PerspectiveThe Real Robot Threat
For decades, science fiction has speculated on the theme of robot servants rising up to overwhelm their human masters. Such scenarios remain fantasy, because they require self-reproducing machines with a will to power and the ability and desire to cooperate with each other to carry off a grand collective design. Instead what we have seen are drone weapons, most typically aircraft, under human command. The problem, however, occurs with proposals to eliminate human operators and allow such systems to control themselves using artificial intelligence. The problem “is that it would allow whole armies, obedient without the limiting constraint of human thought, to be commanded directly by tyrannical elites,” Robert Zubrin writers.
For decades, science fiction has speculated on the theme of robot servants rising up to overwhelm their human masters. Such scenarios remain fantasy, because they require self-reproducing machines with a will to power and the ability and desire to cooperate with each other to carry off a grand collective design — which at this point, anyway, is still quite far-fetched. Instead what we have seen are drone weapons, most typically aircraft, under human command, executing reconnaissance and strike operations by remote control.
Robert Zubrin writes in National Review that the military advantages offered by such systems are obvious. Drone fighters, for example, cost much less than piloted fighters, can pull 20 g’s without blacking out, are utterly fearless, and can be sent on one-way missions, if necessary, without human loss. So we are sure to see more of them, and analogous systems developed for land and sea fighting.
“The problem, however, occurs with proposals to eliminate human operators and allow such systems to control themselves using ‘artificial intelligence,’” he writes. “Some have pointed out that this could allow units to malfunction or be hacked by the enemy and subject our own people to their weaponry. That is certainly conceivable. But I believe the real problem is that it would allow whole armies, obedient without the limiting constraint of human thought, to be commanded directly by tyrannical elites.”
