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Military Robots Get Machine Guns
javaxman writes "Next spring, the U.S. military is expecting to deploy Talon robots with machine guns. They can also be equiped with rocket launchers. Really, they're remote-controlled 'bots, not true autonomous 'bots, so you can save the Skynet jokes for, um, some day in the not-to-distant future. This is just the first, or maybe second step. As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!"
The batteries in the remote control die during fire? I don't know about you guys, but I don't want a rocket misguided into my car or house!
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
Whatever happened to Asimov's rules of robots that they can do no harm to humans? For years, bearded terminal hackers have done their thing, hacking on software, hardware, and such, with little regard to the ethics of the situation. But now, with our creations affecting mankind in a more profound way, we give little more thought to ethics than we did with a simple BASIC shell script.
Think about this the next time you are coding a servo controller on your Redhat compiler. Could your code be misused in a way you would not approve?
I used to think that these things were unfair and that US (or the west in general) soldiers shouldn't be so out of risk or as powerful. Then i realized, fuck that. What war does to a soldier, i cannot completely comprehend. But i can comprehend it enough to say that any tech that means fewer soldiers have to die, that its a good thing.
The Patriot Missile system fires with no human intervention. It uses an Identification Friend-or-Foe system to track everything in the air, and shoot down anything that shouldn't be there. During the recent Iraq invasion, a glitch in this system caused it to fire upon a British fighter jet, destroying it and killing its pilot. It was about to do the same to a US jet, but that jet was armed with fast-flying radar-seeking missiles designed to take out hostile SAM sites, and was able to take out the radar component of the Patriot system before the missile reached his plane. Notably no one was injured on the ground when he did this, since there was nobody actually sitting in front of the device, or anywhere near it.
I think it'll be a long time before autonomously firing ground systems are in place, because it's hard enough doing IFF in the sky, let alone on the ground. I think the fire-finder system (used in the Balkans to take out mortar positions in the mountains firing upon cities) might do this in some limited capacity, but that's only anti-artillery, rather than telling the difference between a guerilla carrying an RPG and a farmer carrying a section of irrigation pipe. Sure, you could wait until they shoot first for all of these systems, since that's a lot easier to determine automatically, but I think it's quite obvious that waiting for the other guy to shoot first is very far from the policy of the current administration.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Don't call them terrorists- call them rebels or whatever, but not terrorists. And while in the short run this may save a couple of Americans, civilians are more at risk from killbots. A dead innocent civilian just creates at least five or ten more "terrorists". Even if it does slow the death rate of Americans, that also means the presidents approval numbers remain high and contempt for us from the real world grows. This is not a good thing at all.
Oddly enough, one of my favorite, and IMO the best, episodes of SeaQuest DSV is the episode where the crew is wisked into a future where wars are fought by armies of giant armed combat robots, which are remote controlled by children, who think that they are actually playing a total imersion video game.
With the advances in VR and forms of total control of remote devices and such based on muscle movement and in some cases even brain wave activity, how far away are we from a time when anyone with a joystick can command a combat robot?
It really reminds me a lot of Largo from MegaTokyo and his army of Ph34rbots.. but on a serious note, however, I really do wonder. It would seem that, while these types of things are great in that they save lives ultimately, at the same time, they could ultimately be a supreme form of evil.
Even though bad things DO happen in any armed conflict, at least in this case, fields of robots battling it out, even if they are merely remote controlled, will keep real people from dying needlesly. However, again, how long before someone figures out how to gain control of these things and turn them against civilian populations, villages, cities, etc.
On a side note, what I really find funny is that, traditionally, the military is the last major area of manual labor that has NOT been severly affected by technology (in the sense of robots replacing workers as they have in manufacturing and other areas) and now, there exists a real possibility of the military being downsized due to robots replacing soldiers. Maybe the Teamsters can organize the military!
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Think about this the next time you are coding a servo controller on your Redhat compiler. Could your code be misused in a way you would not approve?
Y'know, I hear this kind of question a lot. I work for a defense contractor. When I'm explaining my work to people, invariably the question of "don't you worry that your work will be used in some future war that you don't approve of?" No, actually, I don't and the reason isn't that I approve of all (or even most) of the military actions that my country is involved in. Part of it is a bit of short-sightedness on my part. I work on very "research-y" topics: data fusion, sensor resource management, and other stuff that isn't gonna get implemented until 2015 at the very earliest. Part of it is that I think war is a necessary part of humanity. I wish it weren't but a simple examination of the human brain reveals that the "R-complex" (aka reptilian brain) is present in every person. I have learned to use my other brain portions to control my aggresive tendancies but there are lots of people who will never master that trick.
But I think the main reason why I don't lie awake at night worrying that the results of my efforts might make the world a worse place is the same reason why parents don't usually lie awake worrying that their kids are going to turn out to cause more harm to society than benefit. I don't have kids but I'm thinking that if I did, I probably wouldn't spend too much time worrying that my kid is gonna become the next Kenneth Lay and be the cause of a great deal of suffering. I would probably think that my kid is more likely to be a benefit to society or I'd just be enjoying the process of raising my kid and not get all worried about how he's going to turn out.
I don't see any reason why one should assume that the products of their efforts will only be used for applications that they 100% agree with. Really, I think that's terribly naive. Do sheetmetal workers lie awake at night worrying that the steel they cast that day might be used in the casing for a bomb?
GMD
watch this
hmm, perhaps another explaination for America's Army, its not a recruting tool its a training tool. And to think I once pointed out to an enthusiasic friend that joining the army for real would probably require more that leet mousing skillz. Boy is my face red...
That is, until someone develops the perfect jammer and sells it widely.
That, my friend, is the argument for making the robots autonomous. Insert sci-fi armageddon of choice here.
Put a M16 in Asimo's hands and you have one hell of a prototype.
..don't panic
"....we can wheel these robots in and take out those suckers without risking harm to our soldiers."
And thus negating the most important check and balance against perpetual war.
It is necessary for soldiers to die in a war, because their death reminds us that war has a price. If you can operate a completely robotic army/navy/air force, you lose that human connection, and create a killing force that can operate without any moral conscience whatsoever.
That makes for a generation of politicians who will decide that because there is no human cost to their side, they may as well just send in the robots and exterminate the opposition.
You are already seeing this process in action with such edicts as not being allowed to show coffins returning from Iraq. If you don't see the cost of war you are more likely to support it, and robot killing machines are the ultimate expression of that lack of human cost to war.
Continuing down that path will have only one outcome, and it won't be pretty.
Visceral Psyche Films
Just think of these robots doing really dangerous things - going down terrorist booby-trapped tunnels and the like.
Or would you feel better just sending human fodder into such situations?
If you think wars suck, then you should like modern high-tech wars. War still sucks, but far fewer people get killed doing it.
Hmmm is that a good thing? On balance, I think so.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I wouldn't say we are politically losing the war right now. We certainly aren't in a good state politically but it's not like the situation has really changed that much on the ground for the worse since abu gharib. I would say that while we lost more casulaties november then usual that was because of fallujah which I think can be looked upon as a modest success considering we very quickly took over a hostile city and the population of Iraq didn't go up in arms like it looked they were going to do back in april the last time the U.S. was thinking of clearing out fallujah.
Comon, all of us here at Slashdot should know this. Rule #1 of hacking: He who has access to the physical device, controls the device. It would be all too easy to crack the case of one of these things and change the crystal so that instead of running off of who-knows-what frequency it's now controlled with a 72MHz RC controller! Personally, I don't want these things going into battle for us. We're gonna spend billions on these things and some kid somewhere is gonna come up with an 80 cent way to turn it against us. (Think along the lines of "drawing a circle around the circumference with a pernament marker".)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Anyone else thinking of the episode of Star Trek where the people let the computers simulate war and in the end the losing group goes to the execution chamber?
Direct away from face when opening.
Perhaps the reason that the USA appears to value human life, at least in terms of its own war casualties, is because the USA has so few of them whereas the Chinese have so many?
,IIRC.
Some time in 2000 I spidered the CIA world factbook.
There is an entry in that book labelled;
"Military manpower - fit for military service"
In the edition which I have, it lists the USA as having 2,056,762 people who are fit for military service. I believe that was supposed to include women.
Thats less than one percent of the population.
Every other listed country can manage at least 10%
After the Sept.11 attacks these figures were no longer listed. Instead today it says "NA"
The USA is the *only* country listed as "NA".
Why does the USA *need* machines like this?
Do the math.
I know the parent post was mostly humerous but frankly the idea of a USA with autonomous fighting machines scares the bejebits out of me since lack of manpower seems to be the *only* thing holding them back from a classic Civ endgame.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Quote:
The Chinese have low regard for human life [phrusa.org]
The assumption that all chinese have a low regard for human life based on what they are doing in Tibet is the same sort of mentality that causes people to carry out attrocities like what is happening in Tibet.
Cruise missles isolate humans from the actual act of killing in war. Before that, ballistic missiles isolated humans from this awful task. Before that it was strategic bombing, and before that it was long range artillery, and before that it was the machine gun, and before that the rifle, which came after the cannon, the trebuchet, the arrow, the rock, and everything that wasn't some sort of cutting weapon weilded in close combat. This is a recurring whine, and little more than that.
The real concern is the number of human lives lost in stopping these recurring acts of idiocy. The actual effect of technological advancement has been to steadily reduce the number of combatant and noncombatant casualties as technology improved. Modern technology makes it possible to confront agression with less cost in human lives over shorter periods of time.
But if it assauges your sense of moral rectitude, we can go back to the days of sword-weilding armies and the concomitant casualty rates of 20-40% of entire populations during wars. We wouldn't be isolated at all from the act of killing -- a large plurality of us would have a constant connection with death, rather than our 1-2% or so who have intimate experience with it now.
If you think more experience with death promotes peace, talk to a Bosinan, or a Croat. They'll set you straight.
Wow, it's not enough that the Americans take on the Arab World; they also want to take on the Oriental World!
Considering the situation in Iraq, do you really think the Americans will last long enough to build these robots...plus the Chinese or Japanese could easily buy these robots once they are build through the all-mighty corruption magic?
I have no doubt the current US Administration will build these robots. The question is whether other countries could also get their hands on the 'bots or not. Oh, and I think all the mighty, high tech 'bots can't stand against a 10 years old nuke.
As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!
It's not between "gangs of these suckers" that you will see the "action", but rather gangs of these suckers slaughtering tons of civilians somewhere in the 3rd world that doesn have any. Wars are never about fair competition.
Paying for lifetime US-quality medical services, life insurance, widow's benifits, orphan benifits, pension benifits, college costs, and all the other costs associated with putting the numbers of men in the field, the cost benifit ratio may well prove to favor robots and other systems that keep service members out of harms way.
What it comes down to is the almighty dollar.
No. Not really. If you look at the wars that the US has been involved in, the advent of technology from the 1700's through 1945 show a direct link between the rise of technology and an increase in number of casualties. The wars since then have been limited engagements. While midevil conflict may have had high percentages of populations slayed, that is more an issue of barbarism, not technology.
Anyway, looking at the window of time that I indicated I don't see how your statement could be said to be true.
That statement is completely idiotic and, if anything, probably only serves to illustrate your devastating lack of education.
In WWII, almost 60 million people were killed, about two thirds of them civilians. Without technology, such "convenient" ways of genocide as the holocaust or air raids wouldn't have been possible.
In WWI, 15 million dead. Many died in the trenches, because such advances as machine guns and heavy artillary forced things into a deadlock.
If there's enough of a technological imbalance, and no other factors to make up for it, the more advanced country has an easier time killing lots of enemy soldiers or civilians. The US has repeatedly been in that situation. But then there's also cases there one side is more advanced, and the other is more numerous, and a huge carnage results, such as in the Russian theater in WWII, or the Korean war.
I find it disgusting how easily Americans like you talk about others who "whine" about yet more weapons. Your criminal government has shifted to a policy of preemtive - illegal! - wars. Thousands get killed. Sure, you in your self-righteousness watch O'Reilly and believe that it's all cool. No, it is not. People get sick of it. People get sick of wars, of killing, and of fucking arrogance as you display it.
True, although it's amazing what data you can gather from something unintelligable. A friend of mine who used to work as a translator for US army intelligence intercepts mentioned how at one point, the Soviets had figured out a system to tell what commands our troops were issuing during war games. They weren't able to decrypt our messages, mind you. They simply figured out that different messages had different lengths, and tended to be broadcast at different times, different orders, etc - and matched them up with the meanings (we fixed this when we found out, of course)
;) Sure, your range wouldn't be great, but in urban combat, who knows - it could possibly prove effective.
Now, tricks like this (probably not these exact tricks) likely wouldn't let you send commands to the bot; however, they might let you know what is being sent to the bot, and what it is sending back.
Personally, I'm kinda curious as to how effective tempest attacks would be against "secure" communication devices, especially radios. I mean, radios make sounds by using pulsed magnetic fields to vibrate a diaphragm - sounds like a good way to broadcast unwanted RF to me
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
I imagine this thing is going to be extremely tactical. It's not going to be a regular grunt, slogging across the battlefield. It's going to be used in close-quarters urban combat, supervised by squads of Marines or Rangers at close range. You're not going to see a lot of these things get scooped up for the same reason you don't see a lot of soldiers get kidnapped during a firefight. I think for the most part, you're going to see it used in variations of the Talon's current role: bomb disposal. It's going to be the point man on a forced entry mission. The building is already surrounded, where would the bot-napper run to? It's going to take the lead whenever biological or chemical agents have been used. Probably easier to steal one from the storage facility, stateside. Hell, the core components are already easily available on the open market, why would a droid thief want to go to the trouble of snatching one out from under the noses of some very attentive soldiers? I mean, it's just a machine. The minute shenanigans are perpetrated, there'd be no reason not to shell the entire grid. A stolen or turned bot would be a big neon sign saying "cluster bomb here, please". No, I think people will want to stay very far away from these guys. And we haven't even gotten to the part where they're armed with deadly weapons.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
If we did build millions of these bots, we'd have to ask China (and all of our other creditors) politely to pay for them for us. On top of that, since we've let them suck away all of our manufacturing over the last 25 years, we'd have to ask them to build them for us, too.
Play Command HQ online
Is this sucker excited whit war and guns or what?!?!? Bad, bad,bad. So sorry, man, if you cant wait to see robot wars, jump from a bridge, you useless. This kind of machinery was not build for playing robot games you if could not tell. This is a GUN. It remote control killing people machine. Is it exciting? Wait till one of these kill the first inocent civilian in the next useless and pourposeless war. Exceting is tecnology making the life better and people happier. =D Robots are sure cool, but this kind of technology dont deserve being called science.
Yeah, of course. Nobody wants to see the mullahs take over the world. So? How does that imply that we should go to war? The uttermost wingnut error is this dogma:
"A is evil. Therefore we should go to war with them"
"B is evil. Therefore we should go to war with them"
I'm no pacifist. Sometimes war is the right answer. But it isn't in all cases. The grandparent makes a point that reducing the risks of war may create a situation in which a powerful nation is more likely to start wars at the drop of a hat. Since in general wars kill people, starting more of them is not a a priori a good idea. You have to argue that a specific war is worth the cost, and you haven't done that with respect to, e.g., Iran.
Pointing out solely that Iran has an evil agenda does not in any way shape or form refute the grandparent's argument. Yes, they're evil. So what? That's irrelevant: the point wasn't about the nature of the agendas in question, it was about the effects of the policies pursued in support of those agendas. A very different question.
Your attitude, (which you call "common sense"), that violence is the only effective strategy against bad people, is neanderthal and ignorant of history. Even in the bloody 20th century, significantly more oppressive regimes and dictatorships were overthrown by nonviolent means than via wars. Yes, sometimes, war can overthrow a dictator and bring peace and democracy afterwards (as WWII). Sometimes, though, war can fail in its goals and set the stage for the rise of brutal dictatorships (as we failed to free Vietnam, but set the stage for Pol Pot). How many examples do you want of wars fought by the US that failed to bring democracy to the target country and/or gave rise to a brutal dictator afterwards?
Different situations require different responses.
History most definitely does *not* support your implicit assumption that a nation more willing to go on the warpath to enforce its agenda increases the likelihood of that agenda "winning". More often, that kind of attitude just fuels resentment and defensiveness, leading to a bigger fight and a lot more people dead, which isn't in anyone's best interests. There are a lot of arguments to be made that a more warlike America would do a great deal of harm to the cause of democracy around the world.
Already, anti-US rhetoric and consequent terrorist recruiting in the middle east has tripled as a result of the Iraq war. From that aspect, it would seem that a little more caution might be advised, not less. There may also be positive outcomes
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
they'd probably settle for guerilla warfare amongst the civilian population where an armed robot isn't a feasible option. Hm, not a far cry from terrorism.
... an evil, terrorist tactic by 17th century standards.
Yeah, exactly.
People fight when they 1) have a grudge, 2) are poor 3) feel they're being taked advantage of 4) are scared or 5) are disenfranchised and feel they don't have a say in their own future.
How they fight depends on their circumstances. If they're wealthy, they use technology at arm's length and/or send other people (usually their own poor) to fight. This is how the US does it.
If they're outnumbered or outgunned, they fall back on guerilla tactics and/or terrorist tactics. This is how the iraqi insurgents fight.
Take for example Israel and Palestine. Both populations feel they have a historical and religious claim to the land. But the israelis are wealthy workers who have jobs and a vote. So they send tanks and helicopters. Palestinians are dirt poor, live under continuous occupation (=disenfranchisement) and are outgunned. So they blow themselves up and use guerilla tactics.
If the USA were under occupation by a superior force, we'd fall back on insurgent and/or terrorist tactics, too. Go watch "Red Dawn". As a matter of fact, that's how we won our independence. We couldn't defeat the british regulars on the field, so we slinked through the forests and sniped their leaders
Robots won't change this scene at all. They'll just change the balance of power and drive the other side to new tactics, as you suggest. We get all high and might about how the other side uses unspeakable insurgent and/or terrorist tactics, but we would do exactly the same thing if the conditions were reversed.
It's just too bad that nobody tosses tea into the harbor anymore.
They do. Just nobody pays attention. The reasons people use such violent tactics these days is because in the age of sensationalist profit-driven news reporting, if you don't make a big noise nobody even hears about it.
BTW, throwing tea in the harbor in 1773 is about equivalent moneywise to torching 15 hummers to make a political statement in 2003. That guy is headed to jail, and nobody is singing his praise...
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
I was always offended by Bush's refering to the terrorists on those planes as cowards. As one talk show host said (pls reply with name), it takes a lot of guts to fly a plane into a building, knowing you'll die.
How many times have you realized that you really should do something, but you were afraid for your own safety? Aside from disagreeing with their beliefs, these terrorists did what they thought they needed to do, and were not cowards.
Enemies? Sure. Needing a good ass-kicking? Definately. Hiding in Iraq? Only since the fall of Saddam.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)