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Chapter 7 - Self Configuring Modular Robot[]
"..the new operating system uses a blockchain encryption method...
...to prevent hijacking attempts." The man doing the presentation was from a military contractor looking to sell the Captain-General, Thomas Marik, on a new battlefield system concept. "We've established an extensive field-testing program to verify its effectiveness."
"How did you, ah...how did you come up with this?"
"A lot of research, Mister Captain-General. I'm afraid that security concerns within the company don't really allow me to discuss engineering particulars in that level of depth, but the testing has been very in-depth and very extensive. Thousands of hours worth of experiments in a variety of roles were involved. The quality of the work should speak for itself as some of this technology was used as a basis for the 'mech repair and refit initiatives in '32, '33, '34, and '37-all of the components in the control and sensor systems are off-the-shelf, the only truly unique aspects are in this application."
"So field service shouldn't be a problem?" Thomas asked casually.
"No, Sir. It should be a very direct, obvious, and simple task to train field maintenance workers and operators."
"Your concept is a little bit disturbing, these drones are autonomous and yet..."
"Semi-autonomous. The company is not interested in risking the moral hazard inherent in fully-autonomous systems.", the salesman assured him.
"Semi autonomous...so.."
"The system is designed to keep a human in the decision loop, Mister Captain-general, but it does have preset behaviors in the event of loss of contact with the 'human authority' to prevent the system from failing to function or going rogue, and that's a large part of our inbuilt measures."
"I'd like to have some independent technical experts examine your system, if you don't mind?" Thomas asked.
"Of course, Mister Captain-General, we're not selling snake oil here."