Telepresence, at least in terms of overall kinetic impact, is going to easily trump bioenhancements.
In other words, it's not the bio-engineered solider with the special enhancements that should concern thinkers. It's the remotely-controlled soldier of 2050 operated from thousands of miles away. Our bio-enhanced guy will be sitting in a Starbucks in Deluth slurping down a double-latte, not marching off to war somewhere.
As robotics takes off in 20-40 years, we're going to see a very real division between countries that can field robotic armies and countries that cannot. All the engineering the world isn't going to make a human emit less infrared radiation, or stop having the electrical signals that form a heartbeat. The history of warfare is just as this article indicates: a tool-using species coming up with more and more efficient ways to slaughter each other. Robotics offers the ultimate tools in this area: targeted lethality, impervious to human frailties, and an Information Age cleverness. They'll make chemical and biological weapons -- and enhanced ground pounders -- look like a day in the park.
You really don't want to be a freedom fighter in the year 2050. Or piss off a major world power.
I'm not sure telepresence is sufficient to win a war. People generally agree that when you have a human soldier standing on every street corner, you've won. I think a telepresence robot on every street corner would not have the same effect.
One reason is that even in war, most people are reluctant to kill enemy soldiers. But few would have much trouble sabotaging robots. So telepresence robots won't cause the civilian population to accept the new regime.
Despite some effort, I have not managed to cause people to form the sort of bond with a telepresence robot that naturally forms with people thrown together.
Telepresence, at least in terms of overall kinetic impact, is going to easily trump bioenhancements.
Combat AI makes much more sense, since they can react faster than a human sitting behind a computer separated by a further thousand miles away. The latency will add up, and reaction speed is going to be a decisive factors between combat robots. Telepresence might makes much more sense if you can decide on a slower time frame such as strategic or tactical decisions but those will be increasingly be made by the AIs or the humans near them.
I have a hard time seeing this. If one side can field robotic armies, what stops the other (poorer) side from deploying massive jammers (or lots of small ones)?
> You really don't want to be a freedom fighter in the year 2050. Or piss off a major world power.
You would think that would be the case today, with all our computers, fleets of carriers and aircraft, intelligence and satellites... and here we were having trouble with IEDs and roadside bombs in Iraq.
Please. All the engineering in the world may not may a human stop having a heatbeat -- but you are overlooking two factors that you really shouldn't in this day and age:
1) It doesn't matter if your target has a heartbeat when the seven civilians loitering in the area also have heartbeats (and you don't know which one it is) or when your targets heartbeat stops because he just blew himself up in the middle of a market square, and you didn't even knew there were enemies around. Or when your soldiers die because they accidentally kicked over a piece of trash that was wired up to blow an old soviet grenade.
The attitude that all we need is much better equipment is the same attitude the current leadership of the pentagon has -- but it couldn't be further from the truth, because compared with the weapons the iraq fighters and the Taliban currently have, our weapons are already much better.
Ethics is a luxury for limited wars where you can't fundamentally lose anyway - where if you start losing, you can pack up and go home like in Vietnam, and BAM - no more deaths for you.
However, if a total loss (say, genocide of your people) is a possibility (as in parts of WW2 or the cold war mutually assured destruction) then the ends may justify the means. Quite a lot of means.
You know the thing about majoring on the minors? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for intellectual pondering of almost any question, but let's not forget that before dealing with the ethics of enhancing soldiers, we might also need to consider the ethics of using them at all.
Yes. I see war as just about the ultimate unethical human activity.
The (non)ethics of enhancing soldiers and using robots pale in comparison to the (non)ethics of participating in warfare and weapon design and manufacture in the first place.
Why such an article on such a topic start with torture is beyond me. The question we should be asking, I think, is when (the "how" is no longer relevant now is it) we start engineering humans, how we avoid the situation that has been "documented" in every post-apocalyptic sci-fi where a superior species arrives (or created) and wipes out the weaker, non-engineered humans?
I am far less concerned with philosophical question, such as whether a person engineering to be the smartest would be smart on his own right; would a person engineered to be the strongest & fastest be a successful athlete in his own right, or is it simply an unfair inter-species competition which is no different than pitting a disabled person vs. a healthy one; etc.
Was this issue with atheletes not debated recently in the London Olympics with the man who had a blade replacement for a leg who was allowed to compete with non-augmented athletes?
I don't want to get into whether I think letting him compete against regular athletes was a good idea or not for that specific event. However I think there needs to be care because where is the line drawn? How advanced do his blades need to become before it's just not fair any longer?
Given our historically poor treatment of veterans, my main concern with biological augmentations is what happens to the hosts after they leave active service.
From where I sit, those "primitive" IEDs seem to be giving America and allies all we can handle in Iraq and Afganistan...
I get that technology is changing the world, and that drones HAVE changed the battle field already, but on balance it seems well known that one day we'll walk out of both of those countries either having lost or fought to a draw - how ever you want to spin it.
I don't see how an action shot of a solider leaping with metal assisted legs, never sleeping and eating grass will change that.
Forcing modifications on a soldier is arguably ethically questionable but if these types of enhancements turn out to be safe enough (for some level of safe) then I and many others will voluntarily enhance ourselves.
I would like the gene that let's me eat without getting fat.
I don't want to eat more. I just want to enjoy food.
Needing less sleep sounds awesome. I enjoy sleep but I could mostly skip the unconscious part. Would like to keep the dreams though honestly I hardly have any.
Stronger or more alert sound like awesome enhancements.
Telepathy is already here. It's called a cell phone with wireless headset.
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|13 years ago|reply
In other words, it's not the bio-engineered solider with the special enhancements that should concern thinkers. It's the remotely-controlled soldier of 2050 operated from thousands of miles away. Our bio-enhanced guy will be sitting in a Starbucks in Deluth slurping down a double-latte, not marching off to war somewhere.
As robotics takes off in 20-40 years, we're going to see a very real division between countries that can field robotic armies and countries that cannot. All the engineering the world isn't going to make a human emit less infrared radiation, or stop having the electrical signals that form a heartbeat. The history of warfare is just as this article indicates: a tool-using species coming up with more and more efficient ways to slaughter each other. Robotics offers the ultimate tools in this area: targeted lethality, impervious to human frailties, and an Information Age cleverness. They'll make chemical and biological weapons -- and enhanced ground pounders -- look like a day in the park.
You really don't want to be a freedom fighter in the year 2050. Or piss off a major world power.
[+] [-] tlb|13 years ago|reply
One reason is that even in war, most people are reluctant to kill enemy soldiers. But few would have much trouble sabotaging robots. So telepresence robots won't cause the civilian population to accept the new regime.
Despite some effort, I have not managed to cause people to form the sort of bond with a telepresence robot that naturally forms with people thrown together.
[+] [-] kiba|13 years ago|reply
Combat AI makes much more sense, since they can react faster than a human sitting behind a computer separated by a further thousand miles away. The latency will add up, and reaction speed is going to be a decisive factors between combat robots. Telepresence might makes much more sense if you can decide on a slower time frame such as strategic or tactical decisions but those will be increasingly be made by the AIs or the humans near them.
[+] [-] rndmize|13 years ago|reply
> You really don't want to be a freedom fighter in the year 2050. Or piss off a major world power.
You would think that would be the case today, with all our computers, fleets of carriers and aircraft, intelligence and satellites... and here we were having trouble with IEDs and roadside bombs in Iraq.
[+] [-] tomjen3|13 years ago|reply
1) It doesn't matter if your target has a heartbeat when the seven civilians loitering in the area also have heartbeats (and you don't know which one it is) or when your targets heartbeat stops because he just blew himself up in the middle of a market square, and you didn't even knew there were enemies around. Or when your soldiers die because they accidentally kicked over a piece of trash that was wired up to blow an old soviet grenade.
The attitude that all we need is much better equipment is the same attitude the current leadership of the pentagon has -- but it couldn't be further from the truth, because compared with the weapons the iraq fighters and the Taliban currently have, our weapons are already much better.
What we really need is much better intelligence.
[+] [-] tokenadult|13 years ago|reply
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/more-t...
is an older article (February 2012) from the same author as
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/could-...
(4 January 2013), submitted to HN
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5010370
with a confusing altered title.
[+] [-] PeterisP|13 years ago|reply
However, if a total loss (say, genocide of your people) is a possibility (as in parts of WW2 or the cold war mutually assured destruction) then the ends may justify the means. Quite a lot of means.
[+] [-] jamesaguilar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnosis|13 years ago|reply
The (non)ethics of enhancing soldiers and using robots pale in comparison to the (non)ethics of participating in warfare and weapon design and manufacture in the first place.
[+] [-] alexvay|13 years ago|reply
I am far less concerned with philosophical question, such as whether a person engineering to be the smartest would be smart on his own right; would a person engineered to be the strongest & fastest be a successful athlete in his own right, or is it simply an unfair inter-species competition which is no different than pitting a disabled person vs. a healthy one; etc.
[+] [-] Lockyy|13 years ago|reply
I don't want to get into whether I think letting him compete against regular athletes was a good idea or not for that specific event. However I think there needs to be care because where is the line drawn? How advanced do his blades need to become before it's just not fair any longer?
[+] [-] politician|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpxxx|13 years ago|reply
watching legions of homeless, mentally ill vets mill on the street below
[+] [-] johnnyg|13 years ago|reply
I get that technology is changing the world, and that drones HAVE changed the battle field already, but on balance it seems well known that one day we'll walk out of both of those countries either having lost or fought to a draw - how ever you want to spin it.
I don't see how an action shot of a solider leaping with metal assisted legs, never sleeping and eating grass will change that.
[+] [-] greggman|13 years ago|reply
I would like the gene that let's me eat without getting fat. I don't want to eat more. I just want to enjoy food.
Needing less sleep sounds awesome. I enjoy sleep but I could mostly skip the unconscious part. Would like to keep the dreams though honestly I hardly have any.
Stronger or more alert sound like awesome enhancements.
Telepathy is already here. It's called a cell phone with wireless headset.
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|13 years ago|reply
This framing devalues much of the content of the article. We are not frail.
[+] [-] ISL|13 years ago|reply
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/491488a...