Robotic Nation Evidence

Israel sees 'remote control' border with Gaza

From the article:

The Israeli army envisions a "remote control" border with the Gaza Strip after a troop withdrawal, including unmanned patrol cars and computerized observation posts that would automatically spot and kill attackers, a military official said Friday.

What we are talking about is a giant robotic cage. Stay inside the cage or you are killed by robots.

This technology is discussed in Manna. In that case, robotic cages keep unemployed people locked inside welfare concentration camps. The main difference in Manna is that the robots do not use lethal force. Instead, they inject offenders to render them unconscious and carry them back to their beds.

Two things make this technology so enticing:

1. It is far easier and cheaper to deploy robots than people. Imagine the cost and discipline/morale problems that come with deploying soldiers every 50 feet along a 100 mile border, 24x7. With robots, it is far easier.
   
   
2. There are no ethical problems when a machine kills someone who tries to break through the perimeter. Think about it this way -- if you put up a highly electrified chain link fence, and a person dies when he walks up and touches it, did the fence kill the person? No. But position a soldier there and have that soldier shoot the person when he touches a fence and there are all sorts of ethical problems both for the soldier personally and for the nation who deploys him. There is no difference in the outcome, but we treat the causes of death completely differently.

In the future, I believe we will also begin seeing larger and larger robotic bubbles. A crude form of bubble can be see in the "gated communities" found in wealthy suburbs. Using secret service agents, we also build a bubble around the president of the United States wherever he goes. Fisher Island is another such bubble. The trend toward robotic bubbles is already starting. One example: Florida Town to Use Surveillance Cameras.

Imagine where this trend takes us in the near future. Wealthy people buy land and build larger and larger bubbles. Eventually these bubbles are as big as small towns, and then cities. Imagine this happening to New York, where only wealthy and "desirable" people are allowed into the city. People fly between the bubbles on their jets. The "unwashed masses" -- what are today known as middle class and low-income people -- are completely locked out.

I predict that Washington DC will be the first city-scale robotic bubble. Small, completely enclosed "tourist zones" will be left open along The Mall to preserve a "feeling" that people can still "visit the capitol", but the rest of the city will be completely protected by a robotic bubble, with no one entering or leaving without proper authorization and clearance. Robotic sentries will protect the entire perimeter with "shoot to kill" instructions for any intruder. The airspace will be protected, the sub-orbital and orbital space will be protected, the waterways will be protected, and ground vehicles will neither enter nor leave without clearance and inspection. This level of lock-down is impossible to consider today, but within 20 years will be easy with robots.