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What's It Like To Pilot a Drone? a Bit Like Call of Duty

Posted by Soulskill on from the make-it-like-minecraft-and-you've-got-yourself-a-soldier dept.

Velcroman1 writes "Teenagers raised on Call of Duty and Halo might relish flying a massive Predator drone — a surprisingly similar activity. Pilots of unmanned military aircraft use a joystick to swoop down into the battlefield, spot enemy troop movements, and snap photos of terror suspects, explained John Hamby, a former military commander who led surveillance missions during the Iraq War. 'You're always maneuvering the airplane to get a closer look,' Hamby said. 'You're constantly searching for the bad guys and targets of interest. When you do find something that is actionable, you're a hero.' Yet a new study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found real-life drone operators can become easily bored. Only one participant paid attention during an entire test session, while even top performers spent a third of the time checking a cellphone or catching up on the latest novel. The solution: making the actual drone mission even more like a video game."

37 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Insert PC vs. console flamewar here by muel · · Score: 2

    Solution to issues of boredom? Allow mouse+keyboard!

    1. Re:Insert PC vs. console flamewar here by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      Reason for innocent civilian deaths? Inaccuracies of using a controller instead of keyboard and mouse. I could target that Hellfire on a bathroom window, whereas those Xbox boys could only hit the broad side of a barn if there were women and children in it!
       

  2. Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by siddesu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is no guilt. The "enemy" is no longer people, but pixels rendered in false colour. No need to justify or otherwise rationalize murder. Neat. Welcome to the Ender's game.

    1. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by siddesu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sorry. You could have replied with a reference to the Speaker for the Dead. I think it would be very appropriate that the people who are about to be shot from the air had someone to say a word on their behalf to someone. Not the drone pilots or their commanders, but to the executives who make the decision to kill them based on largely one-sided, information. Not as good as a due process, but still an improvement over Call of Duty.

    2. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by hawks5999 · · Score: 2, Informative

      How about we go back to the "we don't need to police the world" paradigm.

    3. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by siddesu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, I'd rather go forward to using the proper tools for the job, like addressing the problems that result in unwanted consequences like terrorism. But shooting is so easy.

    4. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How quickly we forget the lessons learned on September 11th, 2001.

      And what lesson is that?

      Take repeated intelligence reports from your allies seriously?
      Bother to read and take heed of reports entitled "Bin Ladin plans to attack within the US" that detail planned use of aircraft?

      Ohh -- I'm sorry, I forgot.. we're all supposed to shove our heads up our ass and run around in fear while the US Government takes away more and more of our rights every time they say boo.

    5. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by couchslug · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Death was ALWAYS acceptable, done up close and personal.

      Have some Kampuchea, Rwanda, the Holocaust, etc.

      Also, "cannons" called, citing prior art.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    6. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      You responded to a false dichotomy with another false dichotomy. I'm confused as to whether this makes a false trichotomy or a false quadchotomy.

    7. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by chispito · · Score: 2

      There is no guilt. The "enemy" is no longer people, but pixels rendered in false colour. No need to justify or otherwise rationalize murder. Neat. Welcome to the Ender's game.

      I am not anti-drone when they are used responsibly. But I did find this quote from the article a bit provocative:

      Cummings says the secret could be to make drone missions work more like a video game. That’s the opposite of the trend in the automotive industry, where distracted driving can lead to more frequent accidents and higher fatalities.

      Emphasis mine. Are they worried more about the fatalities (bad guys dying) or the accidents (good guys dying)?

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    8. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most drone observations are surveillance.

      But not all of them.

      --
      No sig today...
    9. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      At least you're out on a field where the other guy can shoot back, not in a cozy armchair, texting with one hand and bombing people-shaped-pixels with the other.

      --
      No sig today...
    10. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by Warhawke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's worth remembering that the concept of war as murder is an extraordinarily modern concept with regards to human society. It wasn't that many generations ago that our forefathers even believed that if you died home safe in bed and not in the heat of battle that you would never see the afterlife and your soul might simply vanish. While plenty may consider that to be sociological evolution, and perhaps rightly so, I do not think it is fair to blame the dehumanization of war solely upon LCD screens and video games. The British wore red uniforms to disguise blood, and even the bloodthirsty Romans put sand in the gladiatorial arenas to soak up the gore. We have dehumanized war and death for far longer than the presence of the console video game.

    11. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by siddesu · · Score: 2

      Elimination of your "enemy" as a tool for solving problems (internal, like keeping power, economic growth or resource acquisition, or external, such as threats from belligerent neighbours) was probably the most straightforward solution when level of technological and social development was comparatively low. The question that needs to be asked and answered is how appropriate is it today, and is there a better way.

      It is a long topic, and Slashdot isn't the right place to pour one's soul out in a long treatise, but my opinion on the matter is that there is very little creative thinking involved when solving international problems, and the reason for this is that the people who end up being in charge are, by the virtue of the selection process to get them there, poorly equipped to solve such problems.

      Hence, we tend to get suboptimal solutions as a matter of course, and it is only after a major crisis that such tendency is temporarily corrected.

    12. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by VAElynx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And that's a good thing how, unless you believe that only dying in combat will bring you eternal reward in Valhalla?

    13. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      There has never been any guilt where it counts. You forget that the people who start wars have traditionally not been the ones who do the dirty work. Yes, Kings used to actually fight in wars, but they used to consider it entertainment, or at the very least, upward career mobility.

      Unless you're lamenting the fact that the grunts now don't have to sit in a trench, get maimed, or PTSD, drones are generally a good thing. I suppose that less of that makes it easier to keep prosecuting wars in the face of public opinion, but sending millions of boys off to war to be killed hasn't stopped wars in the past, so I think I'll go with the fewer casualties where I can get them.

      Unless you thought that no one could bomb, shoot or burn civilians before?

    14. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      At least you're out on a field where the other guy can shoot back, not in a cozy armchair,

      Close contact with the enemy does not make one dispassionate, and less likely to commit war crimes. It is exactly the opposite. A grunt on a patrol probably hasn't slept more than a few hours in the last week. He is hungry, and tired. His whole body aches with fatigue and itches with bug bites. His canteens are empty and his eyes sting with sweat turned to brine. Just yesterday he saw his best friend get his foot blown off by by a "toe popper". You think he is going to make more ethical life and death decisions than a well-rested, well-fed operator in an air conditioned van in Nevada who is having his every decision recorded? The depersonalization of war is a GOOD THING. Mistakes are still made, but we do not see any intentional atrocities like we did at My Lai, or No Gun Ri.

    15. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think Gith may have been refering to the idea that if fear is gone then war is easy. We can remove the fear by using remote drones, or by using people who have accepted and welcome their own death for a greater cause. Either works, and it's a really dumb arms race.

      --
      Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
    16. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by drkim · · Score: 2

      There is a rather lengthy and complicated targeting process to get authorization to fire

      Flip a coin?

      ...more like,
      "DR705 to JTAC, recce complete. Request clearance to go hot on target?"
      "Stand by DR705. (shake, shake, shake.) Ah, 'It is decidedly so.' DR705 you are cleared hot on target, cleared to release."
      "Copy JTAC.Copy: cleared to go hot on target, cleared to release. Thank goodness. Last time it came back, 'Reply hazy, try again.'"

    17. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't want to be on the other end of your so called targetting "process":

      http://www.cryptome.org/2012/01/0094.pdf

      This was a MANNED AIRCRAFT flying a mission in support of troops under fire. This NOT an example of the targeting process for drones the GPP was referring to. If fact it is the opposite: an example of what happens when you DON'T use drones, and you don't have the review and dispassionate decision making that they enable.

    18. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

      Thanks for pointing out the meaning of the word "Most".

    19. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ah, so that's why Drone operators never fire on civilians, funerals, first responders (look up 'double tap') or people who look like they would look at them funny at some point if they were ever in the same place.

      Further, I seem to recall bomb strikes in the Vietnam war (by well-rested, well-protected pilots in airconditioned cockpits) that would most likely be classified as war crimes had anyone but american soldiers perpetrated them.

      No, the impersonalisation of war is not a good thing. The end of war would be, and that is further off than ever, given the ease by which the US can keep bombing.

    20. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      Drones aren't used in a war

      Are you claiming that Afghanistan isn't war? Or are you claiming that drones aren't used for strikes against combatants?

      they are used to police by murder people from a foreign jurisdiction without any kind of due process.

      Due process and war are largely mutually incompatible. If you want due process, don't wage war. If you wage war, due process goes out of the window. Once again, it doesn't matter if it's a Hellfire missile from the drone that hits a civilian hut, or a shell from a howitzer.

      Drone operations are very error-prone,

      You'll have to quote some numbers to back that up, seeing as how you're claiming that drones are somehow more error-prone than air strikes called in by infantry spotters (a typical scenario in the absence of drones).

      cannot be appealed by the receiving end in any way, manner and form whatsoever

      Neither can bullets, shells, bombs or cruise missiles.

      Are they the best answer to the problem they are purportedly solving?

      Efficiently waging war against low-tech enemy? Yes, absolutely.

      Whether that is the right problem to solve is a different matter entirely. Again, the nature of drones is completely irrelevant here; they don't do anything that a dozen other weapon systems don't do. If anything, they do it better / with less collateral damage.

    21. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by infolation · · Score: 2

      You shoot the wrong thing. LIke a Wedding Party

    22. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      At least you're out on a field where the other guy can shoot back, not in a cozy armchair,

      Close contact with the enemy does not make one dispassionate, and less likely to commit war crimes. It is exactly the opposite. A grunt on a patrol probably hasn't slept more than a few hours in the last week. He is hungry, and tired. His whole body aches with fatigue and itches with bug bites. His canteens are empty and his eyes sting with sweat turned to brine. Just yesterday he saw his best friend get his foot blown off by by a "toe popper". You think he is going to make more ethical life and death decisions than a well-rested, well-fed operator in an air conditioned van in Nevada who is having his every decision recorded? The depersonalization of war is a GOOD THING. Mistakes are still made, but we do not see any intentional atrocities like we did at My Lai, or No Gun Ri.

      If your soldiers are committing atrocities against civilians, you need to train and monitor your soldiers better.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    23. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      I have a suspicion that you have never a) actually served in a military, b) never been shot at or c) never had to clean up your friend's blood after he has been while next to you.

      It amazes me how many people who have not had these experiences are willing to put in their comments (paid for in the blood of those who have). Great idea - join up for 2 years with an Army and see what the world is like instead of sitting in your comfy chair posting to slashdot.

      Guess what? I've never been the Commandant of a fucking Concentration Camp but I still know they were evil.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    24. Re:Death becomes acceptable, doesn't it? by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 2

      And when a known, verified, confirmed, visually-identified terrorist leader/bomb maker/etc. surrounds himself with his various wives and children with the express purpose of using them as human shields, what do you do then?

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  3. Re:Yes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    After all, in video games, you get penalized when you shoot the random civilian instead of the guy with the gun

    I learned the hard way you don't fuck with chickens in ocarina of time.

  4. Re:No Motivation to End the War by vux984 · · Score: 2

    We need to get a Republican elected to president so we can start caring again.

    I agreed with everything else that you said but that.

    The last republican president started the current wars, and the last 2 republican candidates have given no indication they would have prosecuted war less aggressively.

    You seem to be in denial.

  5. We saw it happen in "Toys" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If I recall correctly, this concept is addressed in the 1992 movie "Toys" [1] as seen in
    http://reelchange.net/2012/04/27/was-the-worst-robin-williams-movie-just-ahead-of-its-time/

    [1] and yes, I know it's a bad movie, but the idea of maneuvering real drones as videogames doesn't seem so out-of-time today.

  6. The Sound matter by chrisale · · Score: 2

    If Americans, Canadians, or any other citizens of Western Countries had to live with the sound of drones overhead 24/7 they'd think again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBRET2BCZUE

  7. And by M0j0_j0j0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Know what bothers me the most, is that there are democratic countries with "kill lists" , they even go public with it, and is fine, completely fine no one seems to bother !!

    1. Re:And by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Informative

      there's a shitload of countries with no capital penalty and which literally as a nation want nobody dead.

      who's on norways kill list? nobody. denmarks? nobody. swedish? nobody.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  8. Re:No Motivation to End the War by jbeaupre · · Score: 4, Insightful

    His point was that people cared about the wars and pushed for them to end when there was a republican president. People don't seem to care as much now with a democrat as president.

    You may or may not agree, but it is an interesting way of looking at things.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  9. Why should flying a drone be different? by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A common quote of combat pilots goes something like, "Combat flying is hours of boredom punctuated with a few seconds of complete terror." I've read something like this quote from several sources but most commonly from WWII pilots (and crew). Why should drone pilots expect it to be different?

    At least the drone pilots get to go home even if the drone itself crashes, gets shot down, etc. I can imagine what a ball turret gunner from a B-17 or B-24 would say about the drone pilots being bored when they spent hours in a cramped, unpressurized, freezing cold turret scanning the airspace below the plane for approaching enemy interceptors; trying to stay alert and alive.

    Cheers,
    Dave

    --
    They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
    Ben
  10. Re:Yes! by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    When was the last time someone played GTA without killing a civilian?

  11. Re:What they need is more pilots by Dahamma · · Score: 2

    The thing is, from what I can tell from TFA (yes, I read it, gasp!) the participants in the study were *not* actual UAV pilots, but the usual psych study volunteers (probably unfortunate undergrads).

    And they even mention that real UAV operators are "seasoned fighter pilots" - who by definition are college graduates with *years* of flight school and operational experience, often from the Air Force Academy. These people have already been highly selected to be the types who *can* in fact endure hours of boredom and still pay attention without "checking a cellphone". Maybe we in fact don't need to have a random 20 year old psych undergrad piloting military hardware, and in fact the current system of requiring highly trained military pilots to do a job where they make decisions potentially resulting in human casualties is actually just fine as is.

    The person with the highest score overall was the one who paid the most attention to the simulation. “She’s the person we’d like to clone for a boring, low-workload environment,” Cummings says — but such a work ethic may not be the norm among most operators.

    Yeah, that's the tiny but highly motivated fraction of the population making it through years of training that i was talking about. And in fact from what I have read, the UAV pilots (though who often do a tour in Iraq/Afghanistan for takeoff & landing which requires better latency) are based in NY, Kansas, Nevada, etc - which is why a lot of the very senior experienced pilots are happy to take that assignment...