What are robots?

Last week I commented on robots, jobs, and war, and today’s Wall Street Journal elaborates on the war applications of robots, noting, "Unmanned U.S. aircraft have not only transformed the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now are altering the defense-industry landscape, as well. The White House’s defense-budget request for fiscal 2010 includes approximately $3.5 billion for unmanned aerial vehicles." The Journal says that the Pentagon is relying on smaller suppliers for the relatively inexpensive weapons systems. The article quotes Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, as saying that big companies are "facing some major issues as homes of innovation."

Companies mentioned in the article include General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the maker of Predator drones, and iRobot, maker of a remote-controlled ground vehicle called the PackBot (as well as the Roomba). Also mentioned is Insitu, a maker of unmanned aircraft that Boeing acquired last year, but the Journal says Insitu nevertheless "maintains a fair amount of independence."

Are these systems robots? Commenting on my post last week Arclight claimed that remote-controlled unmanned aircraft are not robots. We can quibble over terminology. I have a 1991 American Heritage Dictionary that includes the definition "a machine or device that works automatically or by remote control." Dr. David Barrett, Director of SCOPE at Olin College, applied the term "robot" to remote-controlled drones in his keynote address at NIWeek. I guess until we can instill consciousness or self-awareness in machines, I’m willing to apply the term "robot" without regard to whether the human input is real-time or programmed.

Arclight makes an additional point in distinguishing a drone from, say, an F-15: "The ability to launch such attacks from a distance, without personal or corporate risk, makes the idea of using these tools ever-more appealing. The ‘robots,’ in this case, are the political masters who will find it easier and easier to whistle up such a mission, even when US lives and property are NOT at stake, rather than pursue the negotiations (and the ups and downs) of diplomacy."

By the way, what ever happened to Asimov’s three laws of robotics, the first of which reads, "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." Steve Leibson reports on an update for the early 21st century.