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Soldiers Bond with Bomb-Defusing Robots
hdtv writes "Reuters is running a story that talks about the emotional bonds that US soldiers develop with the robots in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The company, most famous on the US market for its Roomba vacuum cleaner, provided '300 PackBot Tactical Mobile Robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to open doors in urban combat, lay fiber-optic cable, defuse bombs and perform other hazardous duties previously done by humans alone.'"
Oh, why didn't you take me instead, oh why!?!?!?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
So it is after this "bonding" as they call it that the citizen of Iraq will welcome their bomb-defusing soldier-hybrid overlords?
one must ask that if the bond goes the other way could you end up with manicly depressed robots? :)
As a Disabled American Veteran and member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, let me say Thank You! This technology is long over-due.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Film at 11.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I don't suppose it's that hard to bond with something that saves your life on an ongoing basis. Perhaps someone should write a paper on it?
Venkman: You're not sleeping with it, are you?
We humans are such bonding creatures aren't we? I actually realized this just last evening when I was playing the sims 2.
I had never played a sims game before, but all the excitement and buzz around spore made me decide to try out some of will wrights designs - so I picked up the highly reviewed sims 2.
I created a family and was amazed at how quickly I became attached to them. I feel so compelled to make sure that they are well fed and happy - and I have become extrememly preoccupied with making certain they all have positive relationships with each other.
Then I suddenly realized that these sims are programmed to age and eventually die! I then started another family which I care much less about and refuse to load my original family because I can't bear the thought not only of their permanent passing - but of the distress it will cause the other sims!
Someday I will take them out of this suspended "animation" when I discover how to make them live indefinitely - either through game methods or life-saving game modding!
perform other hazardous duties previously done by humans alone
...that's pretty much true of my Roomba. Wait till I figure out how to make it do the dishes.
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
So, uhh.. Awesomo.. are you a.. pleasure model?
...
DOES NOT COMPUTE
hey did that robot just fart?
twitter.com/gravitronic
This is my robot, there are very many like it but this one is mine....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I wish I had a robot that could apply glue.
Would be much easier to bond with.
but you can't love your battle bot.
Soliders name their rifles, Pilots paint nose art on the planes. Roman legions probably named their swords. You develop an attachment to the things that you rely on and that serve you well. You can't trust that your buddy won't get killed tomorrow, but you can trust the fact that your M-16 will work as advertised.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
If you ever did military, you'd know that you're always teached that "your rifle/gun/whatever shoots and can save your life" is your best friend. "Treat it with respect, clean it, oil it & keep it runnin smooth so when you need it, it works." as the teaching goes. Now, if they teach that for your gun that doesn't move or obeys you with a remote and still, people do get connected to it, imagine with a little robot. Think of it like a Tamagochi and you'll see that it's the same principle. With a robot that saves lives, the bonds can get even stonger.
How about a film where the soldier abandons his robot in the desert, because the robot keeps calling him "daddy" and it's creepy. And then the robot sets off on a quest to understand itself, and meets up with a sex doll and goes looking for the "Green Hummer"? The film ends with Harrison Ford telling the robot it has no end date, and they drive into the mountains together. Captain Adama lands in a spaceship, leaves a little oragami unicorn on a ledge, and then the hot Cylon chick shows up and takes off her shirt.
Just came to me. I better write the outline before I forget.
Soldier: "What's a nice robot like you doing in a place like this?"
Robot: "I'm looking to set something off? How about you?"
Soldier: "Well I'm certainly armed now"
Robot: "You're not one of those 3 minute timer types are you?"
Soldier: "No mam, er...you ever watch BSG?"
Robot: "No"
Soldier: "Good, mind if I call you #6?"
Robot: "Anything is fine but 'Rosie'"
Soldier: "Great, care to get out of here *Rosie* ?"
Robot grabbing soldier's PED (Personal "Explosive" Device): "Time to cut the wire funny boy"
Soldier: "No...a 3G Terminator unit.....NO!!!!!"
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The article is interesting, but I don't think it's particularly novel. Consider the way some guys treat their cars. Add in the psychological effect of the battlefield and some degree of attachment is not surprising. Plus, we've long had a tendency to personalize our creations. From naming ships to creating flashy avatars like "Clippy" that wonderful Word assistant that everyone wants to twist into a pretzel and toss into a furnace.
I've also read that some police officers in K-9 units take counseling when their dog dies in the line of duty, because they worked so closely together. The bond between dogs and humans is much more obvious, but I think related.
*gasp!* Linguo! Dead?
Linguo....IS....deeeaaaaad...
Kick in the Head
No disassemble!
One of the lessons learned, and there are several in the nascent robotics market/industry:
- People will anthropomorphize mobile robitic devices (iRobot does the roomba and the pakbot) see their website. People will accept what LALAwood has nearly always portrayed as bad or evil, as a tool and useful.
- Even relatively small robotic systems can be very useful to military and police forces.
- You don't need a EE degree to operate a complex robotics system.
- That for about the cost of an assault rifle, you can save lives.
On top of those lessons, current technology would allow the US to create robotic weapons systems. Say when a patrol gets ambushed, they engage the firing system that puts 120 bullets in the area (any area) from which the system detected gunfire. Police in LA and Miami (IIRC) use sound systems on light poles to detect gunfire. Then while the soldiers are behind protective shielding, the 'robot' is pummeling any would-be attackers.
Trusting robotic systems, especially semi-autonomous or autonomous systems is thought to be difficult, but this proves that people will accept and use them to their full potential. I'm sure that iRobot is finding new ways to improve their robots every week with soldiers using them in a war.
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To all the responders asking "how can this be" -Anthropomorphism.
People act that way towards their cars, too. At least, the dumber (jock type;) ones do.
Is No one else reminded of 'Appliantology'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe's_Garage
I was in OIF I and OIF III. I can tell you while I didn't have a robot at any point you do develop these odd co-dependant relationships with certain items, more-so with the clunky ones for certain reasons. In OIF I it was our truck, named "Jihad Joe".
The thing about Jihad Joe is it was a piece of crap, but it was our piece of crap retarded truck. We had to constantly work on it, we modified the hell out of it due to lack of parts and our special needs - spider webbing harnesses for storage, ghetto-rigged the cooling system, wired a DC converter to the battery and hooked a laptop into the SINGARS radio so we could do low-baudrate but secure data burst transmissions off of it (via hyper terminal, yes, very ghetto). The truck was constantly on the verge of death, got some bullet holes, took shrapnel, had a van friggin smash into the side of it, and it got a black eye (headlight busted out).
However the truck saved us many times, and always responded well to our on the fly fixes we had to do while we were out in the city. We limped it back home on many occasions, and we lived out of the vehicle sleeping on it or in it for about 4 straight months and off and on during other periods.
We became very attached to this, partially because we had to work on it so often and in so many ways. We had a co-dependant relationship, and we felt both sides recognized this. We wouldn't abandon it or scrap it, and in turn it would not leave us totally screwed, like some of the better vehicles that when they broke there was no getting them started again. Our truck was a member of our team.
So, parallel that with these robots, the things are high maintenance, and anyone who has had to PMCS anything in the military can tell you that. these guys sweat keeping it running, and it in turn serves a specific function which helps keep them safe. They become unit mascots, a member of the team, much more than a piece of equipment. You are around these things all the time for a long period, you screw around with it in the barracks and get it to fetch your lighter for you or pour water on your sleeping roommate. It becomes one of the guys and develops a personality.
In summary, just from personal experience, this is not surprising.
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I guess i am not the only one here that feels a certain 'bond' to my primary PCs, and i really try to give them somthing useful (routing, fileserving, whatever) to do after i can't use them as my primary workstations anymore. Nonsense, if you think about it, but i still do it.
What i found most interesting about this 'bonding' was to figure out exactly what i was bonding to: if i replace a video-card, some RAM or even the CPU, i still 'feel' as if it's the same machine, even though it obviously isn't. I guess i could change any component, one after the other, and still feel that bond. Thus,, this bonding mechanism (for me, at least), works on a more conceptual level.
Isn't this the same way we bond to other living beings? Like a long-lost friend that might be about 99% different than the last time we saw him, yet still consider him our friend?
Not necessarily the same use however. Canadian doctrine tells you that you can engage the enemy effectively at 400 meters with the C7 (M16 variant) with section strength. You can't do that with an AK-47.
In Vietnam sure this was not an advantage, but imagine those few times when your section can mow down oncoming enemy from a comfortable distance. Because what you have is essentially a precision rifle with the ability to fire in repetition.
There are other advantages to the M16, the ammunition is far lighter. That means you can carry a lot more of it, the more you have, the longer you can typically last in a conflict. Assuming you have a cleaning kit with you to prevent jams.
Dave: Hal, could you...?
HAL: Don't ask, don't tell Dave.
HitScan
And yes, we did name them.... The big one was Johnny 5, the little one was Johnny 2 1/2.
As a civilian (and a reader of history), let me say, whaaaaat? The only thing that stops our armies invading any resource-rich country they desire is the marine deaths. Ask any American, the death toll in Iraq is around about 3,000. They don't even consider the lives of the "enemy", or the civilians caught in the crossfire. Once that 3,000 figure was met, the opinion "back home" changed dramatically. Add one more zero to that, and you get the certified, double-checked list of civilian casualties. A number I've NEVER seen mentioned on TV news.
Wow! Social-Political overload. I can tell you read a lot of history; your evidence is so overwhelming and compeling. Heck..you should have a job with the NSA. I cant imagine why you arent president. Enlighten all of us; why would the "Marines Deaths" prevent "our Armies" from "invading resource rich countries?" As if the death of a fellow Marine or soldier really means something to you. To you its a number that you can use to make a point; to those who have served (including myself having spent 2 years in Iraq) they are what we refer to as friends...say it with me now...F-R-I-E-N-D-S...friends, yay you got it.
Do you honestly think these robots are going to make the world a safer place? You are talking about a future where our leaders can wage war without any repercussions? No fallout once the flag-draped coffins start getting fed-exed home? Surely as a veteran you realise that this cannot be good?
Do you honestly think the point of the robot is to make the WHOLE WORLD a safer place? Think smaller; think making the American soldier a safer person. Oh, "flag-draped coffins" dont come in Fed-X we use DHL now. That is the dumbest remark I have ever heard. They are fly in on military planes escorted by the military. Uhm...turn the page history reader. The book is better when you get past the cover
9-11 was a direct result of our meddling in the middle east. Now we have robots to do our dirty work, do you think that's going to improve the situation? Is it going to "win hearts & minds", "shock and awe" or just downright, extreme, suicidal hatred? Your children can answer that for you...
9-11 was not America's fault but thanks for that once again biased history lesson. Robots are not going to improve anything. That is not the point of the robots we use. The military uses them to take safty precautions so a life can be spared should the bomb go off. Would it be better if there were no robots so that you could add to that 3000 you so diligantly keep track of? God forbid we call these numbers people, worse American soldiers. So save the history lesson Aristotle; and spare us your blind, bias, judgemental and otherwise pointless view of the war in Iraq.
The only thing that stops our armies invading any resource-rich country they desire is the marine deaths.
If South Korea were attacked by North Korea, and the US intervened, would America's use of mine-clearing robots be a good thing, or a bad thing? Whether you're talking about a "just" war or an "unjust" war, the soldier or marine on the ground just wants to stay alive. If robots can help him stay alive, that's a good thing - just like body armor, kevlar helmets, better military medicine, and so on.
If history has shown us anything, it is that humans will kill each other. The machinegun was going to end all wars. Dynamite was going to end all wars. The atom bomb was going to end all wars. Something tells me mine-clearing robots isn't going to make much of a difference one way or another in the grand calculation about whether we go to war or not. It will, however, make a whole lot of difference to the guys on the ground.
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And I know I do it all the time with programs. Who *hasn't* said "Come on baby, work with me here, no NPE no NPE no NPE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I HATE YOU!"
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
So if you ever have a conversation with a paramedic, ask them about bike accidents they've responded to. Ask them what the motorcyclist keeps saying over and over again. The guy will have bone sticking out of his leg, and all he'll say is, "Dude! Is my bike okay?"
Seasoned EMTs have a canned response: "Couple of dings, paint's scratched, but she'll be fine." Once you get that thought of the rider's head you can get around to the "oriented times three" questions.
This is not my sandwich.