Robots: Americans = Miltary, Japanese = Human companion

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/living/books/s_471426.html

I think it's true in a way. Most of the robotic research (at least in practical and engineering) are mainly used for defense and miltary purpose in America. When one thinks of "robots", I think of killing machines, terminator stuff, and robots who will take over the world.

On an ethical issue, we Americans like to boast so much of being the top in technology, yet do not possess much moral credbility within it. At least half of mathematician and engineers are employed doing miltary stuff (code breaking, defense weapons, AI for armies).

To me, great technology like robots is better for the benefit of mankind. That's what the US lack in terms of its robots...

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Robots are only useful for war, thats the truth. Robots decrease the value of human life. At least if wars are fought by robots it increases the value of human life.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

How does war increase the value of human life? Especially if these robots are used to kill humans.

Also, robots are only useful for war? Wow you must work for the Pentagon. Its a bit like saying the Space Shuttle is only useful for launching military satellites.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Human's don't care about humans, thats the truth. You don't have to work for the pentagon to see that. Robots will be used to either replace biological machines, making humans obsolete so that we don't need so many of them, or robots will be used to fight wars so humans don't have to. Which would you prefer?

Humans like you are only useful for working jobs, and working a job is only useful so you can pay taxes to keep the military budget high.

 

Think if you had robots manning all the farms, controlling the government, and making up the entire millitary. Also schools. There would be no need for economy, we would all have food, water, protection, and education. We could all sit on our asses like coolskill.

Edit: Also, distributing food.

 

"To me, great technology like robots is better for the benefit of mankind. That's what the US lack in terms of its robots..."

actually the USA can build whatever they want. for military or for consumer goods. i don't know if you ever seen the movie: the transformers before but the good robots were the robots built for consumers like cars and appliances, while the bad robots are the robots built for military reasons. We in the US try to build machines to help people but it is also necessary to build machines to protect the country. there you have a balance between the two.

 

There are differences between Japanese and American culture, but I'm not sure their use of robots is representative of it. The Japanese practically invented the idea of war robots, their cartoons are full of them.

In reality, we will use robots to meet the needs of society, and frankly, Japan is largely demilitarized as a result of WWII. They aren't as heavily invested in overseas conflicts. They do, however, have an aging population, and lack people to care for them.

The US has need for robots for military ventures, but I'm sure Americans also think of other uses for them, such as companionship.

 

Technically, It would be cheaper to use Biological entities for war than robots, since afterall they tend to repair where as robots would require resources and maintainence, However that sort of envisionment is just a Scifi angle.

Most robots I know of are just tools to do a job, for years they've used robots for bomb disposal, where the robot can be replace and the human operator can. The Japanese have Robots in their history for many years in the form of clockwork puppetry etc.

There are robots being developed for doing Surgery (Operations) since robots will be less likely to "Shake" at the operation table, however none of these robots need a crowd of "Luddites" condemning them since for the most part they have a human operator overseeing that they do the job.