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Killer Military Robot Arms Race Underway?
coondoggie writes to tell us NetworkWorld is reporting that one researcher seems to think that a military robot arms race may be imminent between both governments and terrorists. "We are beginning to see the first steps towards an international robot arms race and it may not be long before robots become a standard terrorist weapon to replace the suicide bomber, according to professor Noel Sharkey, from the Royal United Services Institute Department of Computer Science. [...] Currently there is always a human in the loop to decide on the use of lethal force. However, this is set to change with the US giving priority to autonomous weapons - robots that will decide on where, when and who to kill, according to the professor."
Someone has to send the robot. At least until Skynet is built.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Why would I, a terrorist, go to all the effort of developing and building a sophisticated machine when I can can just blow stuff up?
Blowing stuff up is:
- Easier
- Cheaper
- Faster
- Harder to detect in advance
- Scarier
Maybe if I could take control of robots the military creates it would be worth some effort. But why bother? They're already something we should all be scared of: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/19/sa_gun_death_probe/
That's funny - but it's also true. We are a long, long way out from terrorists using robots. And they don't need to go high tech like that when they can round up some local people who are mentally handicapped and rig them up. That looks to have been working pretty well for them. Why add the cost of building a robot that will be spotted right off?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
What about Asimov's three laws of Robotics? (particularly law 1)
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
(and ps: yes I know these are just fictional but I can't pass up a chance to quote the master...hell he even invented the word Robotics!)
It is almost assured that we will have sex robots within another 10 years. WHy? 1 word; Money. How much money is made by prostitution? Even illegal, it rivals drugs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Long and short, when we let robots do our fighting for us, it becomes so cheep to make war that its cheaper to make war then peace. his is why I feel that people should always be required for the front line, war has to suck so it will always be a last resort.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Really it is just a matter of how long it is between when you pull the trigger. Land mines, Air to air missiles, surface to air missiles, Captor mines, Even some torpedoes are all killer robots and have been around for a good long time.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This short article seems to do little more than stir the FUD pot.
If you want to talk about having unmanned, remote control vehicles, some of which require little more than occasional supervisory control most of the time, I'm with you. We have them already, and more are in development all over the world. Expect to see lots more of them come about in the near future. As alluded to, this will be the robot arms race.
Terrorists using remote controlled devices to deploy and detonate bombs? Sure. It's not all that hard to believe that someone with some decent technical skills can put together a remote control kit on a full-sized car, then strap explosives to it (for example).
But c'mon. Killbots that can think and function completely on their own? ...and be effective enough in its mission to justify the costs of deploying it in lieu of something remote controlled by a human? Such a device is still a ways off for the U.S. Military, let alone some terrorist organization.
1) Robot suicide bombers isn't exactly an ethical step down for bombers - and it lacks martyr value.
2) I imagine fear of friendly fire will keep handlers at the controls of robots for quite some time.
3) I think there have been a few robotic sentries made that act autonomously but constantly report and can be overridden (S. Korea, perhaps?)...
4) Unsettling thought the implications may be, eventually I think robotic, autonomous war machines will be built - and for the builders, it will be quite a plus. Probably a bit of a downer for everyone else.
It may be seen in retrospect as another of those "Roman Conquest" moments where a powerful, advanced culture stomps all over more primitive cultures - but the survivors end up better off, at least for a while. History, like sausages, is a process whose benefits are better (more comfortably) enjoyed than understood.
I agree with this, for the most part. The only reservation that I have with it is that when you compare wars in the middle east (includes the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and Desert Storm) to wars in America's past history, hardly anyone has been killed (again, comparitively). Granted, there have been many MANY casualties on the American side, but not really all that many KIAs.
Living With a Nerd
Statistically, there are not very many suicide bombers. Just a few makes more than enough impact.
As for recruiting, the USA has been demonized by terrorist groups, and unfortunately the US has given lots of recruiting ammunition with Iraq and the problems there. Combine that with a lack of communication of all sides of the issues, a large uneducated population, and a fundamentalist religious group that makes fighting and dying "holy", and there is little chance of the terrorist groups running out of recruits.
I've been watching this story slowly spread around the net today since I develop for some of the systems referred to. The whole thing is a bunch of hand-waving 'OMG teh robotz will kills us all!' page rank generating crap.
First, very few robotic systems in the whole world right now are even weaponized, yet we're supposed to believe automated killing is "just around the corner". Second, no military anywhere has deployed fully automated (no human on trigger/joystick) weaponized systems ever, yet we're to expect legions of them very soon. Third, "terrorists" will supposedly get their hands on these systems and reverse engineer them to their advantage - do I even need to explain how improbable this is? Military and private research funded to the tune of billions haven't even been able to develop these systems yet, but we're supposed to believe some terrorist organizations with almost no funding and little access to high-level engineers will be able to understand and rework these same nonexistent systems. Is it impossible? No. I don't doubt that given enough time eventually some extremist group will have a CS PhD/MS level member who could figure something out. That still doesn't negate the fact that no groups have even captured and reverse-engineered current robotic systems, which are much less advanced than this alleged future autonomous platform would be. And finally, if one of the major world governments developed and deployed fully autonomous armed robots, does anyone really think there wouldn't be a remote shutdown/disable sequence or other back door?
It's fun to discuss possible dystopian Terminator style futures, but it annoys me to no end when some researcher or professor says we're all imminently doomed and the net runs away with the idea. We're still very far from fully automated systems with weapons. Even US tanks, which have highly advanced target acquisition and recognition systems, aren't fired except by a human operator. You'll see fully automated targeting and firing in manned vehicles long before you see it in unmanned platforms IMHO.
And to stem off people who point out that many UAVs fly totally unmanned, with weapons, and with no joystick control - there are multiple ground operators constantly monitoring and updating mission parameters for each of these UAVs, also all firing sequences are still human in the loop.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Set your phasers on "funky"!
The reality is that casinos currently allow prostitution in, but will not trade in the flesh itself. They are afraid of the stigma. But once they can sell a sex bot for say 100/night with no fear of STDs, unions, worries about how they will be perceived, child prostitution, etc, then All of vegas will carry them. It will be followed by Nevada allowing it. And finally, EVERY state (save maybe utah), will allow these. All in all, it will allow ppl like craig, or haggard, to get their jollies and not be technically cheating. After all, it is not sex, it is masturbating with a sex toy. In fact, this will probably help prevent much of our slave trade that occurs ALL over the world, even here in the west. Probably 80-90% of all slavery is about sex.
Imagine a means to all but stop child molesting, by allowing these perves to molest a robot child. I will say that this actually concerns me in that it might not be enough for these kind of ppl. It MAY make things worse, not better. But we probably ought to try and see.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
To those that challenge whether terrorists would use robots in the future, I disagree.
Terrorists don't make 155 mm artillery shells or munitions of any type. They rig what's available and hence IED, VBIED and other such improvised weapons are based on the highly available and cheap unspent munitions. Therefore it's not inconceivable that if sufficient "modern" militaries use robots in the future terrorists will be fashioning their new weapons out of those pieces instead. It will not be as good as the original, they're not going to build them from scratch nor somehow innovate since there's no need to. Just like their current versions of improvised weapons it'll be what they can slap together to at least scare if not also do some harm. It sounds crazy but I can see militaries in the future abandoning the "robot casualties" in war before learning how they can be used against them. After all, we don't seem to learn much from history and it'll likely be much like weapons caches left behind in past wars and other mistakes from a lack of foresight on our part.
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
Think about how many emo kids there are in the US.
Teenage angst? Mid-life crisis? Clinical Depression?
Does anyone think that the middle east doesn't have something equivalent.
I'm not so surprised that they have an influx of recruits regardless of what the US was doing.
It's important to remember, suicide bombing has been going on longer than the time the US has been in the middle east.
It will probably continue as long as someone over there is mad enough about something.
War, politics, technology, religion, cartoons, maybe skin color. They seem to have a lot of material to go on.
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
I think the fact that the initial campaign on Baghdad was called "Shock and Awe" was a pretty big give away. I mean, isn't that exactly what terrorism is? Shock and awe? A quick, violent, show of force with plenty of collateral damage which is intended to demoralize your opponent.
War: Well funded acts of terrorism.
Terrorism: Poorly funded acts of war.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Those kinds of stresses inevitably lead to the mental break down of individuals making them far more susceptible to those who would manipulate them into self destructive behaviours. Of course the worst thing about that kind of sustained flagrant abuse, is it will create a generation of people and take decades to resolve.
The track record for creating terrorists/freedom fighters by this route of invasion and brutal occupation, is pretty much rock solid, with genocide (the substantial eradication and eviction of the indigenous population) being the only way to resolve the situation (the current choice ?), other than of course getting the fuck out, paying reparations and making sure all those who committed crimes during the occupation are caught, prosecuted and convicted (it only makes sense as you really do not want these deranged individuals back in the general population without extensive rehabilitation).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Do you think it's easier to find an expert who can convince young people to become suicide bombers, or an expert that can make complicated robotic bombs? Depends on where you live, but if you never saw a computer growing up, it's probably easier to hire the former sort of talent locally.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Go fuck yourself. The US gets its own troops killed all the time because they maintain an ROE that trades the safety of US troops for the safety of Iraqi civilians. I'd appreciate it if you didn't then compare them to people whose only purpose is wholesale slaughter of civilians. Call them immoral if you want, but don't call them terrorists.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Whether there is a man in the loop or not, this is a dangerous development for the future of democracy. The ability to project force with fewer people in control means that it becomes easier to have a smaller military force of elites, who can be more easily controlled by an undemocratic government. With the U.S. government in particular, we already see in Iraq and Afghanistan a movement toward using private mercenaries. Without these mercenaries, the current level of force could not be maintained without a draft.
Now no one wants to be drafted, but a draft does have the advantage of populating the military with a broad cross-section of society. Such a force would be much less likely to tolerate being used to suppress a popular revolution if the government which commands them should go rogue. With mercenaries, and especially with mercenaries whose force is multiplied through robotic systems, you have a force motivated by money rather than allegiance to the Constitution.
So who wants to enlist first? Yeah, me neither. But we better vote wisely while we still can.
There's a very fine line between "terrorist" and "people who are pissed off because their country is being occupied"
As long as we're in Iraq (and making an absolute mess of it), we're providing impetus to breed more terrorists.
You cannot eliminate terrorism without addressing the underlying causes. There is no vast underground terrorist network. Just a lot of very pissed-off individuals.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose