Comment by Ravi Gaddipati on January 24, 2011 at 6:18am

Agree with Gary, lets not make an ideal setup for said usage. Keep in mind Gun's require licences, to immunity could be given, but you would still need one.

Comment by Duane Brocious on January 24, 2011 at 7:14am

Anyone who is worried about drones being used as weapons needs to consider that we have weapons freely available without registration or tracking of any kind, Including firearms. Most states do not have firearms registration of any kind. AS for fertilizer and diesel fuel, no restrictions and it is a terrorist favorite bomb.

Anyone talking about the possible use of UAVs as terror weapons is just adding fuel to the fire of nonsense. How many RC aircraft (which are UAVs according to the FAA) have been used by terroists in the last 50 years? None.

Comment by Mike on January 24, 2011 at 7:47am

Returning back to the premise of the abstract . . . "Like PCs, open robots have no set function, run third-party software, and invite modification. But unlike PCs, personal robots are in a position directly to cause physical damage and injury. Thus, norms against suit and expedients to limit liability such as the economic loss doctrine are unlikely to transfer from the PC and consumer software context to that of robotics."  . . . "immunity has the potential to preserve the conditions for innovation without compromising incentives for safety. The alternative is to risk being left behind in a key technology by countries with a higher bar to litigation and a serious head start."

Comment by Duane Brocious on January 24, 2011 at 8:04am

A PC can be used to cause physical damage as well. PCs are used in several large "robots" already. What is the difference ? Program a PC to drive a robotic bomb in a parking garage or program an arduinocopter to drop a bomb? No difference. The author is just another academic trying to get published. There is nothing new with UAVs that hasn't been addressed already by laws.

Comment by Mike on January 24, 2011 at 8:43am

"The growing availability of robotics knowledge and components will promote a new breed of “garden shed” robot criminals" - an insightful article on what to expect in the near future.

Comment by Duane Brocious on January 24, 2011 at 9:09am

Mike,

Is the purpose of posting these articles here to show us how idiots are blowing this stuff all out of proportion?

None of this stuff is new. Homebrew robotics and radio control have been around for 50 years. It is just the media and fear mongers that are making a big deal out of new buzzwords. Call it model airplane and noone cares, call it a "remote control drone" and you get on the news. SSDD

Comment by bGatti on January 24, 2011 at 10:41am

I'd like to pose a general objection to the premise - which is roughly that robots will be more valuable outside civilization than within it.

 

Generally, technology is a symptom of an ordered society. and those who understand the best technology often find gainful employment in typical ways. Criminals are most often those who are excluded from gainful employment by the larger society. High Technology is an integrating force rather than a segragating force (compare the racial mix of any department at google to say the racial mix of a random church in Farmville Iowa); Consequentially, technology plays a bigger role in reducing arbitrary exclusion, and by extension the need for a organized criminal underworld.

 

Do technical societies have higher crime or less crime than non-technical societies? Afghanistan, Somalia, strike me as the pinnacle of technological backwaters, and I doubt that their day to day life is less driven by crime than say - the residents of Menlo Park.

 

Developer Comment by Michael Smith on January 24, 2011 at 3:01pm

@bGatti part of the problem with the question you're asking is that "crime" is a circumstantial definition; you could easily argue that "crime" is a consequential byproduct of the ordering of a society.

 

Comment by Duane Brocious on January 24, 2011 at 4:18pm

A crime is created by law, nothing more. It does not follow that "crime" is bad and laws are "good".

In Nazi Germany it was a crime to be a Jew, often punishable with the death penalty.

Comment by bGatti on January 24, 2011 at 10:26pm

@Duane,

nice interjection; however, I think we can agree with an unstated assumption which is that crime, in this context, refers to generating income by exploiting the useful work of others rather than engaging  in useful work ones self. My point is that master's of technology generally have a substantial advantage engaging in useful work, such that they more seldom find it appealing to risk the consequences of exploiting others - particularly when there are consequences.

 

(I've checked my post - there is no "bad" or "good"  - I generally avoid those two words as weasels.)

 

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