[extropy-chat] 'GI, Robot' rolls toward the battlefield

[Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.]

Just like with the transistor on a chip for computers, the  internet,  
and GPS satellites ,  robots are the next big thing the military 
technologists are perfecting.

I hate war as a reason for doing anything  , but without the USA 
military it is unlikely we would have developed the modern technological 
world we do now at anywhere near the speed we have without military 
applications to pay for the R&D and initial field-testing.

Ordinary business people just do not have the financially motivated 
drive to start and finish these kind of mega-projects.

The universal replacement for human physical bodies is perhaps 10-20 
years away thanks to General Dynamics.

Now if Kurzweil, Gates, Allen and Dell and a consortium of  
biotech-based billionaires  can convince these same guys that longer 
lifespans and more durable human bodies  are useful to  enable  extended 
space voyages to successfully  colonize other worlds,  beginning with 
the moon ,  that one might get the same mega-project status.

Or perhaps it will be a Chinese military project, as they seem to lack 
the ethical timidity to undertake such things.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[extropy-chat] IHT: 'GI, Robot' rolls toward the battlefield
Date: 	Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:16:19 +0100
From: 	Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com>
Reply-To: 	Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com>, ExI chat list 
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
To: 	hitbangpost at googlegroups.com, transhumantech at yahoogroups.com, ExI 
chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>



The robot soldier is coming. The Pentagon predicts that robots will be
a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade,
hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of
the U.S. Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting
force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the
biggest military contract in American history.
The military plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in automated
armed forces. The costs of that transformation will help drive the
Defense Department's budget up almost 20 percent, from a requested
$419.3 billion for next year to $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the
costs of war. The annual cost of buying new weapons is scheduled to
rise 52 percent, to $118.6 billion from $78 billion.
Military planners say robot soldiers will think, see and react
increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be
remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the
technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their
intelligence grows, so will their autonomy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/16/business/robot.html




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