Future Robotic soldier

I came across this video and thought others might find it interesting. Its of a future robotic soldier/police humanoid robot

video

We are clearly many years away from anything like this IMO but I wanted to see what people think say 50 years from now? I know we would need some radical advancements in AI, computer power, Robotics, Energy storage etc..

But do you think we could see something like that in the field in say 2056?

Absolutly !
The only thing that holds these back right now is power source. Lots of companies have working humanoid robots. The are not very fast though. Thats a power limitation. I have never seen anybody try to build one with electronic muscles though, I think that would give the speed needed to be at least as fast or faster then their human counter parts.
I know all of the robots that build our cars take a crap load of power, they could never be operated with out a large supply of electricity thought. I have also seen a company that build robots for the contruction industry, but they are wicked slow, mostly because they use hydraulics, and we all know how slow those are.

As far as AI is concerned I dont not think that any robot should be given AI to hunt people. The robots should all be remote controled. Giving AI the ability to kill is a moral thing I beleive. Three laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being
to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

On the type and structure:
A robots structure that you see in sci fi movies like this short posted is not the
most efficient, bi pedal is great for us but for a robot it may be better to be
treaded or wheeled, even a quadra ped is better. Its a way more stable platform
My dog is way faster and much quciker then
I will ever be, this is because of his quadraped design. However, some amazing
AI would be needed for a robot to be as mobile as we can be...being be pedal
I can go places my dog can not...up trees, up walls... so i guess it would really
depend on the enviorment.




[edit on 28-6-2006 by imbalanced]

[edit on 28-6-2006 by imbalanced]

Yeah I have to agree Power sources are going to be a major hurdle. ASIMO arguably the most advanced humanoid robot on the planet right now only has a 20-30 minute battery life (Sony doesn't brag about that). A soldier that starves to death every half a hour wouldnt be very practical I would assume.

I wonder if future battery could give you days or week run times for such a high energy platform. Perhaps they will go a different route and forget conventional batteries. I remember a thread here on ATS of a new artifical muscles that run on fuels like Alcohol.
www.physorg.com...
This stuff is really strong aswell 100% times stronger than natural muscles That would be getting into comic book levels of super-human strength

I also liked the i,Robot 3 law thing...it makes sense, and its nice and simple.

I think personal robots that can do everyday tasks are around 20 years away.
If they would be like the i,Robot design and have AI...Could they not basically do everything we do...Would people have jobs? If an owner can buy a robot cheaper then what he pays you...what would stop him from doing so?

These robots would save a lot of lives but they would cost a lot of lives too... I have no doubt that in the future we will see these up and running but my issue is who is controlling these weapons. I barely trust the U.S. government as it is this could start a dark new chapter in history...

I dont know the three laws of robotics always seemed far too simplistic and vague for my taste.

They are the creation of a Sci-Fi writer for fictional robots that used fictional positronic brains. Asmiov could not hope to understand how true AI would think, we cant even predict that today theres no telling how A.I will interpret such laws.

Even in Asmiov's fictional universe the 3 laws failed.

Consider the first law

1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Thats very simple yet very vague "or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

In the course of a normal day humans do many things that could allow them to come to harm. Driving a car down the street for example you have some clear odds of getting injured in a crash. Whats to say a robot wouldn't decide that according to the first law it cant allow you to drive and risk a crash.

How about a nice beer or smoke? No wait that is clearly harmful to your body any robot following the 1st law could decide it has to act to prevent a human from harm and takes your beer away. Heck the robot might decide its best for you just to stay in bed you could slip and injury yourself.

Robots following such laws could even decide humans are humans biggest threat and that we protection from ourselves much childern do.

I'd bet that solar power would be the best way to power these bots. With the advent of carbon nanotubes, and nano-sheets, solar power collecters will be will be cheaper and easier to produce. this will be very cool, and very scary in the wrong hands.

War is for killing. It's not a video game. It's all about killing people and taking their land, wealth and women. What good does it do to have a robot do the dirty work? There's nothing at risk. Just seeing who has the most money.

So you'll have a lot of robots wandering around some occupied country, with the locals dropping big rocks on them when they're not looking. Some war.

Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. That's all it is.

Originally posted by Enkidu
War is for killing. It's not a video game. It's all about killing people and taking their land, wealth and women. What good does it do to have a robot do the dirty work? There's nothing at risk. Just seeing who has the most money.

People made the same basic argument anytime a major advance in Warfare technology was introduced and changed the way wars are fought forever. When the gun replaced the sword, tanks replaced the horse and when planes and zeplins took combat to the air etc.. etc... etc...

Bottom line if any tech can give one country a edge over another it will be developed for military purposes whether some people don't like the tech or not.

You also have a very simplistic view of warfare

It's all about killing people and taking their land, wealth and women

Really?? Ever hear of a concept called a defensive war? In every conflict there is always one aggressor/invader and one defender. Is the person simply fighting for their homeland trying to repel a invader all about taking the others "land, wealth and women"?

What about the countless revolutionary and civil wars where people fought for freedom or basic human rights? Wars fought to spread religon?

War is far more complex then you make it out to seem and your views on this tech make you sound like the people talking about how cowardly the riflemen where that downed "noble" knights at long range. One might have been cowardly in some peoples eyes but the other is dead and went the way of the dodo


[edit on 30-6-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
I'd bet that solar power would be the best way to power these bots. With the advent of carbon nanotubes, and nano-sheets, solar power collecters will be will be cheaper and easier to produce. this will be very cool, and very scary in the wrong hands.

Actually a Liquid fuel would work best, due to the innate energy densities involved. Solar cannot compete with Liquid Fuel. They've invented some Artificial Muscles that run on nothing but Alcohol. So basically this is our future....

I forgot Bender drank Alcohol for fuel. Thats really strange that it might turn out to be exactly like that with robots that use these new Artificial Muscles.

Ive also seen some robots that get energy from living animals SLUGBOT that use decomposing bacteria to converts the slugs it caught into a combustible bio-gas, which is then loaded into a fuel cell to generate electricity.

This only produces a small amount of energy and I imagine is quite inefficient compared to organic lifeforms but its very interesting.

Just imagine future robots that sit down for a burger and shot of alchol to refuel

What about the potential for cybernetics? A Cyborg with a siginificant number of alcohol powered implants that replaces just about every bodily except thinking, only augments that) could survive solely off of Alcohol. Not a bad way to live actually, as long as you can control how much and how long you are drunk. heh. Oh Brave New World indeed.

The possibility of future cybernetics is facinating especially when you get into the subject of human brain augmentation and enhancement. It might really be that a melding of the two will produced a results neither can achieve by themselves.

Some things machines do really well and other things human do very well. For example 2564 x 13 = any two dollar calculator can figure that out in a fraction of a second no problem. Not really the same for humans we can do it but often require paper and alot more time.

But if I teach a 5 year old human this symbol E is the represents the letter E I can go one to show that child E in any number of different colors, sizes, fonts even highly stylized version and they will understand thats still the letter E.

The best machines cant do that yet (which is one reason website validation often require you enter a distored version of letters a numbers) No problem for humans but not a easy task for machines or programs.

Thinking creatively or in the abstract may be things machines no matter how advanced may never be able to do very well. Yet humans can do that very well. So if we can combine the best of two worlds in cybernetic human brains in the future that may the best way to go that neither pure human or pure machine can match.