🚀 go-pugleaf

Chris Spencer wrote:
> At the risk of sounding Clintonian, this really depends on how you
> define "robot" and "useful".

Robot:  A mechanical device that senses its environment and makes
decisions based on that sensor info to physically manipulate its
environment.

Useful:  In this context, the ability to kill, maim, or otherwise
incapacitate people you don't like.

> I doubt a robot in the sense of Sony or
> Honda's humanoid models will ever be economically or logistically useful
> to insurgents.

I doubt they would be very useful to the US military either.  But
a robot doesn't have to be humanoid to be a robot.

> However, robots like those used in the military I see as
> having some potential, but these amount to little more than fancy
> radio-controlled cars.

An R/C car is not a real robot because it does not sense its
environment, and it makes no decisions.  But most military
"robots" have sensors, and many make some of their own
decisions.  The "kill" decision is still human controlled, because
we are still uncomfortable with machines making that decision.
But a terrorist would not be restrained by similar compunctions.

> It could then be argued that insurgents are
> already using this technology in the form of cell-phones and actual RC
> cars to remotely detonate bombs.

I have read about insurgents using cell phones to detonate bombs
in parked cars.  But I have not heard of them using RC cars to
deliver bombs, although it seems like a logical approach.  There is
a scene in one of the "Dirty Harry" movies where the bad guys try
to kill Harry with a gasoline powered R/C car.  When I saw the movie,
I wondered why bad guys didn't do that in real life.  It seemed very
effective in the movie (although Harry survived).