             Comments     Threshold   RE: Seriously? By OxBow on
4/11/2008 4:30:11 PM , Rating: 2 Are these really "robots"?
Aren't they just hopped up remote control cars. Sure, it's
usefull and can do a lot of different stuff, and mounting a gun
on one is a big step in terms of "remote control" but to be what
I would consider a robot it must have some form of autonomy,
such as the Mars landers.  If that is the case and these things
are semi-autonomous, then I would be against this. But if it's
basically a glorified remote controlled dohicky, then I'm all
for it. There's no difference in my mind between someone flying
a drone versus a real plane, ethically speaking. Having made
that leap of logic, this step just makes sense.  However, if you
provide the dohicky with the programing to determine it's own
route across a rubble strewn parking lot, per se, then we're in
a different class of dohicky's and the ethics of releasing a
life or death decision to the processes of a machine (whether
that be a spring switc