automated ships a good or bad idea?

What's the fun of exploration if you don't go there yourself? You can send a machine out to conduct mineral surveys but you can't send one out to create diplomatic relations to other cultures. And taking a picture of a planet is not the same as the visceral experience of going there and becoming immersed in its culture.

Sending starships to explore space isn't the same as 'Taking' it. At least, not if you did it the way Star Trek does it, I guess if you did it the way real humans do it, it would be 'Taking' it.

If your goal is best combat performance you'd probably want humans doing the strategic decision making and robots doing the aiming.

 

Sure you can, if it has a carbon neutronium shell and a pure antiproton beam... In nine cases out of ten, diplomatic relations will very quickly follow!

That would depend on the state of the virtual reality art, I guess.

Exploration for the sake of thrills is an elitist hobby, as only a tiny fraction of mankind will be attending. Bringing it to the masses via VR might help - but if it's deemed worth doing at all, it will probably very quickly escalate into true colonization. Or, if immersion is sought, immigration.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I think the whole underlying point of Federation Technology is to Give citizens of the Federation a purpose, A reason for being. Sure they could build Automated Starships that could Explore and Relay data Back to Starfleet Command, Or automated Battleships that could Patrol the Borders and escort (automated) cargo tugs to and from destinations. but whats the fun in that? You would have a Giant welfare State, The Federation would quickly Turn in the AXIOM from WAL-E. And I'm sure (In the trek verse anyway) that most other races realized that once the became an Intergalactic Civilisation that Purposing their general citizenry in one way or another was better for the species as a whole than simply automating everything.

 

^^ I wholeheartedly concur. From "The Ultimate Computer":

KIRK: Granted, it can work a thousand, a million times faster than the human brain, but it can't make a value judgment. It hasn't intuition. It can't think.

KIRK: Machine over man, Spock? It was impressive. It might even be practical.
SPOCK: Practical, Captain? Perhaps. But not desirable. Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain the starship also runs on loyalty to one man, and nothing can replace it, or him.

Bob

 

Not all captains and crews can match the abilities and qualities of Kirk's crew, but when you look at the typical 90's morning TV chat show type personnel in Berman-trek, I would send an automated ship to explore or dispatch threats any time.

 

I think the best case scenario would be to have a ship's computer controlled by a positronic brain like data's using the brain upload technique we see that scientist use on data that one time... assuming the bugs are worked out.