US Army 'Will Have More Robot Soldiers Than Humans' By 2025, Says Former British Spy (express.co.uk)

John Bassett, a British spy who worked for the agency GCHQ for nearly two decades, has told Daily Express that the U.S. was considering plans to employ thousands of robots by 2025. At a meeting with police and counter-terrorism officials in London, he said: "At some point around 2025 or thereabouts the U.S. army will actually have more combat robots than it will have human soldiers. Many of those combat robots are trucks that can drive themselves, and they will get better at not falling off cliffs. But some of them are rather more exciting than trucks. So we will see in the West combat robots outnumber human soldiers." Daily Express reports: Robotic military equipment is already being used by the U.S Navy and Air Force, in the shape of drones and autonomous ships. In April robotic warfare took a major leap forward after the U.S. Navy launched its very first self-piloting ship designed to hunt enemy submarines. Drones have been a feature of U.S. operations in the Middle East to disrupt terrorist groups. However, those aircrafts are still controlled by humans operating from bases in the U.S. Mr. Bassett also said artificial intelligence and robots technology would combine to create powerful fighting machines. The cyber security expert said: "Artificial intelligence, robotics in general, those will begin to mesh together."

Comments

Re:Ok

[Mr D from 63]

When all armies are made of robots, it will be senseless for them to fight each other. They will then be used to attack civilians.

Philip K Dick's The Defenders

[caseih]

Just recently I listened to the old radio show X Minus One's adaptation of Philip K Dick's short story, "The Defenders" which is appropriate to this story. In the story a brief nuclear war forces nearly everyone on the planet to live underground while robots continue the fight and the nuclear bombardment on the surface. Unknown to the humans, the robots figured out early on that the war was really stupid, so they stopped fighting and began to repair and renew the world, all the while sending fake war reports back to the humans and telling them that the radiation levels were toxic, when in fact there was no radiation left. Very interesting story.

Here's hoping that if every nation and group in the world starts making robots to fight for us, maybe the robots will realize how stupid this all is and refuse to listen to us until we all come to our senses.

Re:Hahahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you think that just because the US military currently has over 1 million human troops but zero robot ones, that in a mere 9 years, it won't have more robot soldiers than human ones?

It's not like it takes decades for an RFP to go out, proposal to be submitted, multiple rounds of evaluation to occur, finally select a contractor, litigate the selection of a contractor, actually begin designing the robot soldier, revamp the design several times as elections occur and new Congresscritters need their pork, fail to meet initial milestones, get funding cut, sue for more funding, get approved for more funding than originally planned, eventually release a nearly working product (one) with promise of the rest of the IOC requirements being met in just a few more years and an extra 200% on the budget, only to deliver IOC specs when FOC is due, now, does it?

Re: Ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The purpose of a robot army is to make it easier to start wars, and because they'll be controlled by a small number of psychopaths, there won't be any of this business of refusing to obey illegal orders, refusing to fire on civilians, etc.

The sad part is a lot of the public is going to believe the propaganda about this saving troops' lives, etc. You want to save troops' lives? Don't let them be used in illegal wars for corporate profits. That costs a lot less than robots.

A robo army in 9 years?

[stealth_finger]

Yeah, as cool as that might be, good luck with that. Unless by robot soldier they mean an RC vehicle with a gun strapped to it. When they say robot soldier I'm thinking terminator style endo skeletons with glowing red eyes, a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range and the lot.