(Credit:
Signet)
Adherence to the Three Laws of Robotics as put forth by Isaac Asimov has been, until now, entrusted to whoever held the joystick. That may change.
A robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed an "ethical governor," which could be used to program military robots to act ethically when deciding when, and whom, to shoot or bomb.
Ron Arkin has demonstrated the system using attack UAVs and actual battlefield scenarios and maps from recent U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan. (videos)
In one scenario, a drone spots Taliban soldiers, but holds its fire because they're in a cemetery--fighting there is against international law.
In another, the UAV identifies an enemy convoy close to a hospital, but limits itself to shooting up the vehicles so as to avoid collateral damage to the hospital. The mindful bot would also house a built in "guilt system," which would force it to behave more cautiously, after making a mistake.
While the work shows promise, it also draws attention to the inadequacy of trying to program machines with morals, especially ones expected to perform in a complex battlefield environment, according to experts.
"Robots don't get angry or seek revenge but they don't have sympathy or empathy either," Noel Sharkey, a roboticist at Sheffield University, U.K., told New Scientist. "Strict rules require an absolutist view of ethics, rather than a human understanding of different circumstances and their consequences."
Arkin acknowledges that it may take a while before we can trust predators and other unmanned killers with life and death decisions.
"These ideas will not be used tomorrow, but in the war after next, and in very constrained situations." Arkin is quoted in New Scientist. "The most important outcome of my research is not the architecture, but the discussion that it stimulates."
(Credit:
Georgia Institute of Technology)
Scientists have devised a way to use heartbeat and blood flow to generate electricity to charge military equipment, and maybe even your cell phone one day.
Low-frequency vibrations from any source of movement, including a heartbeat, blood flow and even the wind against your clothes, creates mechanical stress, which in turn produces electricity through the cyclical stretching and releasing of specially designed nano thin, zinc oxide wires, according to researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology.
The new nano-scale "flexible charge pump" generator produces alternating current. The greater the strain rate, the more electricity generated.
"Quite simply, this technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement." Zhong Lin Wang Regent's professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at the Georgia Tech said in an interview. This "research will have a major impact on defense technology, environmental monitoring, biomedical sciences and even personal electronics."
The nanowires are grown on a variety of materials and measure "about 1/5,000th of the diameter of a human hair and about 1/25th of the length of a human hair."
The technology, which was sponsored by DARPA, could be integrated into military clothing and used to power individual gear, such as radios and night vision goggles, Wang said. Multiple arrays of the generators could be embedded into flags, building decorations, shoes--or even implanted under the skin to power biosensors.
"Self-powered nanotechnology could be the basis for a new industry," he said.
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