When overseas conflicts occupy land and minds, some soldiers begin to develop emotional relationships with their robot friends. Welcome to a world where robotics reaches another level of mind-blowing innovation.
Digital Journal — “It’s like having a pet dog.” So says Ted Bogosh about a soldier’s attachment to his robot companion on the battlefront. A former Marine sergeant who ran a robot repair shop in Baghdad, Bogosh tells the Washington Post many army combatants forge bonds with the robots that often save their lives.
“It becomes part of the team, gets a name,” Bogosh says. “They get upset when anything happens to one of the team. They identify with the little robot quickly. They count on it a lot in a mission.”
He’s referring to various intelligent machines commonly used in war-time situations. There’s the MARCbot, used as a point man on reconnaissance. There’s the unmanned air vehicle lovingly called the Predator. And there are countless landmine-detecting robots who are employed for the sole purpose of finding explosives. So when soldiers stand on the frontlines beside these companions of metal and wire, they feel an affinity for those colleagues who’ve helped them in battle — whether they’re human or not.
The Post article states: It’s common for a soldier to cut out a magazine picture of a woman, tape it to the antenna and name the bot something like ‘Cheryl,’ says Paul Varian, a former Army chief warrant officer who has served three tours in Iraq with the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office.
The military has also come around to dish out some robo-love. Last month, the Army said it would allow unmanned air vehicles to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the highest military honours. In addition, robot soldiers have been known to be promoted to staff sergeant, and be awarded for their bravery by earning “purple heart” awards.
What makes the robot-soldier bond so interesting is how the relationship relates to a natural progression of robotic innovation. Forget the old days of the Roomba vacuuming robot; today’s technologies can display emotions, hold intelligent conversations, and even perform delicate surgery 400 feet below sea level. As a Time journalist wondered, if conversational robots can walk the Earth, are conscious robots that far behind?
And to take that one logical step further, are robo rights on the horizon? In fact, the UK government is exploring that same issue after the government’s chief scientific advisor wrote a report on artificial intelligence gaining human rights.
Noel Sharkey, a professor of computer science at the University of Sheffield, told the London Times: “The idea of machine consciousness is a bit of a fairytale. I’m not certain it won’t happen, in the same way as when I was seven I wasn’t certain about Santa Claus not existing, but I was fairly sure.”
But that’s not to say robotics won’t advance to unprecedented heights. If soldiers are already bonding with machines, it’s not far-fetched to picture a future where kids befriend robo-pets, where metallic cashiers recognize familiar customers, where C-3PO lookalikes become more than servants and evolve into lifelong companions. That scenario could be disheartening to those who pine for simpler times. Then again, perhaps these robotic innovators are following the Alan Kay quote: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
