[extropy-chat] Fighting Robots

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

ben wrote:
> 
> Plenty of redundant legs (six legs are easier to control than two, 
> anyway, and static stability is a plus in a robot with limited energy), 
> and then there's the psychological aspect; Well, what would make you run 
> away screaming, a giant metal man with a big gun, or a bloody great 
> spiky-legged cockroach/spider/worst nightmare thing, with clacking jaws 
> and a big gun?
> 
> Just building the things would be scary enough, never mind having one 
> scuttling after you at 50mph.
> 
> If you're going to build robot soldiers, you might as well take 
> advantage of human psychology, and build *terrifying* robot soldiers.

What a notion!  Oh, what a beautiful notion!  It's just what we've all been 
waiting for, the perfect military excuse to build giant killer spiders that 
scream in the night, and hideous oozing blobs that hide in enemy closets 
and then leap out and engulf people!  We wouldn't've lost if our brave 
soldiers had been armed with *those* in Vietnam!  Someone phone the DOD: 
The War on Terror needs a War *with* Terror.

The time has come to unleash Yog-Sothoth, Eater of Terrorists!  Fear death 
by slime monster!

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence