Prologue
It’s the year 2045 . The Singularity hasn’t happened yet, but human civilization is close. Artificial intelligence is more advanced, and more diffuse than it has ever been. While technological progress has continued its quick, seemingly inevitable march towards the robotic future, society has done a rather remarkable job of learning to adapt machines into everyday life without yielding control and power to the machines that serve them. That is, society at large has learned to do so. The world militaries, ever at war and ever insecure, have pursued an arms race in a dangerous, unpredictable field: military robotics. Since the United State’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, militaries have become increasingly receptive to replacing humans with robots, in nearly every possible military role. While the possibility was beyond the technological capabilities of society in 2003, a startling breakthrough occurred in 2030, signaling a complete shift in the development of military robots and artificial intelligence in general. Scientists working with the US military developed a program that can teach robots to reason logically. This program feeds the artificial intelligence scenarios and tells the machine how a human would respond. At least 50 million scenarios are fed to the machine so that it may interpret patterns and “rules” from the human behavior and apply those lessons to the machine’s behavior. Because machines computing power was far superior to that of the humans, in accordance with Moore's Law, machines became a natural favorite within the military establishment to replace humans. Machines began planning, fighting, operating vehicles and nearly everything else that had originally been designated a human task. Rather than serve to reduce the destruction and human toll of war, this advancement actually precipitated a new era of war as Earth’s resources became ever scarce. Countries became engaged in frequent conflict with neighbors, utilizing ever-stronger, smarter robotic technology to fight. By today, August 20, 2045, the world has become tense and conflict-prone. While robotic technology was easily assimilated into most facets of daily life, it was rushed into the military establishment, at a huge price. So on August 20, 2045, when an isolated, authoritarian state declared war on its neighbor, humanity stood on the edge of a disaster that no one saw coming … |
Sagan (1996) proposes three models to help explain why countries would develop nuclear technologies: a security model, domestic politics model and norms model. Here we can see the adoption of military technologies for similar reasons such as securing resources and as a means by which to establish oneself on the global stage, highlighting the politics of this type of technology. Furthermore, as will be shown throughout the narrative, a strong infrastructure is necessary to deploy these technologies. Although those who do testing may perceive that all real world possibilities have been accounted for, testing scenarios are only approximations of the contexts into which technologies will be deployed. Downer’s piece on chicken testing in aircrafts explains the ways in which particular assumptions underly testing protocols and practices because tests must be relevant and reproducible and results must be controlled and comparable in order to make them valid. Therefore, in feeding these new robots artificial intelligence scenarios, testers are assuming the ways in which a human would respond. However, as we know, human actors are hardly rational and behaviors are difficult to quantify. |
Part 1: Military General
“This new bot is our best fighter yet. It takes the existing technology and goes further than mankind ever thought possible. These bots can …” I give a dramatic pause because I know that I have the room’s attention “... think. They can think for themselves. No longer do we have to enter commands, and ship the bots off to their assignments. Yes, it’s still an option, and we’ll continue to do that until we gradually turn roles over to the bots for good. Eventually, these bots will be able to process information and formulate proper responses to the challenges they face.” I have their attention, no doubt, but I can tell they don’t believe me. Heck, I didn’t believe it when the tech department told me about their breakthrough. Turns out they had a secret prototype that they were testing in some remote facility. A crazy project that the government thought we needed. At least, crazy enough that it actually worked. Seems like the tech geeks might have something going on after all. “This new bot is called the MADbot - mass-mobilization and deployment bot - because it is a light-weight, highly intelligent, maneuverable machine that doesn’t simply take orders. It is adaptable. It is malleable. It learns by experience, and in doing so it becomes a better soldier. These bots gain experience through training, just like real men. But the catch is that these machines, as we know well, can process and internalize scenarios at an unprecedented level. These are super-soldiers. They think fast, they learn fast, and they don’t make mistakes. Civilization has always wondered if it was possible, and you men are here with me to confirm that yes, it is. Mankind has been waiting for this day for nearly 100 years. We are standing on the shoulders of giants here as we celebrate the culmination of decades of progress, tinkering, and innovation.” Major Stone shoots up from his seat and pounds his fist on the table. “Major General Johnson this is pure madness! We knew nothing about this project. Who authorized it and who funded it because this was certainly not in any of the reports or budgets we’ve been looking at. I’ll be damned if you’re not joking. Forty years ago I stood by when, having just joined the Army, I was told that machines would soon replace me. But I was also told that we would learn to co-exist, to work, side by side with these machines. Now you propose to send these machines out into the world, with little more than training and a thumbs up, to fight?” All eyes are on Stone as he speaks, and I need to draw my audience back, to forget about this distraction. I know that I piqued their interest, but any discord is unacceptable. “I appreciate your concerns, Major Stone. This is a directive from the Commander-in-Chief, the President himself. I apologize that you were in the dark, but this was highly classified while it got fast-tracked through the best in our Research and Development teams. Furthermore, I assure you that, under my command, we have operated with the greatest attention to risk and accounted for countless scenarios. These bots are special, and I have seen the training process with my own eyes. This project has been in R & D for years and the technology is ready to go. Our first run is tomorrow. We’ve got a platoon heading out tomorrow to an isolated location to do recon and take out a few guerrilla targets. This is a simple job, and these bots have been well prepared. You are welcome to be there as they leave at 13:00 sharp, but you are expected to be there when they return. You will not want to miss this. Meeting adjourned.” I lock the door and collapse into my chair. That old man Stone is just incomprehensible. Who could possibly be opposed to technology? Making war safer for our soldiers is a no-brainer. I labor night and day to protect my country and my people. I consider myself thankful the White House thought this venture was worthwhile. We’ve employed bots across military endeavors for as long as I’ve been here, but we’ve always been limited. The robots were too dumb. They needed instructions, to the “T,” and were incapable in unfamiliar situations. Heaven knows we couldn’t prepare robots for combat when we rarely knew what was coming. They were expensive to produce and easy to lose. This is most certainly a welcome change. Pshhh, “risk assessment”. The robots are ready to go. I’m sure the techies took care of any quirks. And I know our mechanical department put the bots through rigorous tests. At this point, it’s out of my hands. |
The elements of these robots demonstrate social construction: the military is looking to preserve the lives of soldiers and make attacks more precise to eliminate casualties. Therefore, the MADbot is able to process and internalize scenarios in order to increase it's efficiency and reduce the need for human soldiers. For instance, the MADbot is programmed to gain experience through training like a human. Another relevant social group would be the government, who developed the technology to assert itself as a global power with this new, innovative technological development. Singer (2009) explains that soldiers operating military robots domestically have higher levels of combat stress and PTSD than those who are actually deployed in Iraq. This demonstrates the social construction of risk whereby physical safety is hailed as more important, or perhaps more heavily considered than psychological safety. |
Part 2: Robot
Energy level: 100%. Memory bank: accessible. Heat sensors: operational. Armor: check. Weapon: check. All systems up and running. Accessing memory bank and checking commands. No commands pending. Awaiting further instruction. Initiating autopilot mode. Audio filter: on. “How are we doing time-wise?” Voice recognition scanning … scanning … match found. “Are all robots online?” The chief mechanic is doing his rounds, making sure that all mechanical systems are a go. He forgot to check my transistor, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve gone through thousands of checks, 4,494 to be precise, according to my memory bank. Each one is never quite like the one before it. Humans never seem to do anything right. Unlike me, humans just seem designed for imperfection. The mechanic moves on to other MADbots after checking me, to make sure that all systems are functioning properly. “Energy levels are all at full capacity. We’re on the grid and we’ve got all bots online. Roger, what’s the status on Platoon 5?” Voice recognition has found a match. “We’re getting a weird reading.” John, the assistant technician, is on-hand. Something is wrong. “The signal is coming from the second row. I’m trying to locate the source right now … give me a minute … here! It seems this robot’s a little jumpy. I don’t know what the problem is. I’m going to take it in for further examination.” No MADbot wants to go in with the chief mechanic. I don’t remember any bots coming out of the examination room, and I have a long memory. Audio processing … analyzing … process complete. Noise source located 50 paces back, 10 paces to the left. Voice recognition on. “Private! What’s the status?” Major General Johnson is registering at an unnaturally high decibel level. He must be frustrated. He has only spoken that loud when he’s angry. According to my memory, he is frequently angry. “One MADbot down, sir! Our chief mechanic just took the bot in for further examination. Awaiting your orders, sir!” “That’s fine, we’re on a tight schedule! Are all the other bots ready?” “Yes, sir! Proceed to programming?” “Of course! Stop standing there and get moving! These machines can’t do s**t on their own. Get them going!” --- Voice recognition system activated. Detected two unique voices. Scanning … scanning … voices identified. Major Stone: “They’re not human! This is absolutely ridiculous! Since when did we think robots could deliver our babies or play sports! You’re letting the Devil free, and I don’t imagine anything will be left in his path but destruction. The day we let robots make their own decisions is the day humanity collapses. There are just some areas in which humans were never meant to be replaced - namely, logic and ethics. I …” Major General Johnson: “There will be no objections! The MADbots are ready to go. They’ve been sent on a simple assignment, and this mission will be invaluable towards evaluating how the bots learn from their experiences. Any more objections from you and I’ll have you written up. You may have had a distinguished career but you’re too rooted in the past. If you can’t keep up with the pace of progress, then you’re only holding yourself back. It’s 12:57. The commands are being entered and the bots will be on their way. See you tomorrow at their reception.” --- … Input commands. Processing … processing. Platoon 5 is ready to go. Mission confirmed. Target located. Determining quickest route. Quickest route confirmed. --- Platoon 5 is flying over a barren landscape. Our mission is to check a hostile town and clear it of all threats. Multiple targets confirmed within the village. Accessing memory to determine proper course of action. --- We land and immediately take stock. No abnormal heat source or any trace of radiation. Minimal noise disturbances. This is what a village must be. MADbot Platoon 5 takes a moment to absorb what it’s seeing. At first, all we see are colors: green, red, blue, and more, assaulting our sensory receptors, but then we start to identify objects. Something with four circles under it … those must be wheels … and that must be a car, according to my memory. Another car. We see small structures. These must be houses. We’ve never seen houses before, but these must be houses because they have doors and windows, and there’s a car in front of each one. The terrain is interesting, but not challenging. We are capable of maneuvering across all types of terrain, so the hills and rocks won’t be a problem. --- We’re doing reconnaissance now. We walk around picking up images and video feed of the village, which is then transmitted live back to our base. We walk together in unison, none moving faster than another, each picking up pieces of sensory information that are stored and sent back to the base. The sensory overload is overwhelming, as even our hard drives can’t process all the things we see and hear. There are shrill noises. There are sharp noises. There are big buildings and small ones. And there are colors. Lots of different colors. “This must be what it feels to be human,” I think. To be overwhelmed by the richness of the real world. I can hear, and I can see, and I can remember, all too well. But I can’t feel. Nothing sets the images and videos that they fed me apart from what I’m seeing now, except that I can choose what to see. I determine what I experience. I keep moving with the squad, picking our way through the village. We are careful not to disturb anything, but we are sure to observe everything. Every noise, every object cannot avoid detection. The one thing we do not detect, though, is a disturbance. The village registers at a low noise level. There is no sign of human presence. Yet there are details that seem oddly familiar, such as fresh coats of paint, well-kept grass that I have been taught to associate with life and activity. It’s as if people had just been here. This information is all going back to base, and Platoon 5 wonders what it means. We haven’t received commands to return to base, so we continue on our recon mission. We have been taught to always be on full alert, so we march on, silently as we can, ignoring the tranquility and searching for threats. The leader of the platoon stops, and we stop. Base must have ordered a close to the mission. We’re receiving an incoming command and WHOOSH! Something makes a loud sound as it hits the ground. A bright flash of light - an explosion! Two bots are down, and we scan the site to determine where the attack came from. According to our calculations, the missile must have originated on a rooftop in the middle of the village. We simultaneously look at the source of the missile but have no time to respond before bright flashes of light hit us and a storm of objects whizzes by. The squad is being taken down and we have to react quickly. I start firing at the rooftops, and the leader charges towards the houses. He and his guard can’t discern the sources of the bullets because they are coming from all directions. Another bot falls, its circuit no doubt severed, and the leader starts firing into the houses. The rest of the platoon splits up and starts going into houses, in pairs, to take out combatants. In one house we hear a loud bang, and see something fly through the air. It lands at the leader’s feet, and we look at it, for a brief second, processing the image … a comrade’s head. The buildings are clearly unsafe. In the split second we process this, we know the only appropriate response is to take out the buildings. We must eliminate the threat. We wait for the leader’s signal, and on his signal we proceed to fire at the remaining houses. It took less than a minute for our firepower to knock out the houses. A couple more bots fall down, but the village soon falls silent. No houses are left standing. The rest of the squad forms a tight rank, and we march through the village to examine the scene. A few cars are resting upside-down, most everything is engulfed by orange and red (flames, according to my memory). We quickly scan the village, but cannot detect a hint of movement. After checking the village, we are satisfied that it is now secure. The squad reorganizes itself and we fly off. |
Part 3: Human Military Operative
Johnny Rocket and I, we’re some good fighters. We went through combat training and robotic companion training, all of that type of stuff together. Rocket was just about the best damn sniper Stone had ever seen. I don’t know how he’d compare to the new bots, but he smoked the older models in accuracy tests. They could adjust real fine to the wind and all that s**t and could predict movement with equations and physics, but Rocket just knew people better than anybody I have ever seen. He said it was all in the waist. We were out in Arizona at a practice field. He was taking on a SNIPEbot. They each had to hit a human hologram about a hundred feet out. The bot got the target in the thigh, which is fine if you’re looking to render someone immobile, but most times, for these kinds of sniper operations, you’re going for the big boys. You’re going for blood. Rocket went up next, going flat on his stomach with his legs sprawled out for balance, narrowing his focus on the target, calibrating his weapon and then watched and waited. “Nobody goes anywhere without their waist,” he said real soft then shot that hologram right through the skull. Now they have us holed up in an operations facility out near the border monitoring these new MADbots as they go out to do our job while we watch them through a computer screen. From what I’ve gathered from meetings (as a rule I don’t really pay attention to formal meetings and all that because I didn’t sign up for that s**t, but every now and then the brain just soaks stuff up), eventually they’re going to get rid of the likes of Rocket and I forever once the bots, supposedly, nail this mission. But something about that just rubs me the wrong way. It’s not just that I’d be out of a job (but actually thinking about the fact that I wouldn’t have a job looks like it would be a big problem I’m realizing, but that’s something I’ll deal with later). It’s that something bothers me real bad about the thought of bots killing humans. I don’t know if Johnson’s ever watched any science fiction, but that always seems to be how all the problems start. “Knoddyhead? Ready?” Rocket asks. “They’re about ready to deploy.” Rocket is cozied up to the giant screen that shows the feed coming in from the bots. I pull up my chair and open up the auditory sensor loops, the heat sensor radars and object recognition checks (I’m almost certain those are even the official terms). “Rocket?” I ask, waving at the screens. “If I’m being honest, I don’t even know what any of these things do.” Rocket lets out a laugh. “I didn’t expect anything less. So auditory loops are so we can record all sound input. Mostly for record and to show that the bots can adequately comprehend every battlefield input. Heat sensors are one way we can identify human targets and general activity. Object recognition checks are to make sure bots can identify whatever comes into view. If they identify a threat the red light goes on.” “So we’re babysitting?” I ask. A village comes into view as the bots move in, and Rocket doesn’t answer. I’m convinced he’s trying to act like he’s not pissed off about sitting inside a dark room, while his sniper’s gathering dust locked up in the artillery room, so maybe Stone or Johnson will reward him for "good behavior" and let him go out with the bots in the filed for the next mission. Meanwhile I’ve given up all hope that we’ll ever be going into the field again. “Damn,” Rocket says. “The tin men are practically in freaking sensory overload, and they’re barely in range.” “They’ve managed to identify wheels and cars,” I say. “I’d say they deserve a medal for that. I mean I couldn’t do that until I was at least two and a half.” “They’re approaching the houses now.” A careful display of white-washed homes comes into view with lawns trimmed nice and low like a buzz cut. There are some larger buildings farther off. I’ve seen just about a hundred or so cities that look just like it. You know? That modern uniformity aesthetic? “Looks like they’re a little confused by the lack of noise inputs,” Rocket says. “The place looks pretty quiet.” Rocket was right. The place looked horror story quiet. “God, they’re in perfect formation,” I say, noticing their regimented lines, one behind another. “I would say that’s proof enough that these things don’t think for themselves. Not a chance in hell Benny the Jet would have stood in front of that line and not blinked an eye.” “He would be taking cover in the trunk of one of those cars right about now.” I point to a sleek silver ride on the screen. “That one looks like a winner.” “Looks like we’re getting an input command in from HQ,” Rocket says. I look up at the screen. The noise levels are low and if I were to grade them on object recognition, I would maybe given them a B-. Maybe. The sun is bouncing off all of the bots making the screen a little too bright. I close my eyes for not even a few seconds before Rocket shouts, “We’ve got some live action!” A bullet flies toward us on the screen and it’s enough to make me nearly crap my pants. “Why’d they go and make this 3D! I feel like I’m being shot at! I thought the point was to avoid that!” “S**t! Two bots are down!” I check their recognition inputs. “Looks like they’ve identified the source in the middle of the village.” The bots begin firing at the rooftops after a few others get taken down. It looks more haphazard than anything else. Bullets are flying at them from all directions and they just keep firing back whenever and wherever they detect any movement. “They’re having some recognition problems,” I say. Rocket is transfixed by the screen. “They’re splitting off,” he says. “My God, they’re going into the houses. Jesus Christ, they’re taking them out! They’re burning them down!” I look up from my display of sensors and small computer screens. I hear the screaming first. Human screams. Then see the smoke rising up from buildings like ghosts. Fire and flames engulf homes and then they crumble like they’re made of desert dust. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Rocket nods. The entire place was leveled in minutes and then the bots flew out like nothing even happened at all. Rocket keeps the screen up with the destruction for a few minutes longer. “But people lived in there,” he says. His eyes don’t move away from the screen. “There were innocent people in there. We, me and you, we wouldn’t have killed innocent people, destroyed their entire lives, wiped them off the face of the earth.” We get a message from HQ telling us to watch the bots as they return to base. Rocket changes the screen. His eyes still haven’t moved. His chest goes up and down real slow. He can barely breath. I’m keeping it together ok, watching the blue sky and the uneven terrain below. I narrow my eyes and it almost feels like I’m flying, which makes everything, for the moment, feel kind of all right. I just focus on the blue until another village comes into view. Small square rooftops scattered around in the green and beige of the ground below. The object recognition sensor glows red: threat detected. “Rocket, they’re going attack! They’re going to fire! We’ve got to stop them!” Rocket looks at his control panel, and the moment he looks down a bot shoots a girl, maybe eight, with dark curly hair right in the neck. “There’s no way to stop them!” he says, looking up as the bots set fire to a home. “They’re programmed to keep going until every visible threat is gone .” “Christ,” I say, “they’re going to take the whole thing down.” And like before, they do. They tear the whole thing down until Rocket and I are looking at blackened ash and fire through curtains and curtains of smoke. I wouldn’t have believed any of this if I hadn’t seen it. A human soldier just never would have done that. |
Here we can see the difficulties in quantifying human behavior. The unintentional unemployment of a population of workers is another key factor when considering the politics of these new technologies. The government and military establishment both envision these robots replacing human soldiers, similar to the ways in which mechanical tomato harvesters rendered the system of handpicking, and henceforth farm workers, useless. What then becomes of this population whose skills become redundant due to technological progress? Here we have evidence of the complicated technological infrastructure necessary for the deployment of this technology, increasing the likelihood for accidents. Levinson (2013) notes a unique drone policy: operators and machines are instructed to not stop shooting until the area is devoid of activity for a set period of time. Because of this, in 2012, 18 innocent men were killed in Yemen. This feature is replicated in the MADbots, demonstrating the particular assumptions that are incorporated into technologies. In the case of MADbots, victory is associated with a compete annihilation of anything deemed as a threat. Ensuring a "victory" then becomes valued over adhering to any ethical standards regarding the protection of civilian lives. Again we can see the politics of technology coming into play as maintaing or securing dominance becomes a driving factor behind the development of technologies. |
Part 4: Civilian
The sun’s setting over the hills out east and the breeze I get from rocking to and fro on my porch swing feels nice in the August heat. It feels real nice, reminds me of the days back when not everybody had a television (or whatever it is they’ve started calling them now). I’ve stopped keeping track of all the ways things change. To be honest, I don’t like it too much. I haven’t really liked it since I was a boy, way back when, watching the Vietnam War on the news at Billy Ray’s house and thought maybe that was my Pa out there, marching black and white through the fields. And when my Pa didn’t come home (not after several weeks, not after several months, not after even a year or two), I started thinking back to something Billy and I watched one night on the television. It was a terrible awful thing to watch and his mother told us not to, but we did. The reporter said several hundred American men were killed and showed a live video of the battlefield. You wouldn’t have even known it was men they were talking about if they weren’t talking about it. Everything was chunks of meat and flesh and bone and arms and legs. And I thought, sipping on a coke, Billy with his jaw undid, that my Pa was probably scattered around somewhere in there and that was the last time I probably saw a piece of him, and it was a bad thing to be showing on the television because where was the humanity in that? Where was the humanity in any of that, really? I guess what I mean to say is that it’s scary to think about what happens when you stop thinking about what happens. They rolled out a new line of military robots the other day and had my hip been better and my doctors not barred me from all forms of air travel, I would have been the first one marching outside of the Triceragon with signs and clever slogans to protest, just like my Ma did back during Vietnam. It was the Pentagon back then, but still, I like to think that I would be carrying on the family tradition. She got caught up in commune life after Pa died because she said she wanted things to be simpler, that she really wanted to just get back to the land. So she moved out west, midwest, anywhere but east (which was where we were living, out on the coast, spending every morning staring at the sun because Pa was staring at that very same sun, too) and started working with some other women who had turned their backs on whatever it was the country stood for at the time. And me? She left me with her parents because she didn’t think she had the stamina to cultivate me and all the crops she planned on growing. My grandparents were good people, good city people who turned part country after Pa died because they watched the news, too. They knew he was mixed up in the flesh out there on that one gory night, most likely, or any night, really, because that’s all they ever showed those days anyway. So they got rid of the television, and I’ve had my back turned on technology ever since. The kids around here can’t believe it. There’s a vintage diner over on Madison Avenue that I go to sometimes because it’s a bit like stepping back in time, and I like that. They make the waitresses wear poodle skirts and horn rim glasses, even have an Elvis hologram singing on a stage and they have bots making the milkshakes. I think the records sound better than the hologram and there’s nothing better than human error when it comes to milkshakes because you can never guess the consistency, but I think I’m probably alone in this. There’s not really much escaping all these new-fangled technologies around here, but the diner on Madison is as close as I can ever get to those old days with me, Ma and Pa sitting on the river in tires singing those old songs they learned just from living. I like to read the paper there – the only paper paper that still exists – and I go way back with Jimmy Brewster who owns the place, so he lets me read the paper paper even though it is strictly anti-technology and most people don’t like it. In fact, there have been several attempts to do away with it. The government once constructed a bot mission to go out and demolish the paper paper’s headquarters, but then the paper paper, which really is an underground sort of operation, actually went underground. Way underground so they thought the bot sensors couldn’t reach, and they haven’t had any problems since. You see, the government is trying to make everything technological, but at the diner I can step away from that for a little while: Jimmy brings me coffee, I pour in some creamer and often think I feel like that. I watch the black and the white mix together all slow and think that I am a melting mix of sad and angry. This afternoon, the headline read: “Oh the Humanity!” Jimmy made me a cheeseburger by hand and even made my chocolate frosty milkshake and hand cut the potatoes for my fries. He knows how I feel about technology and robots and people always plugging in. “Jimmy,” I said, putting the paper paper on the counter for him to take a look at, “have you seen this? Have you heard about this?” “It’s been all over the television. I think the government tried to keep it hush hush for awhile, but there’s no hiding that kind of disaster.” I looked at the pictures – homes glowing red and orange like they were made of nothing but paper – and I thought of Billy Ray and I watching Vietnam way back when. “There's talk about the back-up platoon they have in reserve at the Triceragon going rogue and starting domestic attacks.” A MILKbot confirmed an order for a strawberry shake. “They haven’t officially called a Code Terminator or declared a doomsday status, but I think this is the closest we have come to it so far. Most people don’t think the bots have it in them to attack their own countrymen, but, then again, most people don’t understand the ethics behind all of it like you do. There’s talk of this cloud. All of the memories of one platoon get transferred to all the others. With every city and town looking just like every other, it’s hard to say who would be safe.” After I finished the paper paper I came home and have been looking out over the hills ever since. I bought this place because, looking around, you wouldn’t know what year you’re in. I made my house by hand from wood. Wash my clothes in the river out back. I took a page from my Ma and tried to go back to the land and won’t risk anything destroying it. I get up from my porch swing and make my way down the dirt path to the shed out back where I keep my tools and such – the ones I stocked up on back in my youth before life became all about giving things a mind of their own. I grab my work gloves, put a shovel under one arm, wooden posts under another. I start by digging a trench all around my home’s perimeter. I work into the morning hours and take a break to see the sun rise before working on my second line of defense. I dig a hole for the wooden posts every five feet or so. I dig deep, down to the soft, muddy soil, down six feet under so nothing, not a robot or an earthquake could make these posts fall. I bought tens of rolls of barbed wire back a decade or two ago when Home Depot went out of business and man made fences were being replaced by electromagnetic ones. I don’t even think you’d be able to find a picket fence nowadays, let alone a barbed wire one. I doubt the MADbots will know what to do once they encounter it. I bet they could dismantle an electromagnetic fence real quick but would get all frazzled with some barbed wire. Those technicians always forget all about the variety of life, how some of us people out in the world still beat to our own drum. After I get the posts in, I meander back down to the shed, stretch my legs and back out a bit (I’m not as young as I used to be), grab my nails, hammer and a roll of barbed wire and get back to work. I nail the wire to the posts, securing my home inside, making sure I’m safe for the day I guess I’ve always known was coming. Ma used to talk about Vietnam like that. She used to say the day they put war on television was the day we started to lose ourselves because we started to see how awful it all was and rather than embrace the terrible awful, we turned away from it. Built robots to deal with it so we didn’t have to. I put my tools away, walk back to my porch swing. It’s late afternoon. I’m sweating. I sip a coke. I look at my fence, the wide trench just beyond it. I’ve made it on the earth this long; the cold gaze of a robot isn’t going to watch me go. I want a human. If I’m going to die at the hands of another being, I want to feel the blood in their veins, the warmth of their hands, the pulse in their veins as they watch me go, and I want them to see my undoing. Maybe they’d think twice before they did it again -- a bot wouldn’t even blink. Part 5: Military General
Well s**t. What have I gotten myself into? This isn’t a scandal; this is catastrophe. The threat level is yellow – elevated – but we haven’t reached doomsday yet. Platoon 5 is rogue, but the other MADbot platoons are secure – for the moment. All hands are on deck, shutting down the systems, sealing bases and doing whatever else needs to be done. Ahhhhh. A nice, long drag from a cigarette. The quality doesn’t even matter anymore. This job has become too nerve-wracking and demanding. Who knows? Maybe once this s**t show is over I’ll take a nice, long vacation. Anywhere. Away from robots. And people. If that’s even possible nowadays. I check my watch. 12:57. It’s only been 24 hours since we sent those machines out on a simple mission, simple enough for a bunch of recruits to handle. Or not so simple, apparently. At this point, my feet are moving without a thought, programmed to guide me towards the podium like a machine. I don’t know what the hell is going on, yet I’ve got to convince the nation that we’ll all be ok. And some other bulls**t. Huh. I made it to the podium already. Cameras are flashing, and the world’s listening. Time for my last show. “Men, women, children of our nation, and of the nations of this world. I was originally scheduled to give a speech here welcoming the glorious return of our first MADbot self-guided mission. At 13:00 yesterday afternoon, MADbot Platoon 5 departed on a simple reconnaissance mission to demonstrate its readiness for real combat. The MADbot is a clever innovation, given special priority here in the military. In the quest for human-like machines, we found an even better solution: a super soldier that could think and act quickly, that could process unlimited information, and that could train at an expedient pace. “Thanks to the dedicated researchers at the Triceragon, we had a prototype model ready a couple of years ago. It was put through extensive tests to see if it could function on its own, learn from experiences, and make independent decisions. It passed its tests with flying colors, and there was no evidence that the MADbot had an underlying programming flaw. That flaw became apparent yesterday, as the MADbot destroyed an entire village during a simple reconnaissance mission keeping tabs on a drug cartel. Though the Army has evidence that the platoon was attacked, the response far out-measured the initial attack. It pains me to say that there were no survivors in that village. “Why did this happen? Our success was ultimately our downfall. The MADbots were programmed to learn from their experiences, and incorporate new information into thoughts and behaviors. When the bots were attacked, and then destroyed in a civilian house, the bots formed a permanent connection between homes and personal threat. When the remaining bots in Platoon 5 headed back to base, they passed by a town along our southern border. And this town just happened to look similar to the town the bots had just come from. The platoon stopped – of their own accord – because they had learned to associate this setting with danger. As they descended, they were fired upon by border police and, in a scene reminiscent of the carnage an hour ago, they let loose upon the town, mercilessly and without hesitation, until the town fell silent. This, we believe, set off a trigger, similar to what would be diagnosed in humans as paranoia. “The MADbots appear to be intent on eliminating all threats, and as we speak, they continue on their rampage. While this is catastrophic, the threat level has not yet been raised to severe. The other platoons of MADbots, who are hooked up to the same cloud, and thus share the same experiences and feelings as their fellow MADbots, were compelled to join Platoon 5. However, the Army has successfully contained all other platoons. We have gone into a temporary shutdown and lockdown to disable all bots within our bases, and are working around the clock to maintain order. Meanwhile, we are in pursuit of the rogue MADbots and expect to have the situation contained shortly.” A deep breath. The hardest part is coming. “I sincerely apologize to you, the citizens, whom I was entrusted to protect. I will be resigning, effective immediately, and the entire military establishment will be going through a long, arduous process of self-examination. In rushing ahead, in keeping with the march of technology, we lost sight of important principles. First, we assumed that progress was inevitable, that innovation was always a straight, upward-sloping line. There was no opportunity to stop and evaluate, to consider divergent paths. I take full responsibility for this project being pushed through. This military technology was, in hindsight, not essential to security, but it was a bureaucratic priority that I pushed forward, incessantly, without caution. “I now realize that the entire process was flawed, and we have yet to reach anything close to stabilization. There was no independent oversight, no outside perspectives to critically evaluate the proposal and offer feedback. Heck, the risk assessment process was flawed, precisely because we weren’t prepared for the unexpected. It is safe to return to your daily activities, and stay tuned for further information.” With that I walk off the stage. Humanity has just suffered a big blow. We were so close to perfection, to the ultimate soldier. So close we reached out but only grasped thin air. Who knows if I’ll see this technology again in my lifetime. Where we went wrong, I truly don’t know. But someone had to take the fall. |
Underlying this character's point of view is an anti-technolgoy perspective. Historically speaking, this has been a relevant social group, particularly in the development of the automobile. For instance, Kline and Pinch (1996) recall how groups who were anti-automobile booby-trapped and dug ditches in roads in order to disrupt the implementation of cars. The narrator in this part of the story employs similar tactics by targeting what he perceives to be gaps in the technology in order to disrupt it. Perhaps this could lead to a reconsideration of the technology in the development of future models.
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