AI's in full thrust

Really smart AI's would probably still take up a considerable amount of
space. 

As far a judgement and AI's  on capital and smaller ships. One generally
wants crewmen/seamen on hand for damage controls, maintanance and such.
The current trend with modern naval vessels is Big systems that are
smart,
but manual controls for contingencies. Smaller vessels have more
automation and single civil style systems ( single prop shafts, etc...)
and reduced weapons fits. They are very easy to mission kill as a
result.

The Sulaco would have been in deep trouble had she suffered any major
damage in a naval engagement. The colonial marines also failed in their
mission because of a reliance on computers. 

Big capital ships still have a large complement of sailers/officers to
handle duties and tasks. You want experienced commanders in the CICs on
those naval vessels handling the delacate situations, not computers. 

As far as fighters go, Jamming and countermeasures can work surprisingly
well on smart weapons. Even brilliant weapons will have trouble with
some
of the newer countermeasures. Having a human operator to fudge the
pickle
onto where he thinks the target is can really help in sticky situations.
Don't forget, they had AI's in Star Wars. All the droids and computers.
Every Fighter had an AI (ok the x wings). The R2 units. Some computers
were more single funct, others were more multi-purpose.

One book to look for is a large hardback called Great Space Battles.
Thats
got FT written all over it. Interceptor carriers, small escorts, capital
ships, etc. The story goes that Earth's space navy has developed a
dependance on automated systems with AI's at their core. Earth gets into
a
war with a pair of planets in the Laguna System after a colony ship is
attacked and destroyed. The fleet sent to investigate gets their butts
handed to them by a smaller force. The Lagunans have a jamming system
that
disables the AIs thus crippling the Earth Fleet. Earth is forced to pull
older ships from mothball that have simpler computers that are immune to
the jamming and that have humans at their core/controls. 

AI's can also backfire. 2001 and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are both
good examples. Every one knows why HAL had problems. He was given
conflicting orders. To lie and not to lie. So he killed F. Poole,
Kowalski, and the two other scientist. End result, mission failure. The
the Moon... the commo/control net for the Lunar Penal Colony reaches
sentience and sides with the rebels. 

So in summary, why not allow AI's but.. If I were to build a ship I
would
not forget the important human factor. You gotta have humans there to
fix
the bugs, fix the damage and to show finesse and intuition when the AI's
are unrealiable. They should be used to reduce the workload of the
humans
and assist where ever possible. Replacing humans entirely would be a
disaster waiting to happen. (Aliens, 2001, Alien, Great Space Battles)

- Ryan Montieth Gill  /|\   Scotland Forever  DoD# 0780/AMA/SOHC -
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- www.mojoski.com/~rgill	     '76 MonteCarlo 'Bumblecrow' -
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