Re: Fighter Jocks.

In message <34e612df.1133841@smtp1.sympatico.ca>
	  agoodall@sympatico.ca (Allan Goodall) wrote:

> But the drone turned away from the fight because it's programming told
> it that it was prudent to do so. Humans often turn away from a fight
> due to their fears of dying. It's a lot more difficult to get a human
> to sacrifice himself or herself than it is to get a piece of machinery
> to do so.

Depends on how intelligent the piece of machinary is.
AIs may well be as careful about their continued existance
as humans are. If the AI is a neural net, then programming
out that desire for self preservation could be difficult
(the problem with neural nets is, even if they work, you
never know exactly why they work).

Of course, if the AI knows that it has a to-the-second backup
sitting back on the carrier, then it may not worry so much.

Another way to word your example btw, is that:
"the drone turned away from the fight because it valued its
life over destroying the enemy."
"the human turned away from the fight because she valued her
life over destroying the enemy."

Both can be viewed to be the same.

-- 
Be seeing you,			       http://www.bifrost.demon.co.uk/
Sam.				       ----- Roleplaying and Wargaming