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DARPA Issues Call For Computer Science Devotees
coondoggie writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for a few good university-based computer science researchers who might be interested in developing systems for the US military. The move is seen, in part anyway, as a way for the agency to win more hearts and minds of the advanced science community."
These are JOB postings, guys. Rare enough in the US these days.
Of course, you'll have to pass a background check, so you all just go ahead.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Job Spec: As part of this great, well paid opportunity, You will be developing our SkyNet and Colossus robot based anti personnel devices.
...or does DARPA not already have a MASSIVE amount of researchers under their wing?
Yes, but there's been a recent policy shift.
DARPA has, for the past several years, been trying to refocus away from academic research and more into "applied" (meaning, basically, private-sector) research.
This has not worked out so well, in a number of respects (both practical and pseudo-political) so DARPA is now moving back towards a more academia-friendly approach.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
You will be developing our SkyNet and Colossus robot based anti personnel devices.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could develop stuff like the Internet without at the same time spending such a vast quantity of otherwise productive wealth on deadweight loss activities like developing weapons systems?
And if we simply must pour huge amounts of otherwise productive wealth into deadweight loss activities, why not make it space exploration, unlikely-to-pay-off energy research, a cure for the common heartbreak?
What is it about killing people in large numbers that is so fascinating that it compels our interest?
It certainly isn't any actual utility: violience is the least efficient and effective way of solving any problem. History supports this with endless examples and a handful of counter-examples. So it can't be that anyone remotely sane ever looks at the world and says, "I know, what we need is more and better ways of killing people, because what we have isn't enough!"
So what is it? Why do people build such huge deadweight loss systems, far beyond anything required to simply protect ourselves from invasion by others? It can't be the purported serendipitous benefits because they could be had in far less devastating ways.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Did you RTFA? These aren't job postings. You already have to have a very particular job. A mere PhD is not good enough, no you must be employed at a university as a junior faculty member and have received your PhD within the last 7 years. (Amazing how quickly an advanced degree becomes stale. Guess it would have been discriminatory to require that every participant be under the age of 40.) This DARPA program is a way for you to secure your tenured faculty position by bringing in DARPA money.
Nowadays there are so many new PhDs fighting for so few positions that it has become extremely competitive. Lot of new professors quickly lose their positions for not having done enough quality publishing. DARPA will have no trouble recruiting, and attaching all kinds of onerous strings. Before the 1970s, you could have your own lab before you turned 30. Not impossible today, but very, very hard. This is a big reason why universities have been able to get away with paying at least 20% less than industry. And why DARPA can push such arbitrary criteria. Maybe they're trying to help younger faculty with this restriction of no more than 7 years. Bar highly, highly competitive, more experienced faculty from participating. But it is easy to see a self-serving pandering to the pop-science idea that people are mentally sharpest and do their best thinking and work before the age of 50 or perhaps 40. They're also angling for the more desperate professors who still have to prove themselves, and will therefore supposedly work harder. They may also impose their unthinking assumptions of how research should be done, and demand "action plans", "deliverables", and a full accounting of hours worked, as if research was only another business process. This is consistent with what I have seen from military backing of research efforts. That DARPA has the luxury to play along with such notions is yet another sign of how bad it is out there.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
And AQ/Taliban killed what? Guilty ppl?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Finally, a slashdove who acknowledges that DARPA actually had a positive role...
It gets results.
An item of faith among pacifists, particularly those protected by a government willing to use violence at a drop of a hat. But false; violence is quite effective, perhaps uniquely so; that's why all current systems of government are based on it.
Don't forget, the internet is a product of DARPA (formerly ARPA). Having advanced communications is essential for an effective military spread over the world, but it also happens to be very handy for everyone else too. Military campaigns are about more than just shooting things and blowing things up; fundamentally, they're really just giant exercises in logistics. Logistics have many applications outside the military: construction, commerce, etc. Someone who develops tools to improve logistical capabilities would be helping not only the military, but many other areas of human endeavor as well.