Laser-Armed Martian Robot Now Vaporizing Targets of Its Own Free Will (dailymail.co.uk) 73
Slashdot reader Rei writes: NASA -- having already populated the Red Planet with robots and armed a car-sized nuclear juggernaut with a laser -- have now decided to grant fire control of that laser over to a new AI system operating on the rover itself. Intended to increase the scientific data-gathering throughput on the sometimes glitching rover's journey, the improved AEGIS system eliminates the need for a series of back-and-forth communication sessions to select targets and aim the laser.
Rei's original submission included a longer riff on The War of the Worlds, ending with a reminder to any future AI overlords that "I have a medical condition that renders me unfit to toil in any hypothetical subterranean lithium mines..."
Rei's original submission included a longer riff on The War of the Worlds, ending with a reminder to any future AI overlords that "I have a medical condition that renders me unfit to toil in any hypothetical subterranean lithium mines..."
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#AllSentientsMatter
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I'm pretty sure that is somehow racist by current standards.
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I'm pretty sure that is somehow racist by current standards.
Probably. Which is why it's important to keep on doing it until hypersensitive cry-babies learn to grow up. It's perhaps the kindest thing we can do for them.
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Any other labels you want to tack onto me?
Please put them on the pile over there. I'll ignore them later.
Re: Soon that laser will be used against us (Score:1)
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So, they would be a specialist? :-)
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Re:What could go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
At least the thing can't come back to earth, right? Right?
Eventually it will reproduce.
When our first astronauts arrive on Mars, they will notice that not only Mars is populated by robots, but also the robots have developed into an intelligent life form.
And then Earth will be bombed into oblivion as soon as the astronauts exit the lander and wave their "Get Windows 10" flag.
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Windows 10 joke! Classic!
Ha, maybe they will be running systemd, so we'll have plenty of time to respond!
And, have you ever noticed that they park on driveways, and drive on parkways?
Its what they return with, not what they left with (Score:2)
At least the thing can't come back to earth, right? Right?
Its not like it matters if the probe has lasers when it left. Look at V'ger, it left with only a camera and a sound system and it came back pretty heavily armed.
When the martian probes sample for organics (Score:2)
this is kind of dangerous, the last thing we want is some kind of rogue alien probe with a rock boring drill running around new york city like a big daddy from bio shock
Damn right its dangerous. Look at what the martian probes did to earth when they started sampling things for organic compounds in HG Wells' historical account.
No shark (Score:3)
Once upon a time the icon would have been a shark. Sigh.
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Once upon a time the icon would have been a shark. Sigh.
To be fair, sharks would suffocate / freeze / explode on Mars.
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Once upon a time the icon would have been a shark. Sigh.
To be fair, sharks would suffocate / freeze / explode on Mars.
Not the robotic space probe sharks. Nor the native marian sharks, keep in mind they think they found surface water that freezes and melts periodically. Stay away from any standing martian water.
Wrong color for camera (Score:2)
Once upon a time the icon would have been a shark. Sigh.
And since when is HAL's camera blue? Hmm what color was SAL's camera?
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Look on the bright side, at least they didn't use the DEC logo.
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No, just ones about laser-wielding martian AI robots.
It's funny, and Slashdot has never been a particularly serious place.
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It was from REI.
Just be glad it wasn't some screed on Global Warming.
What in hell does this have to do with high-end outdoor gear?
I hope it's self aware (Score:1)
Don't want it shooting one of own wheels off, thinking was some curious object that didn't seem to belong.
Giving such a young machine free will and a laser, isn't that a little like leaving the gun on the kitchen table where the four year old can grab it while you're out in the garden?
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Or under the seat of the truck [chicagotribune.com], or in your purse [usatoday.com], or under a pillow [time.com].
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Yeah, let's not take this too far off base. It's only a story about Socratic rovers with frickin' lasers, not a another troll fest on gun control or he who shall not be named. Try to maintain some detachment. If the joke doesn't work, please, just say so.
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Don't want it shooting one of own wheels off, thinking was some curious object that didn't seem to belong.
Giving such a young machine free will and a laser, isn't that a little like leaving the gun on the kitchen table where the four year old can grab it while you're out in the garden?
I want my childhood over! We only found magnifying glasses in the kitchen drawer... no wait, actually dad's desk drawer.
It is a deterministic machine, has no "free will" (Score:4, Interesting)
This is journalistic BS, disguised as 'science'. Like all computers, these robotic vehicles do only what they are programmed to do. Even so-called "random number generators" are deterministic, given the seed which generates them.
We won't be able to impart true "free will" to machines, in the human sense, until we eventually verify that we humans actually do have free will and understand how it works in us. Including understanding self-awareness ("consciousness") and how human reasoning and volition works. (Seems to be and "analog" process, not "digital").
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You admit that you have no idea how "free will" emerges, but you pretend to know that a "machine" can't have it. I don't believe that the Mars rover or any AI program has volition comparable to a human's, but I don't see any reason why future computers shouldn't acquire it. Even current computers, as deterministic as they are (modulo physical glitches and IO), are often beyond predictable, and their decisions are increasingly hard to trace back and explain by humans. As to "free will" -- I've never understo
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You play a game of semantics. "Free will" is a word we made up. It only seems mysterious because the definition is deliberately vague.
We observe that humans make decisions, whereas rocks don't. So we slapped this word "free will" on that behavior and got ourselves all confused.
First, you give me a clear, precise, no-bullshit-word-games definition of "free will," and then I will tell you whether or not computers do it.
While we are at it, "consciousness" is an extremely sloppy word full of equivocation and
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What makes you think humans aren't deterministic but everything else is? Surely not science.
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> A number of the current hardware random number generators use either resistor noise or balanced diodes.
Yes, by sampling avalanche noise etc. But these devices have to be carefully timed and balanced to eliminate sampling biases. I doubt that such finicky devices would be used in remotely deployed systems. Indeed, the pseudo-random generators tend to be far more useful, in a systems engineering sense, because test sequences can be easily generated by repeating a seed number, for regression testing etc.
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Robots and AIs do decisions they were not programmed for all the time. There are errors in logic, cosmic rays, new unplanned situations, emergent properties of complex systems, chaos. There's no use classifying anything as "free will" or not if you can't define it though.
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This is journalistic BS, disguised as 'science'.
Its from the Daily Mail, so the "journalistic" part is completely incorrect.
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Obama expanded the Drone Strike program to Mars? (Score:2)
Man ISIS is every where .....
If you don't pay me 1 million dollars the laser wi (Score:2)
If you don't pay me 1 million dollars the laser will blowup washington dc
"a medical condition that renders me unfit" (Score:1)
Curiousity better run (Score:2)
I'm coming for you!
XKCD Predicted this (Score:2)
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The sad thing is that Spirit could still be with us today too if things had played out differently. When Spirit got stuck a lot of their early attempts to get out so that they could get to a good wintering grounds were in vain. However, right near the end they came up with a clever way to "swim" the wheels through the sand and were nearly out when winter hit and they had to leave it in a poor location... where it failed to wake up the next spring, most likely due to excessively low internal temperatures.
C
I saw this movie (Score:2)
Bad Days (Score:1)
Some poor martian will be continually shouting, "Ow! Knock it off! Ow! stop following me!..."
Excuse for war? (Score:1)
Nothing to worry about (Score:1)
Seeing as how a turtle could outrun Curiosity's top speed of 0.09 mph, I think world domination might take a while.
War of the Worlds (Score:2)
So just like in Quatermass and the Pit, we are the martians.