Re: AI's in full thrust

At 06:20 PM 7/13/97 -0400, Ryan wrote:
>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. 

Actually, the colonial marines failed because of bad leadership. They
were
sent into terrain of the enemy's choosing that favoured the enemy, while
being hampered by the prevention of them using their most powerful
weapons.
Also, they had no real understanding of what they were up against. Sun
Tzu
couldn't have scripted the movie better.

>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.

You're basing future technology on what is available today. Two hundred
years in the future, you'll have a computer that can "fudge the pickle"
and
do it faster than a human, without all that nasty "fearing for his life"
stuff.

>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.

Well, Star Wars is hardly a model of accurate technological progression.

>Replacing humans entirely would be a
>disaster waiting to happen. (Aliens, 2001, Alien, Great Space Battles)

Well, it was a disaster waiting to happen in a number of fiction
treatments,
mainly because "man against machine" is a potent form of conflict in the
modern world. I can cite you sources where replacing humans entirely was
the
BEST thing humans could do.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage