Will robots and AI allow small nations to compete against larger ones?

Community Off-Topic
1

This is a question that makes me ask myself if the global political and economic power of the world will massively change in the future. For all of human history up until this point 2 things were needed for a nation to be successful on the world stage: Manpower and resources to feed industry. This is why every superpower in history has had a large or at least a decent population. It’s really just a simple matter of math: More people: More output from the nation’s factories and also more taxpayers.

But with the advent of AI and robots, I wonder if this basic economic law will be turned on it’s head. Not only will robots make it possible to expand the economy without population growth (or even in-spite of negative population growth), but having a large population will actually become a burden! Think about it, which state is more likely to have the economic and military advantage: A large nation with a large robot force, or a small nation with an equally large robot force? Even if both had similar amount of robots the former will have to waste more of it’s resources on feeding and housing it’s people, where as the smaller nation is free to to just build more war machines and or other industries that aren’t needed for it’s own people.

Take for example nations like Canada which control huge regions of land and have lots of resources, and yet don’t have a massive population. Could a nation like that become a major power because of AI and robots sometime this late century?

7

Such a robot army would require a huge economical, research, manufacturing, and logistics background to get operated effectively, and very safe communication and navigation. Since I’m from a tiny European country, I see more fantasy in the research of taking control over the robot army of another country :slight_smile: or at least disturb them so much to disable their communication and command lines, while a small elite human force can destroy them fast. So imo human and robot armies should be operated in parallel in near future.

8

Not sure about Asia becoming a superpower. Well perhaps Japan could, but probably not China because their massive population will become a burden.

9

I’m sure an E.L.E. will happen soon. So, no need to think about this.

10

Short Answer is No. Its the Humans running those Governments holding them back. No form of technology can change that until they empower their people to use it for good.

12

Not until we have batteries with higher energy to mass ratio than chemical fuels. And currently batteries are nowhere near that. Else imagine somebody starting every single combustion engine in that army just before attack. Or conditions like ww2 eastern front during winter, I would love to see those robots there marching as planned.

For eg in us army Tooth to Tail ratio is 80% to 20%. So those very expensive and complicated robots will not change much. Unless we get something like “universal assembler” ie. 100% automated factory that can produce everything from raw materials. But then war over some silly things on planet Earth is pointless, if i had such factory i would send it to moon or asteroid belt. Kickstart economy there, be first to conquer that instead of down here.