Friday, August 27, 2010

I Have Always Supported Robot Marriage

We lost control of a drone the other day. Near Washington DC.
A Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout UAV strayed into restricted airspace above Washington DC after departing Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland on August 2, the result of a software logic flaw that caused the operator to momentarily lose contact with the drone. Programmed to circle when communications are severed, the chopper failed to follow its failure protocol, instead heading twenty-three miles on a north/northwest trajectory ...
Sure we just lost control of it. Suuuure it wasn't hacked.

For a really interesting bit of fiction based around the future of autonomous and automatic warfare, I recommend diving into the Autumn Rain Trilogy.

11 comments:

Zifnab said...

Hacked? I mean, I'm sorry but if you know half a minute's worth of computer programming you'll realize it's an absolute 50/50.

The software they are operating is likely incredibly complex. And even if it wasn't, people make lots of mistakes.

I wouldn't put money on it either way.

IMForeman said...

Y'know, I'm aware he's not really Chaos, but can Wil Wheaton verify his location during this incident?

Jay said...

I'm currently burning through The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell, and they had an interesting discussion about the use of autonomous warships.

In those books (well, at least where I am in the series, anyway) autonomous ships were never implemented because if they were too stupid they couldn't be trusted with dangerous weaponry, but if they were too smart they absolutely could not be trusted with dangerous weaponry.

Override systems were rejected because a sophisticated enough AI would figure out a way around it; even if they didn't, the enemy could figure out how to seize control of the override.

RevTrask said...

Accident? Act of sabotage? What about the third option:

Sentience...

Notice how, when the self-checkout at the grocery tells you what to do, you just do it? Blindly? Then, the credit card reader says that you are "approved" and it makes you feel oddly good about yourself?

Obey the machines!

Brought to you by the "Coalition To Refuse To Place The Item In The Bagging Area!" (Rev Trask, President.

gwangung said...

We're going to see this during Season 4, aren't we?

Joe Helfrich said...

Personally, I'm betting on a connection between this story and the news that a fly piloted a robot through an obstacle course.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/27/fly-steers-mobile-ro.html

theragingcelt said...

Personally, I'm taking this as a sign the singularity is coming. And just in the nick of time.

David T.G. Riches said...

Sounds a little like something as a throw away from an episode of Phineas & Ferb to me.
Anyone seen Perry lately?

Jay said...

Just goes to show that bigger isn't always better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM

I expect -- nay, I demand -- Hardison to be playing with one of these things at some point...

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