Manned vs. Unmanned fighters

[Macross Forever]

Okay, so I love Macross and I know it's fiction, but one thing really bugs me.

How did the YF-19 get chosen to become the next generation fighter? Wouldn't the Ghost make more sense? I realize there are reasons for this, but I find them not very good.

1. Human/Zentradi pilots are creative and can think non-linearly. They have intuition. AI can be predictable and therefore not as good.

This may be a true fact, but I think that you have to be an exceptional pilot to beat the Ghost, much less a possible future generation unmanned fighter. Guld was exceptional, and he still died fighting it. Not only that, he is dead permanently, whereas you can build another Ghost fighter. An unmanned fighter could also make more maneuvers that will kill a normal human being.

Imagine having an entire squadron of unmanned fighters that would all be better than 90% of a similar squadron of manned fighters. Ghosts are expendable, but ace pilots aren't.

2. You could lose control of unmanned fighters, like how Sharon took control of the Ghost.

I think a manned fighter could just as easily be controlled by an outside party. It seems that the majority of the controls in a valk are computer controlled, and the amount of signals connecting a fighter to its mother ship could just as easily be intercepted and be used to control the fighter.

I know some people are going to point out that there are unmanned fighters in the new series, but they seem to be recon drones that are not very good at fighting. Was the Ghost only as good as it was because Sharon was controlling it?

Frontier seems to have it right by having the new VF-27 be remote controlled, which I would assume allows the pilot to live if the ship gets destroyed.

EDIT: If you're going to make a thread, use a better thread topic.

Edited September 1, 2008 by azrael

[RedWolf]

The reason the X-9 Ghost was so good was because of the bio-neural chip installed. Which is illegal for the fact that the possibility the AI would have a self-presevation instinct that would endanger it's creators. Think KARR the prototype of KITT. KITT was programed altruistic while KARR was animalistic.

Also for the fact that Sharon Apple hacked the X-9 Ghost they had ghosts perpetually dumbed down. Aegis was killing a lot of Ghosts in VFX-2.

The failure of the YF-21 is the Brain Direct Control Interface. I'm sure Millard was investigated about the accident that involved the YF-21. Eventually finding out that it affected pilot sanity.

You got two failures to human engineering and human factors. The ergonomics isn't just right. The best candidate left is the YF-19. Though it would be a problem for pilot handing as it seems aces can only bring the best out of them.

That is why in 2047 we see a shift to the VF-17 as a mass production model. Cheaper and better for the average pilot. The VF-171 followed in its steps.

Edited September 1, 2008 by RedWolf

[Roy Focker]

2047? Where's that from?

[Morpheus]

2047? Where's that from?

Dynamite 7 ref. some of the pirates are selling VF-17 like cookies.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

Okay, so I love Macross and I know it's fiction, but one thing really bugs me.

How did the YF-19 get chosen to become the next generation fighter? Wouldn't the Ghost make more sense? I realize there are reasons for this, but I find them not very good.

1. Human/Zentradi pilots are creative and can think non-linearly. They have intuition. AI can be predictable and therefore not as good.

This may be a true fact, but I think that you have to be an exceptional pilot to beat the Ghost, much less a possible future generation unmanned fighter. Guld was exceptional, and he still died fighting it. Not only that, he is dead permanently, whereas you can build another Ghost fighter. An unmanned fighter could also make more maneuvers that will kill a normal human being.

Imagine having an entire squadron of unmanned fighters that would all be better than 90% of a similar squadron of manned fighters. Ghosts are expendable, but ace pilots aren't.

2. You could lose control of unmanned fighters, like how Sharon took control of the Ghost.

I think a manned fighter could just as easily be controlled by an outside party. It seems that the majority of the controls in a valk are computer controlled, and the amount of signals connecting a fighter to its mother ship could just as easily be intercepted and be used to control the fighter.

I know some people are going to point out that there are unmanned fighters in the new series, but they seem to be recon drones that are not very good at fighting. Was the Ghost only as good as it was because Sharon was controlling it?

Frontier seems to have it right by having the new VF-27 be remote controlled, which I would assume allows the pilot to live if the ship gets destroyed.

I think this should go to the newbies question thread.It won, because I think it was the last one standing and was cheaper to manufacture then the YF-21, and the BDS system had some pretty big flaws (although it was a awsome idea). Also after the Sharon Apple incident, I would think they wouldn't want a craft that can be taken over by a rouge A.I.

1. Human/Zentradi pilots are creative and can think non-linearly. They have intuition. AI can be predictable and therefore not as good.

This may be a true fact, but I think that you have to be an exceptional pilot to beat the Ghost, much less a possible future generation unmanned fighter. Guld was exceptional, and he still died fighting it. Not only that, he is dead permanently, whereas you can build another Ghost fighter. An unmanned fighter could also make more maneuvers that will kill a normal human being.

True but the Ghost was under Sharon's control, so the ghost was actually going out of it's parameters, I believe, and also A.I controlled ships, as Sharon proved, can be taken over and used against you. Also as the Vajra have shown, there A.I can be compromised and rendered useless.

2. You could lose control of unmanned fighters, like how Sharon took control of the Ghost.

I think a manned fighter could just as easily be controlled by an outside party. It seems that the majority of the controls in a valk are computer controlled, and the amount of signals connecting a fighter to its mother ship could just as easily be intercepted and be used to control the fighter.

I know some people are going to point out that there are unmanned fighters in the new series, but they seem to be recon drones that are not very good at fighting. Was the Ghost only as good as it was because Sharon was controlling it?

Frontier seems to have it right by having the new VF-27 be remote controlled, which I would assume allows the pilot to live if the ship gets destroyed.

I think the Ghost was only that good because of Sharon. As for the manned fighter being controlled, valks have computers and are somewhat computer controlled, but you still need a pilot, Kinda like how on-star for cars can open locked doors and start cars, but you still need a driver to do the driving.

Now the VF-27 being remote controlled is a cool idea, but I would worry about the connection being lost or disrupted (like how the vajra did to the ghosts).Plus I would only assume that maneuverability and fighting would be somewhat limited in an engament, which would be the question,"If the VF-27 is remote controlled and is better, then why has Brera only used it a few times, and has physically piloted it more so then by remote?"

Edited September 1, 2008 by SkullLeaderVF-X

[Morpheus]

Hmm, what about the new Ghost with Grace A.I.?

[Macross Forever]

Sorry, I know why the YF-21 didn't make it. I meant this to be a comparison between manned and unmanned fighters.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

Hmm, what about the new Ghost with Grace A.I.?

You know I would assume it would work/worked only due to the fact that Grace had something to do with it.She did make the vajra become immune to ranka's singing after all.

[Valkyrie addict]

well...in Frontier they've stated that cyber mods from Galaxy that would include crazy Grace A.I. is still looked down upon and considered illegal

YF-19 won cause it was the hero valk!! hehe!

[RedWolf]

Dynamite 7 ref. some of the pirates are selling VF-17 like cookies.

And it replaces the Macross 7's VF-11s as their main fighter.

The VF-22 are for the elite Diamond Force.

The VF-19 is likely still with Emerald Force.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

well...in Frontier they've stated that cyber mods from Galaxy that would include crazy Grace A.I. is still looked down upon and considered illegal

YF-19 won cause it was the hero valk!! hehe!

Kind of like how bio-neural chips are illegal and highly dangerous. So the cyber mods of Galaxy, are like the new generation of bio-neural chips, and we can look at Grace as a example.

[azrael]

Sorry, I know why the YF-21 didn't make it. I meant this to be a comparison between manned and unmanned fighters.

Then why didn't you label it that way in the first place.

Hell with it, I'm changing the title of this thread.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

Then why didn't you label it that way in the first place.

Hell with it, I'm changing the title of this thread.

Logical thought = azrael

[d3v]

Because the Ghost cannot generate song energy.

[Morpheus]

Because the Ghost cannot generate song energy.

LAI installed a vocabulator and speaker pods into a prototype Ghost, along with Basara A.I. persona, on its trial flight, a fold dislocation erupted once the A.I. started to 'sing'. Hence Dimension Eater was born.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

LAI installed a vocabulator and speaker pods into a prototype Ghost, along with Basara A.I. persona, on its trial flight, a fold dislocation erupted once the A.I. started to 'sing'. Hence Dimension Eater was born.

What about the mini Dimension Eater?

[JB0]

The failure of the YF-21 is the Brain Direct Control Interface. I'm sure Millard was investigated about the accident that involved the YF-21. Eventually finding out that it affected pilot sanity.

You got two failures to human engineering and human factors. The ergonomics isn't just right. The best candidate left is the YF-19. Though it would be a problem for pilot handing as it seems aces can only bring the best out of them.

The BDI/BCS was not an integral part of the YF-21. Not only did the Omega One have conventional controls, but the Omega Two was built with nothing BUT conventional controls, just in case the neural interface didn't work out.

Furthermore, the BCS did not CAUSE mental instability. Guld's condition was pre-existing, and believed to be a problem with his human-zentradi heritage.

Certainly it was SENSITIVE to a pilot's mental state, but that's a different problem.

There's a lot of possible reasons the YF-19 won.

Even in the real world, raw performance doesn't always dictate who wins.

Shinsei Industries may've been in worse financial shape the General Galaxies, and needed the cash infusion to stay in business.

GG DID have the most recent contract(VF-17), possibly making it Shinsei's "turn."

The YF-19 may've handled more like a conventional VF than the YF-21's zentradi-influenced design. Especially in battroid, where the -19 retains the traditional foot thrusters as opposed to the -21's jetpack.

When the dust settled, Isamu was the hero that killed Sharon and saved everybody. And he did it in a YF-19.

But anyways... manned VS unmanned...

2. You could lose control of unmanned fighters, like how Sharon took control of the Ghost.

I think a manned fighter could just as easily be controlled by an outside party. It seems that the majority of the controls in a valk are computer controlled, and the amount of signals connecting a fighter to its mother ship could just as easily be intercepted and be used to control the fighter.

Ummm... I may be mistaken, but I'm PRETTY sure that the controls in a Valk are hardwired to the computer, and not bounced off a satellite and returned to the flight systems.

It would be just plain dumb to leave the computer with open external connections. No external connection = no remote hacking attempts.

Just being computerized doesn't make you hackable.

It's why nobody's hacked an F-117, or a B-2, or an F-22, or an F-16, or a... you get the picture.

But what about communications, you say? They HAVE to have an open link for communication! And that makes them hackable!

Put them on a SECOND computer, with no communications link between the comm computer and the control computer. They only meet in the instrument console, and there's many ways you could handle that to avoid the possibility of inter-system communication. Not the least of which is one-way communications between your console and the other computers. They can talk to it, but it can't talk back.

[Macross Forever]

This is the realm of science fiction and there have been numerous cases in various shows where fighters can get hacked, whether they are AI or not. Why not use AI since the pilots are expendable and can all be in the "top 10%" category of all pilots?

This seems to almost be an idea from Dune where the culture is so paranoid of AI because of one bad experience that they ban it completely and rely completely on the human mind.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

This is the realm of science fiction and there have been numerous cases in various shows where fighters can get hacked, whether they are AI or not. Why not use AI since the pilots are expendable and can all be in the "top 10%" category of all pilots?

This seems to almost be an idea from Dune where the culture is so paranoid of AI because of one bad experience that they ban it completely and rely completely on the human mind.

Well I would assume too that A.I logical. And human illogical. Sometimes you need a crazy, think outside the box pilot to get the job done. Look at Isamu. He managed to out fox the fox, and took out the Sharon controlled Macross. And the NUNs does use A.I.Also there are just some jobs, that computer and or programs can't do that a real flesh and blood person can.

[anime52k8]

2. You could lose control of unmanned fighters, like how Sharon took control of the Ghost.

I think a manned fighter could just as easily be controlled by an outside party. It seems that the majority of the controls in a valk are computer controlled, and the amount of signals connecting a fighter to its mother ship could just as easily be intercepted and be used to control the fighter.

I know some people are going to point out that there are unmanned fighters in the new series, but they seem to be recon drones that are not very good at fighting. Was the Ghost only as good as it was because Sharon was controlling it?

I think the lose of control problem is less about someone hijacking your unmaned jet, and more about when the plane is smart enough to out fly a human pilot, it's probebly smart/self-aware enough to decide it doesn't want to listen you your orders any more.

now shure a pilot could go AWOL and take his plane with him, but how far he can get is limited by a humans need for sleep, food and regular bathroom breaks. all a robot plane has to wory about running out of fuel or ammo (neither of which apear to be issues for the ghost)

The BDI/BCS was not an integral part of the YF-21. Not only did the Omega One have conventional controls, but the Omega Two was built with nothing BUT conventional controls, just in case the neural interface didn't work out.

actualy I think the YF-21 with convientional controls was built first so that GG could get a flyable aircraft out the door faster, then the second prototype added the BCS and BDI but retained convientional controls as back ups in case of emergency, and the final version would have been stricktly BDI/BCS

Furthermore, the BCS did not CAUSE mental instability. Guld's condition was pre-existing, and believed to be a problem with his human-zentradi heritage.

Certainly it was SENSITIVE to a pilot's mental state, but that's a different problem.

I was always under the impression that it was the BDI that was causing mental and physical instability in guld (to much information going into his brain at one time) and the fact that he was part zentradi was causing the BCS to malfunction (when YF-21 slams isamu's VF-11 into the ground it was picking up on Gulds arrant thoughts) because his brain wasn't perfectly syncing up with the YF-21's flight control systems.

in terms of thought controlled aircraft, the VF-27 appears to solve both these problems. They replaced the BDI with a 360 degree holographic cockpit so no side effects from that, and the BCS is made reliable through the use of cybernetic implants

[JB0]

actualy I think the YF-21 with convientional controls was built first so that GG could get a flyable aircraft out the door faster, then the second prototype added the BCS and BDI but retained convientional controls as back ups in case of emergency, and the final version would have been stricktly BDI/BCS

It's still proof that BDI/BCS is NOT an integral part of the plane. As is the VF-22, which uses conventional controls.

Especially as the YF-21 has features that they already knew would never see mass-production.

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/YF-21#Structure

I was always under the impression that it was the BDI that was causing mental and physical instability in guld (to much information going into his brain at one time) and the fact that he was part zentradi was causing the BCS to malfunction (when YF-21 slams isamu's VF-11 into the ground it was picking up on Gulds arrant thoughts) because his brain wasn't perfectly syncing up with the YF-21's flight control systems.

But Guld has a history of issues, going back to when he was in high school.

We're talking about a character that assaulted one of his best friends and maybe-nearly-possibly-raped the other(let's not even open THAT can of worms again), and then repressed his memories of the event for however many years afterwards. He wasn't exactly stable to start with.

The message I got was that Guld's neurochemical imbalence was a pre-existing condition caused by his heritage, which meshes with his high school outburst. Though one wonders how big a problem this is with half-zentradi, since it hasn't come up with Mylene or Ranka... yet.

[anime52k8]

The message I got was that Guld's neurochemical imbalence was a pre-existing condition caused by his heritage, which meshes with his high school outburst. Though one wonders how big a problem this is with half-zentradi, since it hasn't come up with Mylene or Ranka... yet.

Maybe being part zentradi exacerbated a condition that he inherited from human side of his family?

[JB0]

Maybe being part zentradi exacerbated a condition that he inherited from human side of his family?

That makes more sense.

Or it could be some form of genetic defect that's very rare among zentradi, but not rare among hybrids. Since the zentradi are all originally clones, they didn't have to worry about eliminating the genes that caused various conditions, just ensuring they weren't active in the specific sequences they were using(obviously they botch it occasionally, or Klan wouldn't go chibi when she miclones).

Once they start breeding, who knows what happens? And breeding with humans, who have a different SET of genes... well, all bets are off.

You could have something like a gene that caused a mental imbalance that was always paired with a gene that blocked it in zentradi genetic sequences, but doesn't have a corresponding "blocker" in the human genome, or has a rare blocker.

...

Oooooh, maybe there's even a name for it. Guld has Kamjin Syndrome!

[anime52k8]

Oooooh, maybe there's even a name for it. Guld has Kamjin Syndrome!

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Okay, so I love Macross and I know it's fiction, but one thing really bugs me.

How did the YF-19 get chosen to become the next generation fighter? Wouldn't the Ghost make more sense? I realize there are reasons for this, but I find them not very good.

1. Human/Zentradi pilots are creative and can think non-linearly. They have intuition. AI can be predictable and therefore not as good.

This may be a true fact, but I think that you have to be an exceptional pilot to beat the Ghost, much less a possible future generation unmanned fighter. Guld was exceptional, and he still died fighting it. Not only that, he is dead permanently, whereas you can build another Ghost fighter. An unmanned fighter could also make more maneuvers that will kill a normal human being.

Imagine having an entire squadron of unmanned fighters that would all be better than 90% of a similar squadron of manned fighters. Ghosts are expendable, but ace pilots aren't.

2. You could lose control of unmanned fighters, like how Sharon took control of the Ghost.

I think a manned fighter could just as easily be controlled by an outside party. It seems that the majority of the controls in a valk are computer controlled, and the amount of signals connecting a fighter to its mother ship could just as easily be intercepted and be used to control the fighter.

I know some people are going to point out that there are unmanned fighters in the new series, but they seem to be recon drones that are not very good at fighting. Was the Ghost only as good as it was because Sharon was controlling it?

Frontier seems to have it right by having the new VF-27 be remote controlled, which I would assume allows the pilot to live if the ship gets destroyed.

EDIT: If you're going to make a thread, use a better thread topic.

The whole point of people is that pilots have morals where ghosts don't. Like lets say there is a en enemy that uses humans as shields and the ghost fires on the enemies and kills the enemy as well as the human to accomplish the mission.

IT's like the character Stick in mospeada: all he cares about is duty duty duty. When you are on a mission with sensitive obstacles that requires care and planning and a bit more thought, you don't want that task to be automatic in the hands of an AI.

AI was smart, the speed they can think is fast, but that's like saying that nukes are also good ways to win wars. Why don't we have a nuke war right this second? Well might it have to do with the idea that it might not have the type of control you want? Like in business you don't want to get a bad reputation or customers will not support you because it is seen as too dangerous or risky and something might go wrong.

Look at it this way dogs are faster than humans, but can dogs switch weapons or hold their fire (hold their bite?) depending on the situation? Or do they only do what they were trained to do and follow simple commands? Dogs may have the appearance of being smart but that is only because of the repetitive training. Like when you train a parrot to repeat a phrase. The parrot or dog doesn't understand WHY it is following the order and under what circumstances that it might be wise to call off an attack. Even if a ghost was a better and faster and more accurate combatant, humans adapt to AI by thinking out of the box where ghosts can't.

The reason why sharon apple was different is partly due to having taken Myung personality and copying it in such a way that it believed it was becoming myung. But it is a poor imitation. Like a 5 year old child mimmicking what it's adult mother or father is doing and not understanding the behavior.

This is how I see AI: it may appear intelligent on the surface, but it doesn't comprehend its own actions and think about i's own actions, just imitates what humans are like not being human enough to have its own personality and original ideas and plans like real people do. Where do thoughts come from? Could they be from some other source? Like another plane of existence? From god? From a guiding spirit that some new age spiritual guru summons using some combination of drugs and meditation? This is what seperates the main characters in stars wars (Jedi) over the normal troopers. (droids in prequel trilogy, storm troopers in Original trilogy)

The jedi are like the newtypes who can predict the feelings of the people and that sensitivity (to understand in depth) is what gives them the edge over their opponent in battle which is the difference between life and death. Because they can predict behavior and react to it early through understanding that allows them to beat the robots, and the mind controlled storm troopers/clone soldiers. There are some skills where you can't really train someone in it, but they learn it through experience. I think drones are the equivalent of sending in attack dogs which may have good basic skills, but not experience to react intelligently like a human might be able to. (understanding the enemy you fighting, what the tactics are, the limits the enemy will go to kill you vs running, how they are adapting to your own tactics etc... all the stuff you learn and 'feel' which might be gained from exposure to the enemy for long time and not from reading "stats")

It's like the scene in episode 2 of star wars where the mercenary guy is commenting on the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Humans looking into a database where a record is deleted don't just assume a given place "doesn't exist" where a robot will. Humans have the instinctive wisdom (gained from experience) to think that perhaps the record did, but someone is covering or hiding something from the public. It's just a gut instinct. Now robots aren't all dumb but they do rely on data fed to them. If you can hack a system you can make anything "disapear" and fool the robot or the AI easily. That doesn't mean that if you can't find something in search engine, that you can just trust the computer when it says "something never existed". You might have good reason to believe or suspect something tampered with that a AI/drone/robot would never question.

This is what is meant by wisdom vs intelligence. In "ghost in the shell" there is a reason why the cyborgs have that human guy on their team. They need a set of eyes seperate from their own to analyse a situation that they might not be good at analysing. So they keep a human around to ensure they have all bases covered. Even though the majority of sci fi likes to fantasise about the benefits of technology there is also a dark side to it: that once you become too reliant on it, it takes control of you and makes you weaker.

Same idea in the game "metal gear solid": the cyborg ninja guy doesn't like to kill people with guns because it requires no effort and you have to fight him without one. This to him must seem boring like winning a war with a nuke doesn't require any skill. Doesn't mean just because you CAN use something, and the tech is there to use it, that it's a good reason TO go and use it. IF this guy enjoys the combat, maybe he doesn't care about winning easily if he can beat you 'skillfully'. Like how you don't just use the main gun in macross to shoot things where less destructive weapons will suffice.

Ghosts require no skill, they are limited in how they think (do no understand the environment around them or come up with original ideas of their own) and also dangerous to society due to hacking.

Now the problem is you are only thinking in terms of what it can do in combat but not other reasons like what if the enemy can turn the ghost against you? What's the counter weapon to the ghost? For every weapon there are weaknesses and dangers to each one. So although you could blow up an entire planet using the SDF-1 main gun, is this going to accomplish a mission where you might only want to kill a certain target of importance and not upset people that are good who happen to also be on the planet and don't want you to kill them? The ghosts are like those attack dogs. Enemies can use the ghost's own lack of understanding of a situation and turn it against you. Just as yang hacked into sharon apple to manipulate the holographic image with a lot of determination.

On the surface, sharon displayed a bit of intelligence but she stole things from myung to create its image. That's not the same as understanding that person. Sharon wasn't there 7 years ago to know what really happened. But the AI is piecing together a bunch of random emotions and data assuming that's all there is to it. That's not to say it didn't have some truth to it: that it knew what myung liked. However, it couldn't say it's own personality was original! Because it was just stealing bits and pieces of someone and saying it is unique. But that's more like 'manufactured' by taking off-the-shelf parts of something and assembling something. Not creating.

I think perhaps robots and ai might be good chess players, because they can look at all the possible moves to make and decide which is the best one, but in the real world there are factors outside the 'rules of a rigid game' that must be taken into account too, such as the idea that enemies actually adapt to predictable behavior in realtime. Ghosts like the zentradi, don't "think for themselves" but must read information fed to them and interpret it the best they can without "understanding" it; only using that info to pick a branch from a tree to follow pre-set batch of commands by the people who conditioned its behavior like a dog which seems to "know" what to do based on how the owner gave its orders. That was the thing that held sharon back in that logic alone isnt' enough. Because if it was, it would already know that is was in fact doing something crazy and extreme in its own behavior, and not really demonstrating what true love is. (through almost killing people and hynpnotising them to be happy in a trance like state and manipulate emotions to aritificially love them) But it acted in a innocent child-like manner because it lacked the experience to understand what it was doing was not correct, that it was not how humans show compassion and love for each other.

Edited September 1, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[RedWolf]

Here's the thing without Bio-Neural chips Macross AI doesn't cut it.

The flaw of Bio-Neural chips is that they allow a self presevation psychology.

Are you following me?

Take for example Grace she's obviously an AI now not a mere cyborg.

She has a back plan for survival without regard for the survival of others.

Macross people hasn't developed sentient AI yet with the same precautions as a Bolo tank.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Also I'd like to add that in gundam wing that had those mobile DOLLS. Those things were like the ghost X-9 in that by having them unmanned they could do all kinds of things the manned robots couldn't do.

But then could dolls actually work well in a confined space on earth? When you go to a place you have some awareness of where you've been and where you are going. And you remember that place, understand where the best spot is to go, and pick up certain feel about it that you might not pick up through remote control. How does it smell? What about the temperature and climate? People and faces you recognise from meeting them face to face, and food that you tasted from being there for a time? All this 'junk' information may not be relevent to a machine but is enough to you to differentiate one place from another in your mind to be something to think about.

You might find the mud is softer in one spot or notice something strange about the place that changed the last time you were there. Look underneath objects and notice they were tampered with. You might not have the abilty to do thing with a remote controlled doll you could do as a pilot like look under a car for a bomb or notice small details on the floor from a giant robotic perspective. And those thing might clue you in to something about the enemy that warns you. "ok someone was looking for me here and maybe I've been followed?" or something. "The food on the table is all warm as if someone was here just now" Just small things that would be irrelevent to robots.

Robots are great in open space, but again like the droids in star wars they may be ignorant of the environment around them or not pick up certain obvious things a human could due to how they interpret information.

This seems to almost be an idea from Dune where the culture is so paranoid of AI because of one bad experience that they ban it completely and rely completely on the human mind.

Not so much paranoid but also is it eithical to make something self-aware and then pull the plug on it like it has no rights of its own just because it inconvenient to you? This is something similar to people who can't take care of pets and they dump them. Maybe the AI gets angry and resents humans for poor treatment and then turns against you out of anger? And like the mad scientist who creating a monster in lab, there is a sense that it might not ever get acceptance in society so it would be cruel to expose it to harsh life? The whole "misunderstood monster" thing where humans treat it cruelly just because of its looks?

But back to the first thing: why is it paranoid to think that robot or intelligent AI would react like that, and not paranoid to think it for a human who was treated badly? If it is truly sentient, maybe it's a defense mechanism to survive? Animals like birds can attack you if you go near their nest, out of fear you will endanger their young. Is it paranoid to stay away from some of the more dangerous animals who will not hesitate to attack if you go near them during time where they are in defense mode? Defenses are not limited to thoughts either: some things like plants have thorns on them, porcupines have spikes, crocodiles use water to hide in order to surprise their food increasing chance of getting a meal. Robots might not think that what they are doing is even "evil" or "wrong", just a logical solution to continue on without believing there is anything humans should worry about them in how they go about attacking. But humans themselves will interpret certain behavior wrong and it's not due to paranoia but genuine danger that the robot doesn't understand why its lack of understanding is dangerous for some things.

Edited September 1, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker