear from robot weaponry - there’s going to be no oil to run them. Don’t tell me that we’ll develop alternative sources of high-energy-density fuels, etc. - there ain’t enought time. Expect rolling blackouts to begin being a permanent feature of life across the globe starting in about 2008 (in fact, one might argue they’ve started already: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22cape+town%22+blackout)
and by 2012 we can expect serious social disruption, starvation, etc. as energy shortages unravel the globally interlocked economies, causing massive food, material and manufacturing shortages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olduvai_theory)

Good luck with the robots. I’m more concerned with How to Make Fire.

There are still - and always will be - people in the link somewhere. They may not be the trigger pullers but the bots will need refueling, rearming, programming, someone to fly them to the theatre or launch them, and so on.

A.R.Yngve In a “military SF” novel I’m writing now, I predict that robotic weapons are a dead end.

Why? Simple. Countermeasures. EMP weapons.

When I was in the Marines (late 80s) EMP was not a big deal but all the milspec electronic equipment we had was hardened against EMP. EMP is a big deal but I can’t think it won’t occur to people to harden the new bots against the effect. Likewise countermeasures - we have to worry about that now with the manned equipment.

Dale Carrico Well, I think ethical considerations should compel us to reject the automation of killing altogether. Ethics also has something to say about the social costs of the war addiction of our bomb-building elites, and about the long-term personal and social costs imposed by the brutal roboticizing process that transforms citizens into soldiers in the first place.

We’re a few thousand years too late for that. The evolution of weapons from stick to spear to sword to machine-gun is all about making it more effecient. I can’t see a world where we lay down rifles for rocks, which is where your thoughts would lead us.

Nice to think about, just isn’t going to happen.