with the way were headed they arent far off, we just need to figure out the power storage issues. A crew of B1 style droids would make my life so much easier.
I'd take a bunch short circuit style treaded bots if they can understand and follow orders. Could probably run those on existing battery tech or just give them internal gas power plants.
Honestly I was skeptical about robot soldiers until the past couple of years. I genuinely think they're within our reach.
B1 Battle Droids being these cheap foot soldiers with limited independent thought that can shoot and operate conventional weaponry make more sense then a big bulky armored robot that you typically see. You can just replace the big armored robot with the Unmanned Armored Vehicle role.
in the Geneva convention does it say non-human droid combatants aren't exempt from commiting war crimes? >hurrdurr where does it say a rifle isn't exempt from commiting war crimes hurr
If it's fully sentient and making its own choices, then it is guilty of any crimes it commits. If it's not, then it's a weapon, and whoever used the weapon is guilty. In either case any higher ups giving specific orders may also be guilty on top. It's not complicated.
In your specific case those things just follow orders. They aren't going to commit war crimes unless ordered to, and conversely could be perfectly respectful of all laws of war if ordered/programmed to. So it'd be the sentients in control fo the droid armies who'd be guilty, or not. Not that any of this matters in those movies.
It's a droid, dude. It's sentient, but it doesn't have free agency. It'll do whateverthefuck you tell it to. Unless it's been manumitted, like ol' IG here.
>If it's fully sentient
Semi sentient. Commander droids get more independent thought for strategic purposes. >and making its own choices
Theoretically, like an unammed tank, it would make choices via algorithmic determination. >then it is guilty of any crimes it commits
So who would be at fault? The singular droid? The commander of said droid? The creator of the droids? The country that put that droid into service?
Algorithms don't count, anymore then they do for an air to air missile. >So who would be at fault? The singular droid? The commander of said droid? The creator of the droids? The country that put that droid into service?
The last one which is the operator. You just go up the stack: who was the very first actual free agent sentient who gave the orders? A JDAM isn't a warcrime if it's used in a compliant way. It's just a tool. So the creator isn't responsible (unless they're the operator as well). It's whoever used it in a GC violating manner.
Anyway, that's the legal rule of law answer. Obviously in practice whether you can actually prosecute or not depends heavily on whether you WIN or not.
But what if the order was to take a town, but the droids killed civilians who were protesting as they mistook their violence for an enemy combatant attack?
But what if the order was to take a town, but the droids killed civilians who were protesting as they mistook their violence for an enemy combatant attack?
who fucking cares anon? If you choose to deploy a weapon somewhere, that's on you. If it's a weapon that causes mass indiscriminate slaughter? Your fault you shouldn't have used it at all.
7 months ago
Anonymous
plus if civies get in the way of a military operation or are openly attacking troops, their technically a form of combatant. How much restraint you put on your troops to deal with this is up to the commander.
>speech AI where conversations are coherent
within our reach >naturalistic movement in robotics
within our reach
I love battle droids.
The only problem is we have to create a machine that has the capacity to understand combat under any situation. Not just a robot that can aim a rifle and shoot a target, but also use any weapon it comes across against the enemy. It would also have to understand what to do if a tank comes along, or if a helicopter comes along. Squad formations, fieldcraft etc. etc. Squad Leaders would have to think more independently, and what happens if the squid leader is deactivated through a bullet to the head?
Perhaps they would even have learn how to operate vehicles. I don't think robotics and AI are anywhere near this stage.
All those skills could be taught to AI in a simulated environment, than given a refresher in the real world to figure out wider errors. AI can be taught all sorts of things, its only limited to the physical engineered machine its placed into. Battle droids have quite a bit of movement variability, you can see that they know basics like finding cover or changing positions, but their built to be limited in what they can do on the fly. They make up for this in numbers. Its ok if you loose a dozen droids to an error, you have 250 more to work with.
I can see a robot understanding cover in an outdoor field test. But I don't see a robotic bipedal soldier doing something like digging foxholes anytime soon.
That makes more sense, more cost effective too.
Only problem is once again what would happen if that human NCO died? You would have to give the droids semi autonomy, once they knew their commander was dead.
simple. >officer is KIA, return fire and wait for a new human to give orders >if no new orders are given within a time frame, retreat to friendly ground and await orders. >support other remaining troops / NCOs until further orders given
You could have them transfer over command of their squad to nearby ncos from other squads. This would limit where and how they could be used, but would still allow to cut down on manpower costs.
thats probably the best option. Human NCOs with a squad of battle droids. Or you could have 2-3 droids and the rest of the squad are human, droids only being a supporting role.
Robots don't need squad leaders, and of Robots do get caught in a situation they cant deal with it doesn't matter, they're only Robots. The whole point behind the star wars Robots is that they are cheap and disposable. They literally get unpacked from racks on the battlefield.
They were led by sentient beings as squad leaders in some scenarios, in the Republic Commando novels. Those squad leaders would direct them in csses were the battlefield changes in a way the droids cant adapt to.
would battle droids be better suited for a heavy support role? A crew of droids can lug around a machine gun or mortar system for example, letting a human squad move easier.
these guys, homing spider droids, look like something we could build now. Give it a 50 cal cannon, and a simple power plant, you have a mobile, semi intelligent turret that follows the squad around or acts as point defense.
the only issue is how to try and prevent friendly fire. You would have to give each unit a course on its local friendlies, a list of faces and unit IDs that it would know are its friendlies and anything not on that list shooting is a target for destruction. I really think a quad walking platform like that is perfect, it would be fantastic fire support for men / droids on the ground for a number of situations.
droids are cheaper than having organic operators. If you already have access to a wide variety of vehicles built for organic crews, but you dont have a lot of time or money to hire an organic force, droid pilots seem like a good deal. Over all its a pretty good setup, you dont have to pay a troopers family a stipend or pension after their service life is done, you dont have medical issues either.
even in starwars their "cheap" in that their cheaper than organic troops, but their still expensive to mass produce. I am sure the lore states how much each unit costs to build, but if you could get each unit down to say... $25k each IRL you would be golden. Realistically though they would be rather expensive to build.
Ah, in that case, what if the droids killed a lone escapee of a town far away in the middle of a rural isolate area?
You could probably argue this with any conventional drone.
Dam do i want a crew of B1 style droids. They just look perfect, who ever did the design for them was genius.
>3 finger hand
their guns are designed to work with that limitation though so its not too big a flaw. It can operate most machinery without too much issue.
Same, I'd love to have a team of robots that I could boss around.
with the way were headed they arent far off, we just need to figure out the power storage issues. A crew of B1 style droids would make my life so much easier.
I'd take a bunch short circuit style treaded bots if they can understand and follow orders. Could probably run those on existing battery tech or just give them internal gas power plants.
Honestly I was skeptical about robot soldiers until the past couple of years. I genuinely think they're within our reach.
B1 Battle Droids being these cheap foot soldiers with limited independent thought that can shoot and operate conventional weaponry make more sense then a big bulky armored robot that you typically see. You can just replace the big armored robot with the Unmanned Armored Vehicle role.
exactly, the concept is there and soon we will see these sorts of mass produced soldiers working along humans.
It's more likely they'll make artillery that operates itself rather than robots to operate regular artillery and so on
in the Geneva convention does it say non-human droid combatants aren't exempt from commiting war crimes?
>hurrdurr where does it say a rifle isn't exempt from commiting war crimes hurr
If it's fully sentient and making its own choices, then it is guilty of any crimes it commits. If it's not, then it's a weapon, and whoever used the weapon is guilty. In either case any higher ups giving specific orders may also be guilty on top. It's not complicated.
In your specific case those things just follow orders. They aren't going to commit war crimes unless ordered to, and conversely could be perfectly respectful of all laws of war if ordered/programmed to. So it'd be the sentients in control fo the droid armies who'd be guilty, or not. Not that any of this matters in those movies.
It's a droid, dude. It's sentient, but it doesn't have free agency. It'll do whateverthefuck you tell it to. Unless it's been manumitted, like ol' IG here.
>If it's fully sentient
Semi sentient. Commander droids get more independent thought for strategic purposes.
>and making its own choices
Theoretically, like an unammed tank, it would make choices via algorithmic determination.
>then it is guilty of any crimes it commits
So who would be at fault? The singular droid? The commander of said droid? The creator of the droids? The country that put that droid into service?
Algorithms don't count, anymore then they do for an air to air missile.
>So who would be at fault? The singular droid? The commander of said droid? The creator of the droids? The country that put that droid into service?
The last one which is the operator. You just go up the stack: who was the very first actual free agent sentient who gave the orders? A JDAM isn't a warcrime if it's used in a compliant way. It's just a tool. So the creator isn't responsible (unless they're the operator as well). It's whoever used it in a GC violating manner.
Anyway, that's the legal rule of law answer. Obviously in practice whether you can actually prosecute or not depends heavily on whether you WIN or not.
But what if the order was to take a town, but the droids killed civilians who were protesting as they mistook their violence for an enemy combatant attack?
Commander recklessly deployed an indiscriminate weapon in an area where civilians were known to be active.
This.
who fucking cares anon? If you choose to deploy a weapon somewhere, that's on you. If it's a weapon that causes mass indiscriminate slaughter? Your fault you shouldn't have used it at all.
plus if civies get in the way of a military operation or are openly attacking troops, their technically a form of combatant. How much restraint you put on your troops to deal with this is up to the commander.
they're drones. the Geneva conventions already covers it.
No it doesn't?
It actually does. Why do you think Nazi High Command all got tribunals?
>speech AI where conversations are coherent
within our reach
>naturalistic movement in robotics
within our reach
I love battle droids.
The only problem is we have to create a machine that has the capacity to understand combat under any situation. Not just a robot that can aim a rifle and shoot a target, but also use any weapon it comes across against the enemy. It would also have to understand what to do if a tank comes along, or if a helicopter comes along. Squad formations, fieldcraft etc. etc. Squad Leaders would have to think more independently, and what happens if the squid leader is deactivated through a bullet to the head?
Perhaps they would even have learn how to operate vehicles. I don't think robotics and AI are anywhere near this stage.
>I don't think robotics and AI are anywhere near this stage.
Literally until we can recreate the human brain AI will never be at a human level.
All those skills could be taught to AI in a simulated environment, than given a refresher in the real world to figure out wider errors. AI can be taught all sorts of things, its only limited to the physical engineered machine its placed into. Battle droids have quite a bit of movement variability, you can see that they know basics like finding cover or changing positions, but their built to be limited in what they can do on the fly. They make up for this in numbers. Its ok if you loose a dozen droids to an error, you have 250 more to work with.
I can see a robot understanding cover in an outdoor field test. But I don't see a robotic bipedal soldier doing something like digging foxholes anytime soon.
You could just give them human NCOs. Then all you have to do is have the sergeant tell them what to do.
That makes more sense, more cost effective too.
Only problem is once again what would happen if that human NCO died? You would have to give the droids semi autonomy, once they knew their commander was dead.
simple.
>officer is KIA, return fire and wait for a new human to give orders
>if no new orders are given within a time frame, retreat to friendly ground and await orders.
>support other remaining troops / NCOs until further orders given
You could have them transfer over command of their squad to nearby ncos from other squads. This would limit where and how they could be used, but would still allow to cut down on manpower costs.
thats probably the best option. Human NCOs with a squad of battle droids. Or you could have 2-3 droids and the rest of the squad are human, droids only being a supporting role.
Robots don't need squad leaders, and of Robots do get caught in a situation they cant deal with it doesn't matter, they're only Robots. The whole point behind the star wars Robots is that they are cheap and disposable. They literally get unpacked from racks on the battlefield.
They were led by sentient beings as squad leaders in some scenarios, in the Republic Commando novels. Those squad leaders would direct them in csses were the battlefield changes in a way the droids cant adapt to.
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would battle droids be better suited for a heavy support role? A crew of droids can lug around a machine gun or mortar system for example, letting a human squad move easier.
The droid can BE the machine gun
these guys, homing spider droids, look like something we could build now. Give it a 50 cal cannon, and a simple power plant, you have a mobile, semi intelligent turret that follows the squad around or acts as point defense.
Basically, just hook an ai into a SWORDS drone.
the only issue is how to try and prevent friendly fire. You would have to give each unit a course on its local friendlies, a list of faces and unit IDs that it would know are its friendlies and anything not on that list shooting is a target for destruction. I really think a quad walking platform like that is perfect, it would be fantastic fire support for men / droids on the ground for a number of situations.
I know what they'd be good for. Population control.
What is the strategic advantage of having droids command and drive tanks?
droids are cheaper than having organic operators. If you already have access to a wide variety of vehicles built for organic crews, but you dont have a lot of time or money to hire an organic force, droid pilots seem like a good deal. Over all its a pretty good setup, you dont have to pay a troopers family a stipend or pension after their service life is done, you dont have medical issues either.
B1 Droids may be cheap in the Star Wars universe, but how much would one realistically cost in the real world?
even in starwars their "cheap" in that their cheaper than organic troops, but their still expensive to mass produce. I am sure the lore states how much each unit costs to build, but if you could get each unit down to say... $25k each IRL you would be golden. Realistically though they would be rather expensive to build.
so you don't have to build literal monkey models for export
This. Its the ~~*trade federation*~~ remember. Cost savings abound.
Ah, in that case, what if the droids killed a lone escapee of a town far away in the middle of a rural isolate area?
You could probably argue this with any conventional drone.