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I was in awe while also being completely terrified. It didn't take Black Mirror or a viral ad to convince me that autonomous weapon systems are bad. I grew up watching Terminator and RoboCop. My first thought when seeing BigDog was "this is awesome but also we're all going to die".

When people didn't get it, I just showed them Petman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0

Funny but also a bit scary to think that Google now owns some of the most advanced 'killer' robots. Is Google going to continue providing robots to the DoD or are they going to let those contracts expire?

There was even a protester at Google I/O.

Petman[1] vs. T-800[2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0 [2] http://www.cinemaquette.com/sites/default/files/image_galler...

⬐ Kudos

Did they ever provide "'killer' robots" to the military?

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/185570-google-finally-pro...

⬐ None

None

⬐ dm2

They are not going to renew any military robots contracts through Boston Dynamics.

I think it's unfortunate since Google could provide some great software to the DoD if they wanted to. The US military WILL have robots, it's all about from who and how competent they are. The BigDog robot was already being tested by the USMC and robots is becoming a major asset in the US arsenal to make combat operations easier and safer.

⬐ enneff

Safer for whom? Christ.

⬐ dm2

Safer for everyone involved.

Complete battlefield dominance encourages enemy combatants to comply without putting up a fight.

If a soldier is in the field and sees a potential combatant, then in many cases one of them is going to die, either from one of them proactively taking the other out or in a firefight caused by fear.

The robot would likely be heavily armored. I don't know many people that would shoot at an armored and armed robot.

That situation will hopefully allow US commanders to take more time to evaluate the situation, allowing them to make more appropriate calls on when or if to take down a potential threat.

That's assuming that the power the robots give the military makes the commanders and operators morally good. Rather than "it's their lives or our troops lives" the philosophy would be "achieve the mission with as little loss of life as possible."

Combat operations are not going to stop, but unnecessary killing could be reduced on both sides with robots and complete battlefield dominance.

⬐ jimmaswell

Sending robots into combat is better than sending humans I suppose

⬐ ddebernardy

Or not. Try to picture yourself minding your own business, and then the next thing you know your neighborhood is stormed by soulless metallic murderers striking from the air and on land.

⬐ jimmaswell

Is that any worse than if it were humans doing the storming? Probably better because robots aren't going to do extra damage outside the scope of their orders.

⬐ riffraff

I saw an interesting discussion about this some years ago.

One of the person involved pointed out that yes, it does feel worrying to think that a soulless machine may not feel anything while killing people.

But on the other hand, if robots were used in place of people, the nanking massacre[0] would likely not have happened. It has historically required humans to really fuck up things.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

⬐ tokenizerrr

Only for the country employing them... What if the Americans will have "freedom robots" who will "liberate" those poor middle eastern countries, who will never be able to afford something like that? Will there still be a reason to back down when there are no American soldier's lifes at stake?

⬐ jimmaswell

>Only for the country employing them...

So?

>What if the Americans will have "freedom robots" who will "liberate" those poor middle eastern countries, who will never be able to afford something like that?

If that's what's going to be done anyway, better to use robots for it than humans

>Will there still be a reason to back down when there are no American soldier's lifes at stake?

Even if the presence of robots instead of humans results in more combat occurring, it'd still probably save more lives than if the robots hadn't been invented. And I'll admit that I just might care more about American soldiers' well-being than that of whoever they fight against.

⬐ naturalethic

There's a somewhat popular novel that deals with this called The Forever War.

⬐ dankohn1

Check out the occupation of Tehran in the first 10 minutes of the new Robocop movie.

⬐ sp332

Only for the country employing them...

That still counts.

Will there still be a reason to back down when there are no American soldiers' lives at stake?

Yes. It's not like the Americans' decision-makers' lives have been on the line in this war anyway.

⬐ tokenizerrr

> It's not like the Americans' decision-makers' lives have been on the line in this war anyway.

Right, they're not. They do still have to convince their people and the families of their soldiers that it wasn't an absolute waste of life to send the soldiers into death. There will be no such concerns with robots, because hey, who cares? It's just a small % of funding.

⬐ bhickey

    Google executives said the company would honor existing
    military contracts, but that it did not plan to move
    toward becoming a military contractor on its own.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/google-adds-to-...

Maybe a little less funny after acquiring Boston Dynamics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0

http://www.bostondynamics.com/img/Atlas-x3c.lr.jpg

⬐ matchu

I don't think this is a coincidence, exactly. There was a protester shouting over the recent I/O keynote that Google is "a totalitarian company that builds robots that kill people" in reference to Boston Dynamics. Folks who think that the accusation is overblown have been joking about Google's "killer robot" program, so this easter egg is likely Google poking fun at the allegation.

⬐ fixermark

It's an odd allegation, given that robots built by Unit Handling Systems have killed more people than Boston Dynamics.