{"id":18,"date":"2007-07-18T17:51:39","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T23:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/2007\/07\/18\/18\/"},"modified":"2007-07-18T19:29:20","modified_gmt":"2007-07-19T01:29:20","slug":"18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/2007\/07\/18\/18\/","title":{"rendered":"Misplaced Compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"

While we were talking about the rationality of mole-rat behavior in class today, I couldn’t help but think back to an article<\/a> I read a few months ago concerning a new mine-clearing robot being developed for the DoD. Interestingly enough, it appears to bear a strong resemblance to the robots being developed by Rodney Brooks. <\/p>\n

This part of the article gave me pause:<\/p>\n

The most effective way to find and destroy a land mine is to step on it.<\/p>\n

This has bad results, of course, if you’re a human. But not so much if you’re a robot and have as many legs as a centipede sticking out from your body. That’s why Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, built something like that. At the Yuma Test Grounds in Arizona, the autonomous robot, 5 feet long and modeled on a stick-insect, strutted out for a live-fire test and worked beautifully, he says. Every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.<\/p>\n

Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.<\/p>\n

The human in command of the exercise, however — an Army colonel — blew a fuse.<\/p>\n

The colonel ordered the test stopped.<\/p>\n

Why? asked Tilden. What’s wrong?<\/p>\n

The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.<\/p>\n

This test, he charged, was inhumane.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like to think of myself as a rational individual, especially when it comes to issues concerning national defense<\/a>. (Article summary: it’s better that only 19 US cities get nuked instead of 20.) In some situations there are no good outcomes; one has to settle for the outcome that is the least<\/em> bad. <\/p>\n

And yet part of me is glad that the colonel stopped the test. Taken by themselves, I think his actions speak well of his compassion and sense of decency. (I find it interesting that it’s the career soldier, and not the scientist, who is compelled by moral outrage to intevene on robot’s behalf.) <\/p>\n

It’s only when the robot’s well-being is weighed against the life of a human that the colonel’s actions start take on a different, decidedly less ‘humane’ shape. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While we were talking about the rationality of mole-rat behavior in class today, I couldn’t help but think back to an article I read a few months ago concerning a new mine-clearing robot being developed for the DoD. Interestingly enough, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/dasbolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}