Knee Deep in the Hooah!

Well not really a prophet in the biblical sense, but can he call them or can he call them? Last year when the Huns invaded China… er, uhm, I mean when Russia invaded Georgia, Damon made some predictions in his cartoons that came true. His fans picked up on it and were amazed (the main prediction being that Russia would blame America for provoking the war and they did toss the blame our way).

So, fast forward to today. I found this headline at RN:

Experts Warn of ‘Terminator’ Style Military-Robot Rebellion

FoxNews.com
February 20, 2009

Excerpt:

Autonomous military robots that will fight future wars must be programmed to live by a strict warrior code, or the world risks untold atrocities at their steely hands.

The stark warning — which includes discussion of a “Terminator”-style scenario in which robots turn on their human masters — is part of a hefty report funded by and prepared for the U.S. Navy’s high-tech and secretive Office of Naval Research.

The report, the first serious work of its kind on military robot ethics, envisages a fast-approaching era where robots are smart enough to make battlefield decisions that are at present the preserve of humans.

Eventually, it notes, robots could come to display significant cognitive advantages over Homo sapiens soldiers.

“There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do,” Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of the report, said. “Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to a time when … programs could be written and understood by a single person.”

The reality, Dr. Lin said, was that modern programs included millions of lines of code and were written by teams of programmers, none of whom knew the entire program.

Accordingly, no individual could accurately predict how the various portions of large programs would interact without extensive testing in the field — an option that may either be unavailable or deliberately sidestepped by the designers of fighting robots. Read MORE

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Now, look at the Mr.’s cartoon from June 2008 (as a matter of fact follow the link and read the whole week’s worth… they are a hoot!) Is it any wonder why I love this guy?