Robots, People, and Navies (1983) / Chapter Skim
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Robots, People, and Navies
Robots, People, and Navies
Pages 15-37
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From page 15... ...
I do not aim at forecasting and predicting, or even insist on a particular direction, but rather will try to provide materials and ideas concerning the way a particular line of future technology may affect the way in which we build and operate future navies. It will be clear that navies are only a special case for the possibilities and problems I will raise.
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From page 16... ...
THE ROBOT REVOLUTION It is clear that one of the major technological changes in the past 15 years has been the explosive growth of capability in both computer hardware and computer software. The cost, size, and weight ot unit computing power can best be described as having collapsed, the factors of decrease in the past few decades being orders of magnitude per decade.
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From page 17... ...
This program of fly-by-wire has been used extensively in the space shuttle, and in some military aircraft, in which manipulation of the stick is interpreted by the computer in terms of a set of flight-control equations. The computer uses the pilot's control instructions together with a body of flight data from sensors in and on the craft, and, in some circumstances and modes, with data from the ground, to work out, through the control equations, what instructions to use to control reaction jets and/or aerodynamic control surfaces.
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From page 18... ...
This symbiotic relationship between man and his clever machines is increasingly at the heart of the application of biomedical engineering. With an increasing understanding of the workings of the human body, coupled with an ability to sense and measure what is happening, small computers that can analyze these data, make decisions based upon previous instructions, and apply corrective control are making possible a new kind of replacement organ, supportive control system, and extension of human capabilities.
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From page 19... ...
Such a shock frequently reinitiates the rhythmic operation of the heart and is given in emergency medicine by the application of external chest electrodes. One formulation of such an implantable device will sense the required condition, produce such a shock, pause for a preassigned period of time to sense whether the heart has resumed its normal action, and then, if it has not, initiate a new shock.
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From page 20... ...
In addition, in the case of the implanted insulin administrator, the machine records its own actions and any data it collects from the patient, and this too can be read out by the physician. The implanted device can also monitor its own state of health, that is, examine its circuitry for normal indications.
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From page 21... ...
It is clear that a buffering microcomputer can take simple signals in nearly any alphabet or signaling system and convert them into control signals for a wheelchair, a mechanical arm, or a similar device. For the purposes of such machinery, it does not matter whether the signals given by the person are puffs of breath, movements of the tongue or eyelids, fingers, toes, or muscles elsewhere in the body, or other controllable actions that produce changes in skin potential.
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From page 22... ...
The same principles can be applied to a mechanical arm or leg, which could be driven by a separate power system and controlled via a computer, using the kinds of signals described above or body-motion signals. This is simply the application of a somewhat refined version of an industrial mechanical arm to direct control by human signals, with attachment to the body.
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From page 23... ...
A hand placed in a control glove can be moved to directly control the motions of a backhoe arm and jaw. The general idea is not new: it appeared forty years ago in a story called "Waldo" by Robert A
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From page 24... ...
For example, one could easily control an arm and hand with voice control while using one's own arms and hands, or extensions of them, and possibly even run multiple arms and hands with a combination of voice, foot, and hand control. It sounds rather like the realization of the image of a Hindu god.
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From page 25... ...
One can control a system in which some parts of the system are doing things that they have been taught to do independently, by using preprogrammed or pretrained capabilities to recognize a task and carry it out, while other parts of the system are under direct control, being taught or being used directly as semi-intelligent hands, legs, arms, or other tools. As with the engine controller or the shuttle flight-control system, they may not look like arms or legs, but rather may operate as intricate machines controlled by computer instruction, or directly by a set of techniques learned by the user that are similar to those used in playing a musical instrument.
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From page 26... ...
First, it is important to recognize that the relationship between the machine or machines and the person running them is not necessarily an arm's length relationship, in the sense of being mediated by keyboard, that tells the machine step by step what to do in detail. It is far more likely that we will develop machine controls tailored to convenient learning processes for people; controls that are far more like playing a musical instrument, far more adaptive, both for the machine and for the person.
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From page 27... ...
Using a particular synthetic display of a particular mathematical manipulation of the various spectral bands to represent the data, a human can look at the mosaic map of an area and characterize individual groups of picture elements as being characteristic of certain categories of land -- farm or park land, single-dwelling residential areas, small-scale commercial areas, small-scale industrial areas, or large-scale industrial areas -- depending on the spectral appearance of the regions in synthetic color. Goddard built an algorithm such that a human operator would identify a few regions on the picture display as having the characteristics of these particular kinds of land use.
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From page 28... ...
This has been true for at least a decade or two. The engines of a 747, which generate more power than those of most ships, can be run unattended for flight times of up to 13 hours, without more than cursory inspection between flights, for flight after flight for days or weeks, and so it seems ridiculous that we continue to operate engine rooms in naval ships as though modern control technology does not exist.
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From page 29... ...
In any case, automobile engines have been sufficiently reliable tor quite a long time that opening the hood has not been a daily necessity, and we have certainly not had people in the engine compartment tending to them as they run. Current human control activities for marine engine rooms, main engines, and all auxiliaries are unnecessary, unreliable, and poor design practice for naval ships.
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From page 30... ...
This is an adaptation of my Hindu god symbol operation in which a person may have a variety of sensors and arms that he controls all at once or intermittently. The operator can do so because the sensors and arms are somewhat clever themselves, and therefore continuous attention to all of the machine partners is not necessary.
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From page 31... ...
It is clear that without ever referring to it specifically, I have introduced the concept of the remotely piloted vehicle. I would prefer not to refer to it as a remotely piloted vehicle or aircraft, but rather as a semicontrolled flying robot, so that it may be fitted more neatly into my overall hybridization scheme.
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From page 32... ...
The sequence of programmed instructions was as follows. The first instruction was, "when you lose lock on navigation more often than a certain frequency, you are sick." This a perfectly reasonable conclusion.
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From page 33... ...
I exaggerate for emphasis. Nobody ever costs the consequences of the facts that the bombs seldom hit anything and the missiles may or may not be reliable, much less the consequences of the fact that the bombs must be dropped by a pilot in an expensive airplane that goes nearly over, if not entirely over, the target, while the missile may be fired by somebody else from far away.
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From page 34... ...
very expensive weapons if we could have attacked bridges, strong points, and obvious targets from fifty miles out at sea, with the pilot looking out through the nose of the weapon or otherwise sensing where it was he wanted the weapon to go. The cost arguments for not doing that were totally specious, because they did not take into account the cost of aircraft, the cost of MIA's and KIA's.
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From page 35... ...
If I take the extensor control system, whether I am a healthy person or not, to the degree that Jerry Pournelle has suggested -- that is, that my job in New York City is running a bulldozer on the moon -- I may indeed develop a curious sense of difficulty about where I am. This raises some new psychological issues that have old philosophical connections but that will probably take some new learning to understand.
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From page 36... ...
Many muscular operations are relatively straightforward, and we can begin to use computers more and more directly as containers of a memory and information to use with current brain function. If I work day in and day out with a very capable machine, storing more and more of my desired information, my computations, the things I think about, my associations, and descriptions of my emotions (which may have a special meaning to the computer because it may be attached to the implants that monitor physiological functions responsive to emotion)
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From page 37... ...
A naval system in which people and their robot and machine partners are as completely hybridized as I have implied they could be would be a new kind of experience for the people, and the real problems could be those implied in my philosophical coda, rather than the simpler ones to be encountered at the beginning of development in this direction. I do not know what directions we will choose for the use of the technology of computers, communications, and robots for naval purposes, but I hope that this exercise in laying out some possibilities will be stimulating and hence useful.
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