Conversations With Intelligent Weapons

I'm currently working on some new writing / world building projects that combine hard SF and anime mechas.  Needless to say there will be robot battles, a mecha training academy, and some teen angst, but the adults will carry the day.  My mechas are not big like the Mazinger or Gundam in height (60 - 70 feet), but maybe 40 - 50 feet high.  They can hide behind a two story building, be nimble, yet well armoured and pack a big punch.  If you do watch anime, the closest thing would probably be the M9 Gernsbacks or the ARX-7 Arbalest from Full Metal Panic.  The mechs can't be too big a target and need good defences as they have to be able to survive in an environment full of cheap anti-tank missiles and rockets.

ARX-7 with Shotcannon   / Peter Lok

Human pilots would operate the mechas (as in who wouldn't want to drive one of these bad boys), but there would be extensive automation with AI to help run the thing.  As these mechas are fighting on next generation battlefield with computers everywhere I'm going to have to take into account robot swarming tactics, UAVs, fully autonomous battle field robots, and issues with advanced AI.

Artificial Intelligence
AI of some form is going to play a big role both as a decision support system and to actually assist in operating my mechas.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to deal with rogue AI's as I don't want to deal with this trope: "Whenever an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is introduced in a story, there is a very good chance that it will, for whatever reason, become evil and attempt to Turn Against Its Masters, Crush Kill Destroy All Humans, and/or Take Over the World. It doesn't matter what safeguards its creators install — the moment it crosses the line into sapience, it has a strong chance of going rogue at some point." From all AIs are a Crapshoot - TVTropes.org

I think I'd rather have AIs that only assist humans or work at a human master's direct order.  If they are really smart, then they would take on personas and "a human-like life of their own."  The AIs would be able to have deep conversations, identify most human emotional states, but not get upset or emotional themselves. For any fully autonomous bots they would hopefully they obey Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics!

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Any robots on the battlefield, especially with fully autonomous battlefield robots, you have the Kill Chain in which a human should be involved.  "The Kill Chain consists of 6 "links"; Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage and Assess, (FFTTEA). To put it in more detail, it is the ability to locate, discern, and track targets and to employ the best weapons available to achieve the desired lethal effects; then to assess results and to reengage speedily as required."  If the AI were faulty you could override, otherwise it is kind of late. Friendly fire is an issue with automated weapons as they cannot tell friend from foe, but if you didn't care and just wanted an area wiped out, then I guess you would just deploy your killbots!

To round this out I thought I would mention some movies with bad AIs and their conversational skills! All of these movies have some chit-chat with the AI over good and bad, etc. Myself, I don't think I'd ever do a scene where you have someone begging a robot for their life and showing them pictures of their wife and kids.

M5 - Ultimate Computer episode from Star Trek.
An experimental computer is installed on the Enterprise and it goes amok during war games and damages other Federation starships.  Kirk must convince the M5 computer running his ship that is has erred and then save his ship after the computer suffers from remorse... Some pretty cool clips on Youtube about this episode.  There was also V'ger and Nomad too, but M5 was the best.

Dark Star
Dark Star is a 1974 science fiction dark comedy directed by John Carpenter (of The Thing fame).
"In the middle of the 22nd century, humankind has reached a point in its technological advancement to enable colonization of the far reaches of the universe. Armed with artificially intelligent "Thermostellar Triggering Devices", the scout ship Dark Star and its crew have been in space alone for twenty years on a mission to destroy "unstable planets" which might threaten future colonization."  From Wikipedia.

I only ever saw this movie once a long time ago, but I still remember the scene about Lt. Doolittle having to talk down a "smart bomb" that was accidentally activated.

Terminator 2
John Conner develops a bond with the T-800 terminator robot sent to protect it and teaches it that killing is bad.  They even develop a father-son type relationship. Even Sarah Conner looks to the future with renewed hope, as a Terminator can learn the value of human life.

Aliens
Bishop the synthetic organism on the crew doesn't go rogue! Go figure!?!  In fact, he/it goes and volunteers for a dangerous mission even though it doesn't want to as there are aliens running all over the place.  I'll take a Bishop anyday.

The Iron Giant
Big galactic battle robot learns that killing is bad and death is permanent from a young boy. If you missed this animated feature that was a box office flop, but now a classic, it is well worth a watch.

Stealth
The United States Navy has built three new top-of-the-range fighter jets called F/A-37 Talons. Three elite pilots are chosen to fly them.  The pilots are introduced to an autonomous UCAV piloted by an artificial intelligence "EDI" (Extreme Deep Invader). Anyhow, EDI gets hit by lightning, become really smart with a skewed moral compass and goes rogue.  At the end, EDI is convinced by the lead pilot to be good again to help finish out the movie!  It was cliched and dumb in parts, but I enjoyed it anyhow.

Tales From A Yellow Star Published

My collection of short stories went live on the Amazon Kindle Store today. Hurrah!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Yellow-Star-ebook/dp/B007HHQGKM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1331090798&sr=8-2

The four short stories about space exploration set in the near future to the far future.  It is approximately 90 pages long between all of the stories.

• Orbital Decay: The crew of a space station is left to their own devices after a global catastrophe.
• Guardian of Life: A war machine left over from an ancient conflict.
• Pattern From The Past: It was a new planetary colony with an old problem.
• Shaman: Ancient ritual and technology combine on an alien world.

The cover above was the second cover design I worked on that incorporated the more dynamic text swoosh and the colorful space colony.  This was much nicer than the first cover design shown below with a black and white solar power satellite (also courtesy of NASA).