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Randy M. Dumse posted on October 16, 2005, 4:10 pm
Well, now that I'm all wound up, I might as well get it off my chest.
Forgive me if I don't want to participate in the thread much after
launch, depending on how it goes. These things really get to me. I have
my health to worry about. But I do think this much needs saying, so
there's at least one contrary postion to popular opinion out there.
Ever wonder about the Trinity scientists? What were they thinking? Or
the german scientists with their Vbombs? Shouldn't they have known where
their work was going? Or were they immune to the moral consequences of
their actions, since they didn't actually deliver the weapons.
I just wonder how history will review us, the makers of autonomous
robots, looking back. Will they say; Hey, what were those guys thinking?
The DARPA contests that started it all, were obviously rigged, and
unconstitutionally to boot. Hello!?!? Red flag there! Yet those guys
went ahead! They made the machines even though they should have known
government was out of control. They just _gave_ their work to the
inspectors, ignoring their own property rights, in order to have a
chance at the prize. The the inspectors stole the best of what the guys
came up with. Big surprize, right? They all got high paying jobs with
the weapons makers, who probably paid for the senators and judges
elections anyway. None of the real inventors ever got a thing. What did
they think those robots were going to be used for? What were those robot
guys thinking!
Can't happen here? It just did.
And here we are, strutting around like bumpkins after the country fair,
with our thumbs in our suspenders, bragging how close we came to winning
those prizes.
We entered a confidence game with a couple known shills in the group,
government funded agencies, who in the end wound up with all the
government supplied (tax dollar) prize money, by spending even more
government supplied money than they won. Is anybody surprized by how it
turned out?
For a bunch of smart, sophisticated fellows, who love to read science
fiction dramas about the bad guys using trickery to acquire technology,
we sure didn't say much when we lived through it.
Our little robotics community just spent, ?what?, $40 million or more,
creating something that we should have been paid $40 billion for?
and without even the promise of a kiss afterwards.
And that's supposedly a good thing for us? Hummm... what were we
thinking?
--
Randy M. Dumse
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear.
Forgive me if I don't want to participate in the thread much after
launch, depending on how it goes. These things really get to me. I have
my health to worry about. But I do think this much needs saying, so
there's at least one contrary postion to popular opinion out there.
Ever wonder about the Trinity scientists? What were they thinking? Or
the german scientists with their Vbombs? Shouldn't they have known where
their work was going? Or were they immune to the moral consequences of
their actions, since they didn't actually deliver the weapons.
I just wonder how history will review us, the makers of autonomous
robots, looking back. Will they say; Hey, what were those guys thinking?
The DARPA contests that started it all, were obviously rigged, and
unconstitutionally to boot. Hello!?!? Red flag there! Yet those guys
went ahead! They made the machines even though they should have known
government was out of control. They just _gave_ their work to the
inspectors, ignoring their own property rights, in order to have a
chance at the prize. The the inspectors stole the best of what the guys
came up with. Big surprize, right? They all got high paying jobs with
the weapons makers, who probably paid for the senators and judges
elections anyway. None of the real inventors ever got a thing. What did
they think those robots were going to be used for? What were those robot
guys thinking!
Can't happen here? It just did.
And here we are, strutting around like bumpkins after the country fair,
with our thumbs in our suspenders, bragging how close we came to winning
those prizes.
We entered a confidence game with a couple known shills in the group,
government funded agencies, who in the end wound up with all the
government supplied (tax dollar) prize money, by spending even more
government supplied money than they won. Is anybody surprized by how it
turned out?
For a bunch of smart, sophisticated fellows, who love to read science
fiction dramas about the bad guys using trickery to acquire technology,
we sure didn't say much when we lived through it.
Our little robotics community just spent, ?what?, $40 million or more,
creating something that we should have been paid $40 billion for?
and without even the promise of a kiss afterwards.
And that's supposedly a good thing for us? Hummm... what were we
thinking?
--
Randy M. Dumse
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear.
Donald posted on
Re: Huh? DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
< snip >
Whats the diff.
Robot blowing you up or Religous Zelot (Copyright 2005) Blowing you up.
Re: Huh? DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
What's the difference between being blow up with a robot of your own
design, and being blown up by a religious zealot?
If you can't see through the difference between complicit suicide and
homicide with rational thought, you could always pray for guidance.
--
Randy M. Dumse
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear.
Dean Burell posted on
Re: Huh? DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
well.
I don't necessarily agree... but some are saying that.
--
Thanks,
Dean
aiiadict posted on
Re: Huh? DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
$$ and recognition. AKA Fortune and Fame.
Yeah, you should have been paid $40billion. That's how much it would
have ended up costing if they'd developed it themselves. $30.8 billion
to pad their pockets and their buddies pockets, 1.2billion for parts
and labor.
Don't start worrying until Mr. Bush sends autonomous genocide machines
running your code to the middle east. The USA can now waste even more
money on "war", and less people will be disturbed (no US lives at
stake).
The technology "community" should start it's own competition. Each
company puts in $100k. Who ever wins the challenge gets the pot. All
the companies benefit with the technology break-thrus..we can benefit
tech field and ourselves instead of the aristocrats...
dan michaels posted on
Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
Here's my suggestion for a commercial contest, plus help for the common
man, not to mention the poor 1500-pound moose.
The Moose Grand Challenge. [sounds better than The White-Tailed Deer
Challenge]
Many 1000s of deer and moose are hit by cars every year. Most after
dark in rural areas. Blighters are hard to see outside the headlight
beams, when you're doing 75 MPH or so on a back highway. This site says
350,000 roadkill deer every year.
http://www.santacruzhub.org/pp/roadkill/stats.htm
Probably the main product of the Darpa GC was development of sensors
and algorithms capable of guiding a vehicle over bad terrain at 20 MPH
or so. Something similar could be used to detect and avoid moose and
deer in the night, saving both animals and many millions in repair
bills.
"Save the Moose"
- dan michaels
www.oricomtech.com
=======================
Gordon McComb posted on
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
It would be cheaper to put reflectors on the moose and deer. Red on the
right side, blue on the left side. Or is it the other way around?...
-- Gordon
feedbackdroids posted on
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
And maybe a big flashing led on the butt.
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
And maybe a flashing white led on the butt.
makc.the.great posted on
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
you see, noone cares to save a life of a deer, but to take a life of a
human better is something worth of $2M prize. if you have problems with
that, perhaps, you morals are all wrong?
Muddy posted on
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
the lost of Human life. Hitting a deer is likely to total your car,
and has a reasonably good chance of killing someone in the car when the
deer goes through the windshield as the usually do. Hitting a Moose at
any speed is quite likely to be fatal to you. If you are going too
fast, 1000+ pound of Moose lands on top of you at high speed. If you
are going too slow, the Moose stomps you and your car flat.
On you other point, the purpose of making more automated weapons is to
save the lives of US soldiers, by minimizing their exposure to danger.
The more accurate and lethal weapons also save the lives of many
civillians in the area by allowing precision targeting of command and
control or troops. In the old days, before robotic cruise missile,
Laser guided bombs the technique was to bomb a wide area around the
target, or to fly in close at great risk with only a <50% chance of
hitting the target. I hate BUsh with a passion, but if he wanted to
commit Genocide, he could just had B-52's carpet bomb all the Sunnis
Majority Cities in Iraq at a fraction of the cost in blood and
treasure. If he was really crazy, he could have just nuked the cities
from the Oval Office in less than one hour, and then claim that Iraq
was about to launch a nuclear strike against the USA. SInce the
evidence would have been destoryed by the Nukes, this course would have
been far more believable than the one he choose.
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
These are all side-effects; the primary value, as you have outlined it,
is making "more accurate and lethal weapons".
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
largely political.
1. Save American lives because pilots cost money, and Americans
rightfully get really upset when the cream of their youth are wasted.
2. Limit the killing of Civillians because of the negative political
effects at home and abroad.
Of course every single military officers I have ever met from Lt to
General really does hurt deeply when they lose men, and every bomber
pilot worries about civillians they kill for the rest of their lives.
The pilots also worry about the soldiers they kill, though no one I
have met worries about the leaders of the enemy they have killed.
Almost all the Military objectives could have been carried out cheaper
with unguided bombs, WMDs. Note the USA used lots of WMDs in the first
Iraq war. The fuel air bombs are just as explosive as medium nukes,
and larger than many tactical ones. They just aren't as messy and
don't cause as much lingering death. I promise you that reasons one
and two are the primary reason for most of the new weapons. The
exception would be the larger bunker busters, but those again are
designed to get extremely high value, fortified targets.
If the USA had done the second Iraq war, with wider ranging targets
with WW II type dumb bombs 100,000's to millions more Iraqis would have
died and the major cities would have looked like the Japanessee cities
did at the end of WW II.
Mike Young posted on
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
My wife misunderstands my motivations. I insist on doing the driving as much
as is possible not because I like to drive, but because I am the most
qualified. Be that as it may... I personally would prefer to let the car
drive itself, just as soon as they are capable of doing so safely and
expeditiously. Until that time, however, there is room in the car for only
one driver.
If the car isn't qualified to drive itself on an open road, why would I
trust it to avoid collisions? If it were capable of driving itself in
congestion and avoidance maneuvers, why would I undertake to hold the wheel
on the mundane open road portions? There is room in the car for only one
driver.
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
Good lord, far be it from me to come between a man and his automobile.
This is america, after all. I was suggesting an auxiliary sensor
system, not a man-replacement system, like other guys are talking
about, re the Darpa GC.
I didn't actually mean to use the word avoid, in the sense of the car
doing the avoiding. I meant having sensors to detect the moose/deer, so
the driver might be warned enuf ahead of time that he might do the
avoiding. The sensors are the important part, which are missing, not
the driver :). Couple of years ago, I was driving at nite about 60-65
on a rural road and a deer ran out of nowheres and across in front of
me. All I saw was a "flash" going across the headlight beams, and it
was sheer lucky timing that the deer made it past my front bumper.
Missed hitting its rear end by about 6". No chance to even react, since
I never saw the darn thing till it had crossed. Those deer are none too
bright.
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
You also misunderstand. I'm ready to be a passenger, just as soon as cars
are ready to pilot themselves.
Ride a motorcycle long enough and you'll meet and talk with people who ran
into deer, or lost someone that way.
A short stretch of I-90 in Indiana has roadside large wildlife sensors. They
light up warning signs spaced about a mile apart, likely corresponding to
sensor zones. I've never seen them on, and have to wonder how effective they
can be. Knowing that there might be deer in the neighborhood is one thing; I
assume that all the time anyway. To be really effective, they would have to
light up the roadside like a ballfield so you can see the deer early enough
to avoid them. Alas, I think the real purpose is not so much to save the one
deer or carload that are about to meet. The real danger of a deer strike is
the effect on traffic behind. You can't save the deer, I don't think, but
maybe you can help the car behind the car that hit the deer. Drivers on the
interstate at night apparently need minutes, not milliseconds, of warning
and response time. To bring this full circle and back on topic, it's all the
more reason for cars to drive themselves, hopefully with better awareness of
its surroundings than the zombies now holding the wheels.
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
avoid deer were those little whistles you bolt on to your car...
Why have an overcomplicated high tech solution when a low tech solution is
sufficient?
--
Thanks,
Dean Burell
Re: Moose Grand Challenge - DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
I have it on good authority that your St. Christopher's medal works about as
well. The Dashboard Jesus, though, seems different. That works a charm on
all manner of ills.
The point is that they don't work, and can't be made to work, the same as it
is inherently more dangerous to step into the bathtub for your morning
shower than it is to stay sedentary in bed.
Re: Huh? DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
I just figured out what's wrong with cruise missiles: They're fast, and
don't crawl through the dirt feeling their way along. WTF.
BTW, defense spending is a good thing (tm). Unless they start shopping it
overseas, of course, which entirely defeats the purpose. Did you think bombs
were the first or only result of that spending?
Re: Huh? DAPRA GC was not a good thing?
drones and the unarmed ones for surveilance.
Damn those RC plane builders!
Of course with out the research into miniturization that the government
funds.... we probably wouldn't have ipod nano's and GB memory sticks
either....
Damn the government for plagueing us with disposable commercial electronic
gizmos that are obsolete the day we buy them!
--
Thanks,
Dean
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