OxPol Blogcast showcases research, analysis, insights, and experiences from the members of the University of Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), and specialist guests from the Oxford academic community and beyond. On this episode, OxPol Blogcast host Anastasia Bektimirova is joined by Faye Curtis, a DPhil International Relations researcher at the University of Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), to discuss the effects of integration of women into previously all-male military units. Faye guides us through the ongoing debates over the risks and opportunities of such policy change, and discusses the contribution of her research which addresses the lifting of the ban on women in ground close combat roles in the British Armed Forces. In the second half of the episode, we get a glimpse of another …

In 2002, the Magna Science Centre in South Yorkshire witnessed a surprising event: a two foot tall robot, Gaak, escaped from a gladiatorial experiment with learning robots.  The experiment, part of the “Living Robots” project, simulated a predator and pray scenario where some robots searched for food (prey) and others hunted for them (predators).  Gaak, a predator, was left unattended for fifteen minutes and, in that time, managed to find and navigate along a barrier, find a gap, move through it and continue across a car park to the M1 motorway. Gaak was found rather quickly when a motorist almost collided with it.  This story of robot liberation helps us to understand a simple fact about learning machines: they are unpredictable.   …