Robots for No Man's Land

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Stryker is an 18-ton infantry vehicle, already deployed by the U.S. army in places such as Iraq. Right now, it has human drivers. But that will no longer be the case by 2010, when it will be driven by a robot. Today, the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second. 'Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body -- processes that data, and makes instant judgments on how to act and where to go.' These robots are developed by General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Inc. (GDRSI), which received $185 million last November to build between 30 and 60 automated-navigation prototypes to be used in all kinds of military vehicles. This overview contains more details, references and photographs."

Comments

Swarm

[rjelks]

On a related note, these military robots use "swarm technology" to mimic a group of ants or other "swarm" animals. Kind of a cool approach to A.I. At least it's not nanotechnology like in the (bad) novel by Michael Crichton.

Re:Infantry never going away

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

Reminds me of Starship troopers.

Even though they were the least respected and sophisticated class, it was the Mobile Infantry that got things done.

Heinlein isn't the only one who stuck with infantry in the future. The truth is that nothing we create can replace a man (or woman) in the field.

And if we do manage to create something that can carry out sophisticated reasoning and creative tactics, it sure as hell won't stick around to work for us.

Re:Does war become cheap?

[cnkeller]

Because if American's don't have to die, do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want?

Unless we invent a new type of microchip, we're probably only going to kick ass in countries without access to EMP technology.

Re:Does war become cheap?

[TKinias]

scripsit cybercuzco:

no, because you cant occupy a country with robots. You need people on the ground, working intelligence, getting among the people, all that hearts and minds stuff you hear so much about. Making friends with the natives can NEVER be done by robots. Plus not all the natives are friendly, so there will always be a need for the infantryman or MP on the ground in the streets. Robot armies might be good against conventional armies, but they suck at human to human contact.

You know, I was just about to post something very similar. It's the standard rebuttal to the airpower fanboys: you can have all the toys you want, but you will always need an 18-year-old with a gun to hold the terrain.

I just realized, though, that the argument sounds eerily like that made by the horse cavalry officers after WWI. They argued that these new `tank' things were great and certainly had their uses, but there were things horse cavalry could do that tanks never could -- like operating in rough terrain, long-range reconnaissance away from supply lines, etc. I've read essays written by horse-cav folks from as late as the 1950s arguing that the U.S. army was idiotic to have gotten rid of horses altogether, and that the fact the Russians still had horse cav was going to be a big disadvantage to the U.S. in WWIII.

This is clearly not an exactly analogous situation, but it's something to think about.

FWIW, old-timers in the Royal Navy made a similar argument about steam power in the mid to late 1800s. Battleships retained sails for a long time, because the idea that a fleet would rely totally on steam seemed inconceivable...