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Robots in Milieu 0.

Or your nuke needs to be talked down from exploding ala Dark Star...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29pPZQ77cmI

Because it very VERY VERY VERY much wants to explode.....

Many Evil Referees will take that route. I would.

I can see the other angle too... although when a clone brain suddenly has an epiphany right before it's about to do something truly terrifying... there's even odds it's the player characters that are running that clone brain.
 
Who says it knows it's going to die?

Ender's Game.
You've downloaded my mind and personality to a nuclear missile - if I am to be used to attack an enemy then I am going to die. I don't want to.

This is the huge flaw with this trope - the downloaded new individual has the memories and personality of the original, and that includes a sense of self and self preservation. It doesn't matter how many times you tell the machine it isn't really a person, the machine knows it is a person with a sense of self and self preservation.

Unless you can find a fanatic, or a suicidal personality...
 
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There actually are ninja kamikaze missiles.

The explosive warhead is removed, and pop out sword blades incorporated, to minimize collateral damage.

The target gets Cuisinarted.
 
Which we now know is incorrect as they can be made today at our TL.

Really? Have you tried Siri recently? It's just one of the most amazing and frustrating things we have today.

We're more at the point of the early AI in "Two faces of tomorrow" where they tell the AI to cook an egg, and it proceeds to hold the egg over the pan and just crush it - dumping the entire mess in to the pan.

They then taught it about the fragility of eggs and tried again, and it gently put the whole egg in the pan.

Modern AI is machine learning and pattern matching and box of rocks stupid.
 
I believe your Apple phone has a constantly transmitting geographical identifying signal.

The thing that makes it easy to target someone.

With a missile.
 
I believe your Apple phone has a constantly transmitting geographical identifying signal.

The thing that makes it easy to target someone.

With a missile.

You are correct, which is why I leave my phone at home a lot. I am not worried about missiles, but I dislike having any track my movements. Nor do I know all what use is made of the tracking data by Apple, and how much they are selling it to those who can pay for it.
 
I suppose we face that risk with every soldier. Don't know how we deal with that in the real world, but I assume people can be trained to be good soldiers?

It is extremely hard to find soldiers who are willing to commit suicide, unless you are Imperial Japan.
 
There actually are ninja kamikaze missiles.

The explosive warhead is removed, and pop out sword blades incorporated, to minimize collateral damage.

The target gets Cuisinarted.

The precursor was just to lob a precision-guided inert bomb at the target. 125-250kg of iron and concrete falling at Mach Something will put a hurt on somebody, with minimal collateral damage.

For extra credit bonus points, it's also an area-denial weapon since the enemy doesn't know for sure that it's not live ordnance on a time-delay fuse...
 
You are correct, which is why I leave my phone at home a lot. I am not worried about missiles, but I dislike having any track my movements. Nor do I know all what use is made of the tracking data by Apple, and how much they are selling it to those who can pay for it.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, recently spoke about user privacy and Apple’s efforts to protect it:

Tim Cook said:
Technology does not need vast troves of personal data, stitched together across dozens of websites and apps, in order to succeed. Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it. And we’re here today because the path of least resistance is rarely the path of wisdom.

If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.

We should not look away from the bigger picture.

Here’s the link to the endgadget article, if you scroll down you’ll find the full text of his talk:
https://www.engadget.com/tim-cook-privacy-cpdp-2021-slams-facebook-184333398.html

But I agree, there’s no way to really be sure except to disengage with the tech.
 
That horse has long since bolted from the stable.

I disengaged from social media the moment I realized that anything I recorded and was dumb enough to post online would haunt me forever, back in the two thousands.

You have had about one and a half generations doing that.

Before that, credit agencies were tracking you.

And that's before they constructed algorithms, powered by super computers, who can figure out your probable future behaviour, from all that data collected.

And even then, you can be tracked from all those around you who are still connected to the internet.
 
Hmm... very interesting!

All this discussion is very interesting! Forgive me, however, for trying to narrow the focus, just a bit.

In literature and media, robots have been a staple of science-fiction for over a hundred years. Because of this, I'm somewhat curious how all you Referees out there use robots in the Milieu 0 setting, specifically. I know what the rules say. That's not the question.

I believe that the Milieu 0 setting is somewhat unique than the traditional 1107 setting. First of all, there's the difference in Tech Level... Tech-12 (max,) in lieu of Tech-15. And then there's that whole business with the Shudusham Concords mentioned previously.

Would your ordinary Free Trader, for example, own a robot to help him with his business. If so, how intelligent would this robot be? Is it just a little better than a forklift, or does it interact with the characters regularly, and add to the story, like C-3PO or R2-D2. Is it stuck in the cargo hold all the time because it has wheels and can't climb ladders through the hatches, or are they typically anthropomorphic enough to overcome this kind of obstacle? What would robots be like in ordinary life for someone in Milieu 0? Are they common, or unusual? And is it legal for this ordinary Citizen of the Imperium to weaponize his robot?

And additionally, there's the question of warbots in the Milieu 0 setting.

Yea those sentient weapons can be a real pain.

One of the first replies was (essentially)... of course they would use warbots. However, the last two pages of replies have been mostly commentary about why intelligent weapons are a really bad idea.

So... which is it? What would Cleon do? Does the newly formed Third Imperium have platoons of warbots who autonomously decide when its time to pull a trigger? Or is this decision better left to sophonts?

In real life, a cruise missile doesn't decide when to launch itself, or choose its target. But if the technology existed, should it? ICBMs don't launch themselves. Human beings make these decisions. But there's been plenty of fiction exploring the idea of leaving these decisions to computers.

Does the nascent Imperium send out patrols of warbots into a hot zone who autonomously make tactical decisions about how to prosecute a battle?
 
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In real life, a cruise missile doesn't decide when to launch itself, or choose its target. But if the technology existed, should it?

IRL some drone aircraft CARRYING the missile have the tech to decide when to fire. But that isn't currently how they are USED.
 
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