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Military Robots Expected To Outnumber Troops By 2023
Lucas123 writes "Autonomous robots programmed to scan city streets with thermal imaging and robotic equipment carriers created to aid in transporting ammunition and other supplies will likely outnumber U.S. troops in 10 years, according to robotic researchers and U.S. military officials. 5D Robotics, Northrop Grumman Corp., QinetiQ, HDT Robotics and other companies demonstrated a wide array of autonomous robots during a display at Ft. Benning in Georgia last month. The companies are already gaining traction in the military. For example, British military forces, use QinetiQ's 10-pound Dragon Runner robot, which can be carried in a backpack and then tossed into a building or a cave to capture and relay surveillance video. 'Robots allow [soldiers] to be more lethal and engaged in their surroundings,' said Lt. Col. Willie Smith, chief of Unmanned Ground Vehicles at Fort Benning, Ga. 'I think there's more work to be done but I'm expecting we'll get there.'"
I, for one, welcome our new Skynet overlord...
So far, we're pretty much using them as cameras. It's a bit of a jump to say they will start replacing soldiers.
catcha: Replacer
they must plan these things
Henry Slesar. Victory Parade.
Oh, that's right. In Capitalist America, the point is to kill furrin civilians with expensive machinery paid for with tax dollars.
You know what, go tax those machines and leave the people alone.
This is not to say that it'll be hard to stop the proliferation of military robots, but - is this really a good idea?
Sure, us Westerners, we can say how good a thing this may be - on the other hand, Gaddafi had some problems after a while with his troops seeing the misery they were spreading. To some extent, the same is true for Assad's Syria..
Can you picture what would happen, if rulers like those got their hands on military robots that will just unquestioningly mow down their own people, if the people don't like their "esteemed" ruler any more?
Or - picture them in the hands of North Korea...
Once they get deployed in one nation, no matter how well "behaved" that one nation will be, they will appear in other places - under less enlightened "leadership".
Killbots will protect Our Freedoms!
Robots will be excellent in fighting the human bodies of today's terrorists. But how will we defend ourselves against robot warriors of terrorist organizations? The old story: we arm ourselves for todays war and are blind for the future. Dutch politics has been discussing the Joint Strike Fighter for more than 10 years. They end up replacing 60+ F16 jets for a mere 34 JSF jets costing billions of dollars and will not see their limitations.
Poor quality clip
"The Killbots? A trifle! It was simply a matter of outsmarting them. You see Killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down. Kiff, show them the medal I won."
apparently, from a Simpsons episode in 1997:
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."[
Simpsons is prophetic once again.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The scary thought is Chinese industry manufacturing a few billion of them. Not big humanoids like the Atlas, or walking trucks like Big Dog. More like huge numbers of little quadrotors and insect to mouse sized machines to snoop around.
A troop is a group of soldiers. An individual soldier is not a troop. An individual soldier is called a soldier.
(keeps his microphone in his outstretched arms while he turns around a few times. Why carry a microphone if you're not going to speak into it??!!)
...and all military contractors lose their pork.
May be, just may be this is better for the world from an overall perspective. Those military contractors are the worst parasite of humankind.
And before you call me "anti-USA". No, I'm really torn on that. I'd still prefer the USA government to e.g. the Chinese. An the USA military is doing an awesome job in the Philippines. And all that.
But still: as long as those extremely powerful corps. with such deep ties into the decision-making of USA admin have something to gain from wars being waged, we'll have wars. On communism, on terror, on $PLACEHOLDER. Get rid of Lockheed Martin, of Blackwater, of...
Ok, are these robots going to run on battery or just some kind of diesel engine? If they are going to run on battery, is the technology available yet, or are we so optimistic that we can solve the issue in 10 years? I'm only interested in the battery technology, this is going to make it or break it. I'm not that optimistic, unless these guys have something in the pocket that we don't know about. Until we solve the battery (or fuel cell, or whatever portable energy pack) problem, we are not going to see much of autonomous robots (save the unmanned drone, or vehicle large enough to carry a big fuel tank).
Or - picture them in the hands of North Korea... Once they get deployed in one nation, no matter how well "behaved" that one nation will be, they will appear in other places - under less enlightened "leadership".
No. Once they are *possible* they will be deployed in nearly all nations, enlightened or not. Its not a western thing, its a universal thing. Its not like North Korea or nearly any other nation would pass on a non-WMD technology merely because the US or the west passed on it. Soon after cars were invented people mounted guns on them, soon after airplanes were invented people mounted guns on them, soon after drones were invented people mounted guns on them, ...
When robots with fully autonomous land navigation are practical, people will mount guns on them. The only question is whether fire control will also be fully autonomous or remotely controlled, as it is today with drones.
A troop is a group of soldiers. An individual soldier is not a troop. An individual soldier is called a soldier.
The singular of "troops" is "trooper", not "soldier". Troops are not necessarily soldiers, they may be Marines for example. The word "troops" is often used to be service branch neutral.
Today: a general might want to engage in some madcap but risky adventure but will be restrained because he knows that his ass will get it if too many of his own soliders die. This reluctance preserves life on both sides of the war.
Tomorrow: that general will do it since he knows that his bosses won't weep much over the loss of a few robots and not at all over the many deaths on the other side -- be they soldiers or civilians. The result will be a loosening of moral constraints to kill, not a good thing by my way of thinking.
We saw that a century ago when it did not matter to the generals how many of their own side died, remember the huge numbers who died in the Battle of the Somme and the deaths from drone attaks in Pakistan that few in the West worry about.
How will surviving bots be used postwar? What will R2PTSD2 do with his life then?
I can't be the only one who thought: "yes, that's because they've killed most of the human troops".
What chance would a normal soldier stand against a faster, more heavily armoured and armed machine with a much larger sensorium? The only hopes are that humans have retired from the battlefield entirely to leave it to the robots or are having second thoughts about the whole war-thing in the first place...
Primitive airplanes were just going to be used for observation of the other side's ground troops. Opposing pilots used to wave and call good morning to each other. Then some pilots started carrying pistols in case they were forced down in enemy territory. Then some pilot took a shot at an enemy pilot. Pretty soon they were taking pot shots and dropping bricks on each other. Then someone mounted a machine gun on the top wing to try and do real damage to enemy planes. Then some genius figured out how to make the machine gun fire through the propeller. Then engines got powerful enough that the planes could start to carry small bombs to drop on troops as long as the planes were overhead observing anyway. And so on.
This comes back to me when I see things like the iRobot robotic pack mule. It will just be a helper at first, then it will come with armament. As long as it's going to be in a warzone anyway it might as well be packing.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Even holy Yoda was tempted, and he should have known better...
Willie Smith? Really? I think he likes to be called Will Smith or Professor Dingleberry at night.
But how will we defend ourselves against robot warriors of terrorist organizations?
By that point, settling wars will more or less be a small group of meatbag generals fighting each other on a glorified video game, were the only difference between current games ("Command and Conquer", "World of Warcraft", "Street fighter", etc.) and these, is that a lot more very expensive hardware gets blown in they.
Still, the winner will probably the last to run out of quarter to continue the game, except the "amount of quarters" range in national debt sizes (see war by attrition).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Tomorrow's war will be rich people using robots to kill uppity poor people before they can become terrorists.
And the day after tomorrow will be grass-root guerilla resistance learning how to produce cheap alternatives. In a cave! With a box of scraps!
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
it might remove insurgency as a successful military strategy. I'm guessing that's what the US military is hoping for because it's given them so much trouble over the years. (Since the whole point of insurgency is that insurgents are troops so cheap that an expensive military can't fight them successfully. That would change if US robots are cost the government about the same as a given insurgent.) I guess that would make it more likely the US would get involved in foreign wars. (Since the populous wouldn't care.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Tomorrow: that general will do it since he knows that his bosses won't weep much over the loss of a few robots
Until the opposing side start to get also a lot of technology and becomes able to down several of the robot.
Then the general will be *really* sorry when he sees the bill and starts having difficulty rebuilding the army.
The one with the cheapest machine and the biggest budget gets the advantage at that point.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
when the CHICOMs have lifted one-child restrictions? no more killing of females in the womb!
Will all those robots be enough to fight against the vast numbers of future angry ex-military unemployed there replace ?
Strategically, this mean that it's useless to fight the robots. The only valuable target is the peoples that control the robots. The net effect is that the combat will move from the battlefield to directly the highest rank of the army. Be no naive, the army very well understand this, so if there use robots, this is in situation where the highest rank have no risk to do so. Obviously this schema is designed not for war between two army, but to massacre a civil population.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
I don't believe the bill will be the issue. If cost were the determining factor in war many wars wouldn't have been fought.
I think you should update yourself about a few subject like "Pyrrhic Victory" and "Attrition Warfare".
Numerous wars have been fought that didn't make any sense from a "cost" point of view.
As far back as its Namesake "Pyrrhus".
And as recently as now, USA's "War on Terrorism" is still contested, whether it was worth the gazillion of money thrown at it. (Well if you're a military contractor, it was worth, but I doubt seriously for anyone else).
"War by Killbot Proxy" has all the tell-tale signs of another such madness: the biggest being that it's a situation where "The One with the biggest and mightiest toys win". Then add that decision making (at all setp of the command ladder, from the general, to the engineer sending program-orders) is very remove from the front line...
Probably the only actual winner of such a law will be the emerging country where the production will have been out-sourced and who will be subsequently be under contract to provide Killbots to all sides of the conflict.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
San Jose, CA had its 95th Veterans Day Parade but there have been discussion this may be the last (dwindling sponsorships and fewer people involved with military). There are fewer military veterans. There was a time (WWII) when everyone was in the military or they had close family member in the military. Then later (Vietnam war) they still need a lot of military because back then in addition to combat troops, lots of privates and sailors needed to work the mess hall, clean toilets, repair equipment, and stand guard. Nowadays many of those positions are done by contractors. And now they will replace combat troops with robots? Obviously no (but maybe yes?).
mfwright@batnet.com
It is far easier to automate a warehouse, fueling and ammunition stations, and delivery than it is to automate a soldier. It is already happening in the civilian world. What happens when the military gets on board and logistics becomes automated?
What happens when amazon (and other) 'fulfillment centers' become hands off operations all controlled by some suit interfacing with a cloud app? The robots would not even need to have weapons to cause death and destruction on unprecedented scales. At that point there isn't even a need for sci-fi idea. A bad patch, malicious attacks, disgruntled employees, or ddos, any of the usual suspects can lead to no food, no fuel, and no electricity for millions.
The problem will be ignored just like it often is in IT today until the problem actually happens. By that time we will be dependent on it with no way to revert back, as all the people with skills and knowledge will have been laid off long ago. It will be just like the mortgage crisis, except this time it will be the food that disappears instead of arbitrary investment vehicle values.
When no one dies and both side just spend money that could be better spent?
That is NOT what Will Smith said about robots, lol.
Evolution
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html ... Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ..."
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
after the wars:
http://www.startrek.com/database_article/arsenal-of-freedom-the
"While investigating the disappearance of the U.S.S. Drake on the planet Minos, the crew battles aggressive energy spheres, swallowing sinkholes and invisible attackers.
Arriving at Minos, the crew is met by a prerecorded sales pitch for highly-advanced weaponry. This is not surprising, however, since the Minos people were renowned arms dealers during the Erselrope wars.
While exploring the planet Riker, Data and Yar are attacked by an energy sphere. Lieutenant Yar destroys the sphere, but not before it traps Riker in a transparent cube. Then, after Picard and Dr. Crusher beam down to investigate the crisis, the ground swallows them into a subterranean cavern, seriously injuring Dr. Crusher.
Although Data is able to free Riker, the away team is unable to locate Picard and Crusher. Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Enterprise comes under serious attack by an invisible enemy, which La Forge desperately fights to contain. Until the ship can adequately defend itself from the attacker, La Forge cannot beam up the crew members on Minos.
Back on the planet, Data finally locates Picard and Crusher. The team discovers that the attacks are coming from a computer-generated weaponry system which has gone out of control and has destroyed the civilization that created it. Fortunately, the team is able to turn the system off in time to save the planet ... and themselves.
Onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, La Forge is able to destroy the invisible enemy and beam Picard, Crusher, Riker, Data and Yar aboard."
Sounds like you've been reading a little scifi from years gone by.
You see, Killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shut down.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.