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Rise of the Robot Squadrons
Velcroman1 writes 'Taking a cue from the Terminator films, the US Navy is developing unmanned drones that network together and operate in 'swarms.' Predator drones have proven one of the most effective — and most controversial — weapons in the military arsenal. And now, these unmanned aircraft are talking to each other. Until now, each drone was controlled remotely by a single person over a satellite link. A new tech, demoed last week by NAVAIR, adds brains to those drones and allows one person to control a small squadron of them in an intelligent, semiautonomous network.'
And personally, I'm not especially afraid the armed forces are going to change their tune on that aspect. They most definitely want to have a human being in the firing loop. And I bet part of the reason is that we may be close to having machines that can find and attack targets on their own, we're a hell of a long way from having machines that you can usefully reprimand for fucking up. :) But in all seriousness, this seems like a deeply ingrained philosophy in the military that humans should be in charge of the technology.
The enemies of Democracy are
All this air stuff is awesome, but the guys on the ground could still use a device that can detect a buried pipe bomb from a safe distance.
This is my sig.
It takes three people to remotely pilot a Predator. There are never enough Predators or Global Hawks in the sky for all the intelligence we would like to gather. We don't have enough people, platforms and dollars to buy, launch, pilot, and support all the reconnaissance we would like. And while the imaging capabilities on the big unmanned platforms is impressive, they still can't see through mountain ridges or down deep urban canyons. For that you need something that can fly right overhead and get close enough without being seen or heard and that requires lots of small UASs. But the only way we can get enough of those into the air is to have some way for a single person to manage two or a hundred platforms just as easily as one.
Swarm may be an unfortunate term, since it can evoke the image of a killer swarm of bees - hence we naturally think of swarms as lethal attack technology. In fact, unmanned attack swarms are still science fiction. The swarming research that is going on (and demonstrated in the article) is all about surveillance and reconnaissance. Even if we get to the point of arming the individual swarming platforms, there will always be a human in the loop making the final decision to fire a weapon. Don't kid yourself: even with all the new technology it has only gotten more difficult to make the decision to engage not easier over time. Ask those that do this for a living about the hoops they have to run through before they can fire a weapon from a Reaper.
You're clearly trolling, but what the hell:
Robots have bugs and glitches requiring timely patches and PRODUCT recalls
So do people. Psychiatrists and psychologists exist for a reason.
Blue screen of DEATH gets a new meaning.
It's had that meaning for quite a while, seeing as how much of our modern transportation infrastructure is either computer controlled or heavily dependent on computers. Yet, amazingly, the majority of accidents still happen due to driver/pilot error. Thousands of lives could be saved if we'd take control away from people, yet we continue to insist on having human operators because of our paranoid fears of computer malfunctions.
Seriously, this only illustrates how ethics and courage are not part of the empire mindset; just window dressing. This is how fat lazy cowards can take over the world. On the grander scale, its no different than traditional cultures going up against the Spanish, Romans etc- who's goal was conquest and not the honor of a risky act of sacrifice.
That's right - I'm sure that the Aztecs would have been complaining about the "unfairness" of it all, if they hadn't been scared shitless by the sound of boom-sticks, and I'm sure some spoiled twits back in Spain had notions similar to yours. Idiots have been whining about the advance of military technology for centuries - meanwhile those with a decent IQ and a bit of common sense have gladly embraced new tech as a means to protect lives and be more effective. If you want to clutch on to a Vietnam-era AK while cowering with the Taliban in some shitty little cave, feel free. You can feel all warm and fuzzy about how much "ethics and courage" you're showing as a hellfire missile turns you into pink jello. Me, I'll gladly watch from a distance, happy in the knowledge that every such explosion means I'll have one less flag-draped casket to carry down the tarmac.
Americans would attack everybody if it didn't cost them anything personally; that IS the reality.
President Ahmedinejad? I didn't know you had a Slashdot account! I guess being laughed at during your speeches at the UN and Columbia University wasn't enough for you, huh?