From: Bernard Hughes (bjhughes@istar.ca)
Date: Fri Oct 30 1998 - 11:58:08 MST
Following up on the silicon brain story posted earlier, I came across another
interesting article in the EEtimes
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19981026S0015
This one is about a Raytheon project to build an artificial soldier topped off with
the Cog head from MIT. The neural net system proposed is of a type that is new to
me, in that it assumes that the information passed among neurons comes as a result
of the temporal synchrony among signals. Anybody else come across that theory?
Building an autonomous, heavily armed soldier strikes me as a risky way to try out
AI theory. A fixed place ABM system is one thing, but a general purpose killer
robot seems like asking for trouble. If programming "do not harm humans" has some
challenges, "kill all humans except for the friendly ones" seems fraught with
peril. Reminds me of an old SF tale, I think called "I made you", in which a dying
engineer is pinned down by the robot sentinel he built.
I'd vote for keeping these guys immobile unless you are *really* sure of your IFF
programming.
-- Bernard J Hughes bernard@timedancer.com Timedancer Systems http://www.timedancer.com -- Creative Laziness at its best --
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