Michael C. Horowitz Quotes


A world in which advanced military robots are easily available is a world filled with an increasing numbers of modern militaries—a world that may face a higher risk if arms races and conflicts.


Context

Military robots including drones are very inexpensive as military hardware goes. And like other hi-technology devices, the prices go down steadily as volume grows. Almost any government can afford to buy military robots from the U. S., France, Russia or Israel. As a result, there can be many more nations who can have a modern military, even if small. Thereafter, they can conduct modern warfare readily.


Citations

Michael C. Horowitz, Political Scientist, “The Looming Robotics”, Foreign Policy, May/June 2014

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He anticipated smart bombs and missiles, drones, and cyber warfare. However, 25 years earlier, he observed the technology of defense and thought attacks might never again be feasible. See {626740}. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesler was one of the first scientists to conceive of and try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned, Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his work was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.


We face that situation now. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesler was one of the first scientists to conceive of and try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned, Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his work was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.


Since the Partition of India to create the state of Pakistan, Pakistan has wanted to integrate the Muslims—especially near the border. However, many Indian Muslims did not choose to leave India for the new Islamic nation. Pakistan has had designs on some of the Indian areas and has maintained a very large army.


There were more than 100 million of his gun distributed over the world and his invention has been the instrument by which more people have been killed than any other weapon.


That was an ironic statement. Shortly thereafter we invaded Mexico, occupied the country, pressured it into “selling us much of what is now the Southwest of the United States, and finally left.


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Michael C. Horowitz (born 1978) is an American author and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.