海角大神

They have served the United States in combat, and they have been lost in combat. They have been awarded Purple Hearts and memorialized with 21-gun salutes. They have been eulogized, mourned, and missed.

They are, of course, the US military鈥檚 robots.

American soldiers are becoming attached to their electronic comrades, 鈥� and that behavior reignites a question about how human attachment to robots might influence decisions on a battlefield.

In interviews with 23 Explosive Ordnance Disposal military personnel (one woman and 22 men), researcher Julie Carpenter found that soldiers reported unfettered willingness to send their robots into minefields 鈥� but also named their robots after wives and girlfriends and felt loss when those robots didn鈥檛 make it back to base. While not generalizable to the entire military, given the small sample size, Dr. Carpenter says that the results suggest that more research is needed on how robots and humans mix. That鈥檚 especially true as robots increasingly fill the US military鈥檚 ranks, and as the military develops new, more anthropomorphic robot designs, she says.

Carpenter鈥檚 research, which will be published on ProQuest as her PhD dissertation, is not the first scientific study about how soldiers feel about their robots.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been large-scale deployments of battle robots such as TALON and聽 Packbot, a small, portable robot with tractor treads and a video camera that can be used to survey a building for foes or detonate an improvised explosive device (IED). In 2007, the Washington Post reported that the robots scooting though booby-trapped cities, supplanting the humans that once had to do that job, were not going unappreciated 鈥� soldiers had , sometimes quite a bit. Ted Bogosh, then a master sergeant and a repairman for the Marines in Baghdad, told the Post that one soldier in his shop had became distraught when told that his robot, 鈥淪cooby Doo,鈥� was not salvageable. The soldier would not accept a replacement robot.

The anecdote was also repeated in a 2009 , a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution and the author of "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century."

In the latest research, the interviewed soldiers said that they had no qualms about sending their robots onto the battlefield. But there was a potential hitch: the soldiers often named their robots after a girlfriend or wife. One soldier told Carpenter that his robot, riding along with him in his jeep and resting next to him as he slept really did feel a bit like his girlfriend, Carpenter says. None of the robots were named after ex-girlfriends, Carpenter says.

And some soldiers saw the robots as an extension of themselves or of the soldier manning it. Soldiers said that they could tell who was behind the robot鈥檚 remote based just on how the robot was moving, Carpenter says.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e very aware that the robot is a tool and that it鈥檚 not alive,鈥� says Carpenter. 鈥淏ut there is this ambiguity in how they interact with the robot.鈥�

鈥淭hey go back and forth between calling it human-like, or animal-like, or simply a tool,鈥� she said.

Following Carpenter鈥檚 research, first reported on the University of Washington webpage last week, military personnel to share war stories of robots saved and robots lost.

In one shared tale, a soldier鈥檚 TALON robot slipped through a guardrail on a bridge over the Tigris River in Iraq. As it dangled from its chord above the water, the team sent its 鈥渓ittle Packbot,鈥� Danny DeVito, to rescue it. The TALON was pulled up and, since the robot's bridge jump happened around the time that the actor Owen Wilson reportedly attempted suicide (in 2007), the TALON was dubbed Owen Wilson.

鈥淢y Team Member also took him to mental health to get him checked out and hit on the gorgeous E-4 that worked over there,鈥� said the soldier.

Another user said that his or her team in Taji, Iraq (near Baghdad), had sent off a ruined robot with a 21-salute funeral and a Purple Heart. Robots, the user said, 鈥渃an develop a personality, and they save so many lives.鈥澛� Meanwhile, another commentator mourned the loss of 鈥淏oomer,鈥� so named because 鈥渉e鈥� scouted bombs. 鈥淏oomer鈥� was also destroyed in Iraq, taken 鈥渇rom this world far too early,鈥� the commentator said.

That soldiers do care for their robots suggests that soldiers might make unconscious decisions on the battlefield on the basis of those feelings, Carpenter says. For example, if a soldier calls a robot after his wife, will he or she be willing to sacrifice just as much to save it as he or she would to save a spouse?

And that鈥檚 all the more possible as robots get anthropomorphic or animalistic makeovers, she says. Arguably, the military鈥檚 current robots don't necessarily invite warm, fuzzy feelings. Packbots, of which there are some 2,000 on tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, look like a miniature tank, but with a long, camera-topped neck. If this bot resembles an animal, it鈥檚 an Apatosaurus.

But most prototypes for future combat robots do resemble humans or animals, as robotics researchers plumb our 鈥� and our pet鈥檚 鈥� physiologies for inspiration: Boston Dynamic鈥檚 LS3 robot, designed for the Marines, prances like a charmingly fat cat, and its BigDog robot moves, well, like man鈥檚 best friend.

At the same time, the company鈥檚 prototypes are also striding into humanoid terrain. The Atlas robot resembles a robot as cinema has always imagined it 鈥� a metal, broad-shouldered human. And the goes a step further: It can be suited up to handle chemical warfare, and 鈥渟imulates human physiology within the protective suit by controlling temperature, humidity and sweating.鈥�

鈥淚t very much resembles a human,鈥� says Carpenter, of PETMAN. 鈥淎nd it鈥檚 important to understand how people are interacting with robots right now, before they look anything like a human.鈥�