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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...
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".
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."
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20081110/crispin-a.shtml
They aren't ready for prime time, but the day is coming.
Or have you never heard of a Predator Drone firing a Hellfire missile?
Wait, there's more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOuH_X3lFMU
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOuH_X3lFMU
Yea, they look silly today, but then so did the first tanks and airplanes in 1914.
It won't happen in 5 years, but it will happen within 50 years. Give or take...
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.
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
How sophisticated does a guidance system have to be before it qualifies as a (rather suicidal) robotic soldier?
While there seems to be a bit of a taboo about handing a robot a gun and telling it 'yeah, just frag anything that looks particularly infrared in that direction', heat-seeking missiles, with no human terminal guidance, have been available for years.
We don't have anything that makes broader strategic decisions; but if you count robots attached to their munitions, we've been letting robots make kill decisions, within a confined search space, autonomously for some time. They just don't get to come back afterward.
(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??!!)
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.
Aren't those two youtube URLs exactly the same?
Max.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLUCSc9T7Hk
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.
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...
And torpedoes ... good point.
And, come to think of it, CIWS systems. Those are only slightly autonomous (mounted on a turret, limited field of fire, only fully computer controlled when set to that mode, which is something that people generally avoid unless necessary because their IFF isn't so hot...); but when the switch is flipped, that's one or more autocannons raining computer-controlled death as the mood strikes them. And those robots don't die on impact, like warhead guidance systems do. Armored vehicle active-intercept systems might count as well, if anybody actually has one working right now, not sure where in development those are.
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...
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 ]
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.
Cruise missiles are not autonomous. They simply fly a programmed route and hit an assigned target.
would be a crime
Uh, yeah. Tell that to the Iraqis and Afghans. The US even had our puppet governments declared that no "civilian contractor" (aka "mercenary") could be prosecuted for a crime.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
They had already developed attack-avoidance systems for the by the end of the Reagan bAdministration, I'd be shocked if the software hasn't advanced since then.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
It only took 50 years to go from Eniac to mult-core processor with gigabytes of memory accessing data from around the entire planet on every desktop.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
How sophisticated does a guidance system have to be before it qualifies as a (rather suicidal) robotic soldier?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Desktop? You mean handheld computer smartphone.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
When the robot decides whether to kill or not without a human giving it permission because you are right, even with modern smart missiles I think a human can still tell it to not detonate remotely.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
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
ENIAC was introduced in 1946. What handheld computer smartphone existed in 1996?
Free Martian Whores!
Even without electronics, we've been distancing ourselves from our enemies since the atlatl. If we want to look into our enemy's eyes as we kill him, we're gonna have to go back to daggers. Everything after that is a matter of degree.
At least with CIWS, the humans have to flip the switch to 'automated'; but once that step is taken (and, presumably, any killer robot has to be powered up at least once), it will fire purely algorithmically without human intervention (the use case is incoming missiles closing faster than human reflexes could respond, so this isn't really optional, though full-manual and 'automated-target, human pulls trigger' modes are available for slower aircraft and surface threats).
Now, because the robots aren't wildly competent at avoiding friendly fire, human judgement is encouraged to keep the problem space as constrained as possible, but within their scope, it's fire at will.
Even without atlatls, we've been distancing ourselves from our enemies since politics. Convincing a lackey to and try to stab the other guy, while you attend to vital administrative matters and/or depraved feasting, has been an important leadership skill for millenia.
That is NOT what Will Smith said about robots, lol.
Given how much stuff they sell, it is a huge challenge, a robot has to be able to tell the difference between a toaster over and a blender, and of course a set of sheets, or maybe a DVD player.
Not at all easy, but the money they could save if they get it right...
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.
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.