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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.
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.
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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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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And yes, we did name them.... The big one was Johnny 5, the little one was Johnny 2 1/2.
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.