Subjugation.. *spoilers*

[Shadowhawk]

See Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon "Operation Desert Fox" in book "Werehunter" at Webscription Free Library/Baen Books: http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Bae ... 578057.htm

Title change.

[straechav]

What is important, is that simple, non sentient AI, would not be able to handle complicated, unusual situations. And I think at war there are more than not situations where creative thinking is needed. Even if natives could not catch the AI soldiers and reprogram them to fight for their side, there is always a problem with recognizing encoded patterns of behaviour and making use of them to defeat the AI soldiers. And this is a problem unless AI could learn from mistakes. Well, that doesn't need sentience, but it is not easy. And it is always a problem with enemies outsmarting AI. And if AI is too smart... you know the rest...

Heh.

Perhaps I should have just wrote a damn long essay with all my points explained instead of writing dozen messages with all having points that overlap each others. If I keep this up, eventually I might have covered all points there are to cover.

Anyway. My defence: Read little back, and you should see a message where I refer to "bunch of faye playing command & conquer". So, I wasn't talking about independent soldiers. Actually, I wasn't talking about soldiers at all.

What I mean by that is the the robots could easily be remotely controlled (and they hardly would need to resemble humans). Now, the faye wouldn't need to worry about interference since as has been said in subjugation (unless my memory fails me) that they have yet to meet a race as advanced as they are. So, bunch of faye working on the tactics, directing robots, ect... should make complex tactics a breeze, and such. It would make war rather abstract and wouldn't certainly make it more humane ... but (shrug) I was just thinking in terms of efficiency and technology.

Replicators, as far as I know can only replicate elements. You still need to manufacture the spare parts, ammo and such. Recycling needs energy and effort.

Everything depends on the price of the raw materials. If gold could be found everywhere it wouldn't be worth shit, since shit at least would take some time to be processed in to a shit and has some practical use. And don't the faye have assembly lines at all?

Ammo? Don't they use plasma guns? So, they need energy to recharge. Don't they already have infinite power supplies? Recycling needs an assembly line, bunch of robots designed for it. If they can just anneal things together and separate them as easily, it would make recycling a lot more easier.

BTW. imagine jungle like planet. I don't think the machines would survive long...

Survive long? Hmh. Consider a robot that is essentially a spider, the body is symmetrical disc and the legs flexible enough to work in any angle. This should not be a problem with the faeye technology. What this would mean is that the damn robot could walk in any position towards any angle. As for sinking problems or such. They have anti-grav, don't they? And water & humidity shouldn't be a problem at their level of technology.

And don't take the term "robot" with the preconceived notions as well. A plane that has AI and no pilots can be considerd a robot of sorts. That's what I mean by war 'bots. Simple robots built for a task, it doesn't mean they need to resemble our idea of robots or bipedal animals. They could be just embellished vechiles.

[Shadowhawk]

Take a look at a story the link to which I have posted above. It is about human + sentient AI against robotic war machines (in fact remotely controlled by meager, non sentient AI).

About remote control: it can be disturbed (either antenas damaged or jammed or sth.) or intercepted. The interception part can be done by encrypting and signing, maybe some quantum encryption. And one have to remember about the communication delay, if the machines are remotely controlled e.g. from orbit.

Traps against "stupid" robots.

I'm not saying that AI/robotic war machines are impossible, but they are not easy. It might be easier to use Faey soldiers, who can use telepathy to subdue enemies, or at least detect them. Robots can't do that.