Ghost of a flea: Less blood, more killing

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August 17, 2006

Less blood, more killing

Christian Pearce considers the Rize of the Machines (pdf file). Sure, those three-thousand military robots deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq may save human life now. But it's all badlife at the end of the day (hat tip to the Flea's Network Warfare Expert).

In early 2001 the chair of the American Senate Armed Services Committee, one John Warner, proposed what at the time seemed like a radical, even maniacal, concept: have Congress order the Army and Air Force to develop unmmaned vehicles. Budgeting upwards of $200 million to support the idea, Senator Warner held that by 2010 fully one-third of military aircraft should be unmanned, allowing until 2015 for the Army to achieve the same goal in its vehicles. "Every now and then," the National Journal quoted Warner as saying at the time, "somebody like me has to take out their shotgun and fire it into the heavens to get somebody's attention."

Pearce goes on to consider the low-casualty future warfare that may be promised by the war machines. I think this is to ignore two problems. To begin with, there are the low-accountability fantasies of the Latter-day Lucas Greedo-fired-first school of thought; and the related, and equally misguided, notion it is only moral to defend yourself if you are defending yourself from droids. Second, there is the fact our enemies have already decided fighting the West on the battlefield is a losing option. It is difficult to see how the First Fighting Roombas are going to help you as your 747 is flown into the CN Tower or crippled in fire over the north Atlantic.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 17, 2006 09:34 AM

Comments

Well look at the upside of rootin' tootin Fighting Boombas... when the planes are smart enough to fly themselves, it will be a lot harder for guys with box cutters to commandeer them. That's when we'll get all our carry-on privileges back.

Although speculation in the industry is that the next-generation cockpit will feature just a pilot and a dog: The pilot is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at August 17, 2006 03:16 PM