The Future of Battlefield Robots

Alien54 writes "The Pentagon is drafting the Segway two-wheeled scooter as part of a plan to develop battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate with troops. Dean Kamen, the Segway's inventor, says he had no qualms about enlisting his brainchild into the military."

Comments

I have a slight problem with this...

[Lord Kano]

Ok, we will all concede that losing fewer lives is the goal. However, there is one good part about potential losing lives. It is this, the people of your country (assuming that it is a free country) are not going to tolerate unnecessary loss of life. This keeps most leaders from provoking wars unnecessarily. If the cause is to stop Hitler, people understand that we may take heavy losses, but in the end it is worth is.

If the cause is removing Milosovic from power, people are going to tolerate much fewer losses before they start to demand that we bring our boys home.

Removing this from the battlefield of the future does two things, one it will allow future world leaders to bully less technically advanced countries even more than they do now and two it will increase the amount of terrorism directed at civilians. If I can't kill your people on the battlefield because there are no "people" on the battlefield, I'll do what I have to do to take the war to your "people".

We should proceed with caution.

LK

Re:one problem

[Glock27]

How do you explain to a robot the difference between an enemy and a civilian........ In the middle east a shepard has a beard, a turban and a kalashnikov. Enemy troops has a beard, a turban and a kalashnikov. This seems to me to be another pentagon wanking fantasy. (Now for the offtopic rant part....)Then again this has never troubled the US forces. (see. Panama, Sudan, Afganistan, Iraq, Korea, Vietnam). If only they were to spend as much money and effort on peace. With this you even create new customers for you products.

ROFL. Let's put it another way, how do you tell a human soldier the difference between an enemy and a civilian, when neither wears a uniform and either might be armed? At night, using night vision equipment? (For a robot, our soldiers are a relatively easy problem, it will involve IFF procedures and probably be more foolproof than with human troops/error.)

Here's the algorithm:
1) Robot detects a non-US-soldier in it's field of regard (possibly 360 degrees).
2) Robot blasts out, in the local vernacular at 120 db "ON THE GROUND NOW OR YOU DIE!"
3) If the intruders do anything besides start laying down on the ground within two seconds, a hypervelocity 5 mm. round strikes "upside the head". (No overpenetration and collateral damage with this type of round.)
4) Humans are called in to evaluate the situation.

In situations involving groups of people, the robot can break out the heavy weapons, designate laser guided artillery or bombs, or just call in satellite guided air support. BTW, any of these activities could involve a "human in the loop" if there are sufficient humans and good communications.

At any rate, I find this a highly plausible scenario that will likely happen within 20 years on the ground. (It will take a while due to power source constraints.) It is already happening today, in the air, with a "human in the loop". See Predator.

The main key is keeping the robots stupid enough that they don't develop true initiative. ;-)