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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!"
Post this again when they graduate to frickin lasers.
Can these robots be captured and reconfigured to turn against its ex-master, or do they have self-destruction function?
This reminds me of an old Canon printer advertisement, where the Martians use this bubblejet printer to print realistic Mars landscape photos and place them in front of the Mars probe's visual sensor.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Didn't they get shotguns about a month ago? From what I can tell they'll have rocket launchers by the begining of next year.
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?
finally! a way to get rid of Trolls without having to smell them!
Theory of flight?! I'll teach you the theory of fist!!
Johnny Five ... ALIVE!
Need I say more?
Military people were complaining gamers make crap soldiers... now we'll own them at robot wars and laugh at how they mocked us for playing space invaders!
I like muppets.
Diebold didn't make them, did they?!
or else!
I for one welcome our machine gun toting remote controlled robot overlords..
OK.. I had to get that one out of the way..
All the worlds indeed a
I thought the military released this technology months ago. Is this an improvement on the tech, or just a dupe story?
Did anyone else notice the page file was lemming.htm?
police departments have been using shotgun armered robots for a while to shoot bombs and stuff via remote.
I think that these robots would be much better fund-raising machines than killing machines. Think about these robots on Battle Bots. I think this could get the show back on the air. Then, the DoD could use the winnings to reduce the tax burden of defense spending.
Maybe not.
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
The weapons these things are carrying are the M249 SAW. They are chambered in the 5.56mm NATO round spec and carry a 200 round box which it feeds from, but it can also use the regular 30 round magazines that the M-16 uses. The gun was developed in the 70s and has been used by the US, UK, and Isreali forces. Although the original ones could accept the M-16 magazines the latest Mk.46 mod.0 version doesn't include this option as to save weight on an already hefty 6.8 kg gun.
Creative Demolition
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.
Any connection to this story?
Table-ized A.I.
Wrote some wicked dystopian SF with these things. It was around 1968. The only difference between then and now is that armed RPVs exist today.
I wonder if they will use a race or religion - based FoF discrimination system? Shoot the brown people or, shoot the non Christian?
http://www.keithlaumer.com/
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
here
got sig?
I have definitely seen this story on Slashdot recently. How did this get through the edit process?
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
Heh, now I can see how USA of the future is going to run the world. A bunch of armed robots rolling around the middle east bringing freedom to every man, woman, and child while obese American schoolchildren hold the remote linked gamepads in their greasy palms, with attention divided between American Idol and a Kraft "cheese" commercial.
I don't see how the cameras in this thing will have enough resolution to do proper ID of friend vs. foe. Man-in-the-loop is not going to work well without some pretty intensive HDTV or better cameras. Perhaps a foveal vision system slaved to the operator's eyeball might be adequate, but I still suspect that troops will shoot first at the grainy pictures and ask questions later.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Wasn't that Talon's brother in Terminator III?
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
I for one would pay big bucks to see two or more of these little puppies go at it against each other. The commercial income could pay for the whole development program.
At 700-800 rounds per minute (cyclic) for the onboard weapon, I really DO NOT want to see what one of these things will do to a flesh-and-blood.
Call me a wuss...
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
They're still going to fuck up and shoot their allies by mistake
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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.
You just couldn't help yourself could you.
:-P
A shinny new cliche on a first post is a very seductive force to be reckoned with, and an even bigger heartbreak when it gets modded down as a troll. I feel your pain.
Cheers,
Adolfo
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
Or Linux? Or WinCE? Or CustomWinEmbedded ? Given the remarkable ability of the US Gubmint to screw things up, send bids to the lowest bidder, and the generally crap state of public-sector contracting, combined with the generally crap state of off the shelf computing resources (OSes, VB scripters, and the PHBs who manage them), will this thing just be come a giant fscked up boondogle? Like the famous 'ship powered by WinNT' that had to be towed back to port?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
... but ED 209.
:)
Now put down that weapon. You have 30 seconds to comply.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
IF iROBOT == DEAD {
REPORT "something_bad_happend" to "Remote Command";
}
IF iROBOT != DEAD {
MOVE foward;
}
They can make gun wielding robots, but they cannot make me a Tom Servo to watch movies with me and wisecrack. I tell ya, what is technology good for?
(Sorry, saw the "In the not too distant future" quote in the article, brought up some fond memories)
Monstar L
I'm not someone who is pro-military, however I do think that our military shouldn't be so dependent on technology. We have lots of skilled soldiers, but let's be realistic - the proof is in the pudding, if our soldiers are losing against an enemy that doesn't have all those fancy toys, then the fancy toys probably aren't as useful as we think (drone planes etc.). With the huge defence budget, a lot of companies are just dying to get a piece of the pie with their own piece of ultra technology... but real soldiers are flesh and blood killing machines.
I hope their AI engine is not windows based. Oh no, I think I just shot my commander!
_
Free 27" Sony WEGA TV
Can't sleep, robots have guns.
Can't sleep, robots have guns.
Oh, and in Korea, only old robots have guns.
Unknown host pong.
These will be truely accepted in our society, the first time that they are used to hold up a bank or a 7-11.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This has to be the Pentagon's dream come true: a remote controlled war.
Now the US can slaughter people in developing countries without the fear that some of our own soldiers -- fighting for "freedom", of course -- will be killed or injured. I suspect we'll see the number of "Operation Freedoms" increase dramatically.
How come I don't think this is progress?
until we can replace all military personnel Microsoft Certified robots, are we going to outsource to india?
Before I thought about any of the ramifications of this, I thought to myself "I think war games are about to get really, really cool."
Now about the ramifications... I'm starting to think that it's only a matter of time before some mad genius combines one of these with the robotic toilet and mankind is doomed.
The enemies of Democracy are
As that old Negro spiritual goes, "[Tibet,]free at last! [Buddha] all mighty! Free at last!"
I would say you're smoking something, but any plant strong enough to make you come up with that would have poisoned itself first and not grown.
One of my coworkers is a military man. He says there will always be need for a human with a gun to be on the ground in war.
But if you have a soldier controlling a robot with a gun, he can literally have eyes in the back of his head. The thing could have cammeras on all sides. His hands would be perfectly steady. He could be simultaneously seeing infra red, heat vision, and what ever other kind of cammera they have mounted on it buy looking at multiple monitors. And think if the great help in communication. You could just yell "he's around the corner" to the other controller right next to you, like at a LAN party. No hand signals or radios needed. You could have a speaker mounted on it for ording civilians around.
Soon we will be fighting zero casualty (on our side) battles. That is, until someone develops the perfect jammer and sells it widely.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
the unit would cease to function, and the rocket(s) would continue on the same unguided path they were fired on. Seems rather implausible to me to guide a rocket via remote control.
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
You too can own fully automatic firearms... and for free! Just join the Army.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
You know it had to be said.
Don't call them terrorists- call them rebels or whatever, but not terrorists.
Sorry. They meet most common definitions of the term 'terrorist.' Stealthy strikes indiscrimnate of military and civillian targets, aiming to strike terror into a populace and disrupt moves toward an election.
And please don't spread astroturf stories about 'recruiting more fighters.' Unless you've been in Iraq and have actual observations to relay, your 'reverse-chickenhawk' speculation is just that.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
"Now I have a machine-gun. Ho Ho Ho!"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Those are the foreign fighters that are doing that mostly. The majority of the insurgency is iraqis, and they are simply fighting a gaurilla war.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Yeah, but this will probably be used in Iraq, so who cares if kills civilians?
Of course not.
Its just simple logic. I may speculate that A + B = C and that therefore B + A = C but its still certainly true.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
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
Sharks get laser beams.
Sadly though, this news will not help those caught in the backdoor draft here in the US -- not in the near future.
Linux at home
Word has it the Pentagon has decided to send them on an autonomous mission to liquidate those responsible for triple dupes on /.
Sorry! The Army is switching away from fully automatic firearms. I guess they decided to ditch "spray and pray" in favor of "aiming."
English is easier said than done.
It's a bit big for a robot, but it is automatic.
Or move someplace that doesn't prohibit them. A Class III license is still obtainable, as are weapons (nothing new though). Both cost a lot, shooting 'em costs a lot more.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
"....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
I think the best way that these things can be employed is security. Just set them up as little mobile turrets on the top of walls, the soldiers won't be in harms way, and you will be under attack so you will know for sure who is attacking and who is just trying to get out of the way.
..welcome our new robotic overlords.
It would be cool if these things get deployed and they destroy half of the world's population. It would also be funny.
Couldn't an enemy pick one of these things up and just rewire then so they can control them? I don't think its such a good idea. And who knows what might happen if it malfunctions. :/
Being an ass, eh? are your kids fit enough to be a soldier? are you? About one third of America's children are fat, and that is going to be one fucking massive drain on the country when they grow up. Really fat kids get really phat problems.
What are you talking about, wars can and have to be won purely by military means. Look at U.S. versus Japan, or even better look at what ROme did to Carthage. Politics isn't necessary if the entire people composing an enemy nation are dead.
"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."
You call this a glitch!?
"Derp de derp."
I think that's the Matrix
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 know it's already been mentioned how having an all-robot military would affect the policy makers directing the military, but what about the other parties involved in war? If you were part of a nation's Coast Guard and saw numerous amphibious robots take a beach, would you feel encouraged to attack the robots knowing that there's no human cost to reducing robots to a scrap heap? And as the remote pilot of an invading robot force, can you expect to gain sympathy from the civilians of the country you're invading?
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.
...which means that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. Army deploys Steve Gutenberg in battle, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
This is the type of technology that spurs controversy because of the fact that it isolates humans from the actual act of killing. While manned weapons systems today already provide a level of isolation in the act of killing (this comes from watching footage of AH-64 Apaches in Iraq where the gunship is miles away and the targets have no idea they are being watched and of Spectre gunships in Afganistan that pick of individuals with the equivalent of an airborne howitzer from near six miles away) this will only serve as a platform to somehow justify the act of taking another human life. Even better, we can do it remotely now. While I realize the importance of trying to protect American soldiers, this type of technology only serves to debase and marginalize the lives of those that are killed by such a weapons platform
Hi
Less is more.
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.
Overpower the control signal, robot stops moving. Better yet, decode the signal and take control of the robot to turn it on who sent it. Somehow I don't see this being a great idea.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Shh...not so loud! The military is probably planning to outsource the manufacture of these robots to China.
The Chinese have low regard for human life and would be willing to throw millions of soldiers to their death against the Americans in any war. The scenario would be like a human wave, and the idea is for the wave to overwhelm our forces. These machine-gun robots is the perfect answer to a Chinese wave attack. I could imagine them being amphibious. On a fine morning like 2006 December 7, millions of them would rise up out of the ocean tide and onto the beaches of China. They would march relentless across China, killing all the Chinese soldiers.
Methinks you're about 55 years too late, Gen. MacArthur...
"An old soldier never dies, he just loses the ability to hold a charge...."
The Chinese have low regard for human life and would be willing to throw millions of soldiers to their death against the Americans in any war. The scenario would be like a human wave, and the idea is for the wave to overwhelm our forces.
Your commie has no regard for human life, not even his own!
These machine-gun robots is the perfect answer to a Chinese wave attack. I could imagine them being amphibious. On a fine morning like 2006 December 7, millions of them would rise up out of the ocean tide and onto the beaches of China. They would march relentless across China, killing all the Chinese soldiers.
As long as our killbots' body counters are 64-bit...
(sorry for the multireply, this parent was priceless!)
In Korea, robots are given the same rights as humans.
No, not for the Army silly. I want to sign up to help develop equivalent or better units for the "Cyber-Militia". It isn't American to only let the government have such toys.
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.
Joe Haldeman wrote a not-exactly-sequel to his most excellent and classic novel, The Forever War.[*] Different story universe, updated technology, different world situations, but re-examining many of the same issues.
Remotely-controlled soldier-robots play a key role in the plot. One of the central characters is a "mechanic" for the US Army -- a person who does the remote controlling of a ground unit.
[*] He followed up both of them with a real sequel to TFW, entitled Forever Free, which sucks so bad it creates new black holes.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I have a hard time believing this figure. Also listed on the factbook are:
Military Manpower
Availability- Males 18-49 73,597,731
Reaching military age annually- Males- 2,124,164
With over 2 million males turning 18 every year, I really doubt that there are only 2 million some people "fit for military duty". The term is rather ambiguous, though, and it would be interesting to see how it is calculated.
I hate my sig
According to an article in Technology Review last month our troops in Iraq often find their comm isn't too great on the frontlines for much more than sporadic email at the best. Imagine the equivalent or worse comm problems with these remote controlled robots engaged in live fire. A couple of bucks worth of nasty kidstuff electronics overcomes millions in robot devices. Sounds like another winner from those folks who cornered the market on $400 hammers.
I wish the boys would grow up a bit or at least make toys that friggin are useable.
What's wrong with a Civ endgame?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
hell, imagine the horror on our enemies faces when after killing their friends, they then proceed to hump the dead body while erratically doing pelvic thrusts. Then, to add insult to injury (well, death), a 14 year old voice spouts "pwned"...
Hello slashdot, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again...
So once the USA has wiped out China, where will you buy all the stuff that was previously "Made in China"?
Wal-Mart?
At least until all that previously-made stuff runs out..
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Next thing you know, they'll have self-detonation devices in them (a la AVP) :P
You're supposed to make SkyNet jokes about Google.
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.
..x-mas!
:) This was very off topic.
It's for our general evil, "the thing you buy to a person who already has everything". While he wanted sharks with laser beams, they were shot down by enviromental activists.
Now how fun wouldn't it be deathmatching with theese?!
They're still going to fuck up and shoot their allies by mistake
George Bush has all that figured out. You see, on the current path he's guiding our country, in a few years we won't have any allies left.
Then we won't have to worry about that problem.
That's so totally cool,
I could hack into one of these boys and have it as my sexual pet!
Can't you see the genius in it???
We are The Atheists. Lower your egos and surrender your beliefs. Resistance is futile.
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.
or something
True, Talon was a living being He was perverted by the peacekeepers as a weapon. Damn, I'm frelled. "Talon" and "weapon" mentioned in the same sentence and all I can think is Farscape. Man, I miss that show ;(
'Robot Wars' et al. are interesting because they disallow such weapons, and force the 'bots to fight hand-to-hand (so to speak), where differences in the robots' designs and the controllers' skills is actually of consequence.
Hey will these babies support Longhorn?
/sarcasm
If the last few years and the cold war have taught anything, land assults (robots or humans) have largely become irrelevant to any war. The Soviets attached a great deal of importance to submarines with ballistic missile launch capability while the americans focussed a lot of aircraft and missile delivery systems of they're own.
The ONLY reason the Americans really "won" the Afgan war was because they bombarded the place to a pulp even before a single US soldier set foot onto a real battleground.
If there is really a place for robotics its to replace aircraft and submaries with robotic counterparts because they are the real force multipliers in a battle (not military headcount).
1. Contact unfriendly government
2. sell very loud RF generator as anti-robot weapon
3. PROFIT!!!!
Isn't capitalism wonderful?
Drop your weapon, you have ten seconds to comply.
get rid of this one, moderaters.
I can't wait to get my hands one one of these things once they hit the military surplus market.
So.. these drones will be remote controlled? Yes, I read the thread, bear with me. They are going to save on "OUR" human casualties, by killing more of the enemy via a remote link to an actual soldier controlling these mechanoid suckers. Instead of losing lives, "we" will only lose millions of items of immense monetary value, which still is considered the smaller loss. Of course a surviving fighter pilot gets one hell of a scolding if the plane gets lost, but it's basically the same thing here: If you have more tech than soldiers, it's a good thing to empower every soldier with more tech than he or she is worth, so to speak.
Now, what is the interface going to look like? I am assuming a live-feed, encrypted, RF signal with video and audio and not some command line interface thing because we don't have that kind of autonomy in AI yet... unless you count my industry. I am not in defense works, I am a game designer. We have AI that could do the job. Sure, the bots would freeze up for seconds at a time trying to convert the terrain into a pathmap grid, and it will get stuck in odd loops between rocks and hard places, but my point is that some degree of autonomy is possible if the operator is taking a piss or getting another jolt, pizza, mountain dew, what have you.
And so, what interface will the "mechanized infantry" be using against its operator? One 'bot per remote operator "Operation Flashpoint" style (or "Mechwarrior" / "Starsiege" style?) or two to four 'bots per operator, "Hidden & Dangerous"-style or maybe even eight ("Full Spectrum Warrior") or 60 ("Ground Control") 'bots for every operator?
Especially if bots feature some kind of learning, remembering last used commands, path maps, all of these alternatives are more or less feasible. I actually think the "Quake 3" or "OFP" approach is the least appropriate because a bot can be destroyed, chaffed, EMP'd, taken out of range, fall down a hole, lose the connection or start dropping packages like crazy. Controlling a bot lagging over radio with a jerky video feed is not a first person shooter experience you would want to participate in, not even for fun, and especially not when you are sitting in a command bunker undefended save for those ABC mechanoids.
Instead, imagine a setup where each operator shares his or her attention between members of a squad of four or five 'bots. Equip the 'bots with a few different pieces of equipment while they're awaiting deployment, maybe tweak one of them for speed and recon, another for damage soak and a third with a long-range weapon, and so on. Now, keep in mind that a video feed is possible but not speedy enough to make instant point-and-click orders. Thunderstorms, sandstorms, building occluding the signal and so forth will make that much too unreliable. Instead, the operator gives move orders to the 'bots, identifies targets, marks them on the IFF using bandboxing or clicking, the bot remembers distingishing features and asks for confirmation when a takedown is possible.
The only thing the USA has to worry about now is Korea. No matter how smart US operators become, how streamlined their interface or how autonomous their remote controlled heavy weapons platforms, they will remain unable to stop the Zerg rush, kekekekeke.
/ Per
You mean the USA is becoming bogged down in city management, resulting in a long boring crawl forward which everyone except complete obsessives eventually gives up on?
Just kidding, Civ is great.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
"Military robots and machine guns" doesn't really have the same ring as "bikini girls and machine guns", nor does it promote the same imagery unless they look like the TX from T3.
--
Wow, that reminds me, I have to rent that movie.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
If your assertation were true, Bush would not have be announcing an increase in troop deployment in Iraq....
Hey I meant the "won" with mild sarcasm. See the point I wanted to make that unlike the Soviets who got thoroughly clobbered with guerilla warfare tactics of the Afgan militia eventually had to pull out because they're ground troops were unable to quell the local uprising. The Americans on the other hand levelled the place to kingdom come even before they set foot on the place. If they attempted a land assault they would have suffered a similar fate as the soviets. The air bombardment and the cruise missile pummeling were the defining difference.
I still want my powered armor.
This thing is not a robot, no matter what the article says. It's a remotely controlled vehicle. It's no more a robot than an RC car. It's a far less automated weapon than guided missiles that have been around for fifty years.
I have no idea what the "Redhat compiler" is, but if it's released under the GPL, no one can say what it can or can't be used for.
"Old Glory Insurance: For when the metal ones decide to come for you; and they will."
_ lo.html
y _hi.html
Lo-resolution (5MB):
http://www.robotcombat.com/video_oldglory
High-resolution (11MB):
http://www.robotcombat.com/video_oldglor
Go read a good book about this, namely: On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.
He's a psychiatrist who considered the effects of different ways of killing on the mental health of the soldier and has come the conclusion that, while the US army has become extremely efficient at breaking down the natural inhibitions against murder it has not been as successfull in dealing with its aftermath. One step has always been the adding of physical distance between the soldier and his victim, in the progression you so proudly cite (have you ever thought about the "collateral damage" of a sword vs. that of a cruise missile?). Go read that, and then reconsider your opinion.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Yes Sir! /me bows smilingly.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Just how many more innocent people do they intend to murder to maintain their suv-loving lifestyle? Iraqis are currently paying 30:1 in lives for Sept 11th and Iraq had nothing to do with it.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
Not forgetting what lightning can do to these suckers.. Johnny 5 was alive - although he had a cool laser death ray and not a machine gun.. and when he turned against his masters the most exciting thing he then went on to do was watch tv and read..
That they encrypted their uplink decently. Might give nasty surprises otherwise!!
The military is probably planning to outsource the manufacture of these robots to China.
Most of the parts probably are made in China already.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
...run rabbit, run. Dig that hole, the bot's got a gun...
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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
These would make an interesting premise for a 1st person shooter. It explains why "you" go in first alone, can sustain a lot of damage and why the controls aren't as fluid as in real life
Oh dear. It worries me that I thought of this not long after being told about remote control machines equiped with guns.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
Wal-Mart is China's 8th largest trading partner.
rewriting history since 2109
I welcome our new Skynet overlords.......
<g>
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
It's not guns that kill people, it's robots.
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.
If there is really a place for robotics its to replace aircraft and submaries with robotic counterparts because they are the real force multipliers in a battle (not military headcount).
Not true. The best place for robotics is in guerilla warfare which is where human casualties are highest. However a robot has not yet been designed for this. The robot that this article is about is one that would be "on the front lines" and would be first into battle.
The Iraq and Afghan wars aren't really an ideal scenario for these robots. They're more suited for a WWIII scenario where a robot could go into situations that would have it heavily outnumbered.
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.
There is a Wired article on the Talon here.
Sounds good to me. Next stop AI hovertanks.
Pass the bottle.
It is simple logic based on unfounded assumptions. You think that the deaths may result in more people deciding to fight, but you don't have anything to base it on.
I, for one, welcome our new machine-gun wielding overlords!
They should have read my paper. We did simulations for all-terrain vehicles and for ones like Talon. The targeting system focuses on killing efficiency.
I can't wait to see my research helping the next US invasion. It can kill more than 1000 individuals per hour.
Cheers,
--exa--
For a school project I have built a completely autonomous attack vehicle, while not top of the line, it does work. I suggested that the nerf missile launcher could be replaced with a real weapon. I would link to my website about it but I know it can't handle a slashdotting.
I really do need one of these. No more frigid blinds ...
-- milo minderbinder, rationalizing a bomb run on his own squadron.
(catch-22, joseph heller.)
general advice (not directed to the parent): read a book; try to twitch your brain instead of your fingers.
I went to the Talon site and looked at the machines they were proposing. It immediately struck me that I had seen these military robots before, in 1983:a uncher.shtml
http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/83/pacrats/missilel
Yo Joe!
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.
-- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Click on the photo on that page, and you will see a number of weapons systems attached, including TOW and mortar tubes!
I want one of these for my toddler to play with.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I wonder how these will stand up against my Terminators from Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
;)
Must-not-watch TV!
And look at the other robotics story on the front page:
"AFP is reporting that, starting today, "Japan's growing elderly population will be able to buy companionship in the form of a 45-centimeter (18-inch) robot" designed to help them avoid senility. The robot, named Snuggling Ifbot and developed by Dream Supply, will be able to respond to verbal commands. "If a person tells Snuggling Ifbot, "I'm bored today," the robot might respond, "Are you bored? What do you want to do?"". It retails for 576,000 yen (5,600 dollars) and there is no English version currently available but "its makers plan to program the robot in English -- not for export, but to teach the language to Japanese children.""
Reminds me how Japan's largest computer is used to model weather and the earth, and our largest computers are used to model nuclear explosions.
Well, I guess that's the difference between the conquered and the conqueror. If we conquer the world does that make every country more sane than us?
Mark my words -- the first time someone hooks up an FPS AI to one of these things, there's going to be mayhem. Not on the battlefield, either.
-----------------------
You are what you think.
"Fast -- TALON is the fastest robot on the market today with seven speed settings." Well, mine goes to eleven! Seriously, who cares how many "settings" it has?!
oh, oh, ask me that question, ask me, ask me (jumps with impatience), ask me, ask me! (just don't pay attention to my sig and ask me anyway!)
You can't handle the truth.
What happens to a rocket launcher if I sneak up and stuff a potato (rock, piece of wood, BOFH, etc) in the front (or back?) end of it, then the operator fires it? I'm guessing there would be a more interesting effect if it was down the front.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
The Canadian version is called the C9.
Ours has optical sights.
And it is by no means "hefty". It's small and light, compared to either the C6 GPMG or the older Browning GPMG.
Heavier than the C7/C8 assault rifles to be sure, but you can actually pick up and run with the thing. Running is not a lot of fun with the C6.
It was by far my favourite weapon. Even though it weighed more, I preferred it to the C7/C8.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The gaming industry has completely fallen asleep on the job with this one.
Halo 2, I'm running around with plasma rifles, energy swords, driving scorpion tanks and warthogs. . . Where The Fuck is my sniper-rifle-armed remote bot? (or UAV, for that matter?)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I for one welcome our mechanical overlords
I certainly do. There is plenty of research to support human beings vengeful.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
But jokes aren't funny if you have to have them explained to you.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Well actually there is no real black and white definition here. Anyone and everyone seems to be called a terrorist, but that's simply garbage. The vast majority of Insurgents/freedom foghters/terrorists are local defence militia. These militias have formed as a local police force created and guided by local religious and political groups generally organised on local tribal/town groupings.
City fathers of towns create these groups initially because much of the country is a mess and the town needs a security force. Eventually this leads to regional Balkinization and local paranoia, especially when communications media is lacking. Obviously ongoing privation leads to radicalism and fanatical influence can easily grow. Add in revenge for accidental killings and all of a sudden there is a fringe element still supported by their local comrades that are planting bombs in their own areas to disuade / defend them from interloping forces.
The snatch, kidnap murders of select targets is still generally disliked and many members of the basic militias dislike them a lot. The local defence militias support their own more active permanent security groups, who support their more radical insurgent sections, who may or may not support the occasional terroristing sub group. Now these groups are all orders of magnitude smaller than their base group. So 10 000 militia, leads to 1000 security militia, leads to 100 active insurgents which leads to 10 or so hard core terrorists.
Any attempt to go into an area to find and grab the 10 hardcore terrorists will almost always cause the active insurgents to help them either as allies or just as enemies of enemies, then that can escalate to the security troops and finally the regional / town / city militia.
Personally I believe a lot of the problem here is the massive number of ex Iraqi army weapons that just moved straight into the civilian sector at the conclusion of the first month or so of operations. This accelerated both the need for, and rapidity of the development of the militias, add in considerable animosity for civilian deaths and you rapidly generate a core of freedom fighter / insurgents, who attempt revenge. Add in the foreign terrorists as a core for the more murderous terrorists and the whole lot develops in just 2-3 months without much major direction.
As to your statement "please don't spread astroturf stories about 'recruiting more fighters.'", that's just stupid. Almost all governments and groups use vengeance as a recruiting tool and many societies have popular mythos of aggrieved vengeance. Just look at the remember pearl harbour posters and the popularising of Ivan gaining vengeance on the Nazi hordes for the death of his entire village stories from Russian propoganda. The statement of every 6 year old child killed generates enemies is so blindingly obvious that claiming it doesn't is simply stupid. If a bear kills a child the community sets out to kill the bear and for the next generation or two the Locals dislike bears a lot. Drag that into Iraq and a bunch of foreigners blast the crap out of Mrs Hamoud and her four children with little or no explanation and the local community will treat the foreigners like maddened bears.
They largely did recon and organized the Northern Alliance to go on the offensive....Your simple view of what happened is based on watching the nightly news and not on doing research or educating yourself about the historical campaign....
5 stars for patriotism but -10 for being blinded by it. If you claim you have "researched" the news and yet not see the obvious in the news its REMARKABLE! When I said "before setting foot" on the place I expected someone to at least read between the lines. I meant they didnt set foot on a battleground. Being in the country and not fighting themselves is as good as being a local tourist.
If it were my country and it was attacked by the Taliban, I would not be so gunshy about sending my soldiers in first hand to finish off the job instead of "using" the Northern Alliance. The Taliban had no aircraft, no tanks, no laser guided munitions, nothing. So exactly what was the purpose of bombing the shit out of them first with all the air/firepower at you're disposal if ground troops could have "finished off" the job anyway ? It's because they didnt want to become kalashnikov fodder like the russians were at the hands of the dug in Taliban who knew the terrain and the guerilla tactics far better. Being patriotic is all fine and great but at least look at the situation like it is. The Red Army is a considerable force to recon with so dont take they're defeat lightly.
You might argue that when one has the firepower why wouldnt one use it. I agree completely. But inspect you're own reasons about why they used it first. It was purely because it made the ground offensive a veritable cakewalk in comparrison to what the soviets faced facing the enemy in the eye on the ground. That was my point exactly - firepower and airpower are what win or lose a battle - not ground troops. They chose this strategy BECAUSE they learned from the Russian experience. Do you're research first before "educating" others.
wont be long before they mount one of the devices mentioned in this slash.do: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/01/23 2248
to one of these robots... Pretty close to those early cyberdyne models.
They need to make then spider-like, with bubbly personalities and armour-piercing chainguns.
Honestly, I doubt many wars get started for the sake of profitting on business during the war. On the other hand, once a war is started, it tends to inspire a lot of entrepeneurs from weapons system manufacturers to vendors to prostitutes. Afterwards, they might have an interest in not having the war end, but they generally don't go around starting one. For one, starting a war is a very unpredictable; you never know for sure who will side with whom or where the war will be fought. On the other hand, in an existing war, intertia will tend to make shifts in alliances or location a bit slower, allowing you to build a business plan based on the circumstances. Yes, they're profitting off of human misery. So are drug companies, hospitals, and tech support.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
We cherished those bald eagles and brought them out of extinction but certain races of human beings it seems doesn't deserve that dignity
Funny, that. Smashing a Bald Eagle's eggs would probably net you a lengthy jail term. Killing unborn human babies, on the other hand, is acceptable and is a very profitable industry.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.