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'Don't Fear the Robopocalypse': the Case for Autonomous Weapons (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick shares "Don't fear the robopocalypse," an interview from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with the former Army Ranger who led the team that established the U.S. Defense Department policy on autonomous weapons (and has written the upcoming book Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War). Paul Scharre makes the case for uninhabited vehicles, robot teammates, and maybe even an outer perimeter of robotic sentries (and, for mobile troops, "a cloud of air and ground robotic systems"). But he also argues that "In general, we should strive to keep humans involved in the lethal force decision-making process as much as is feasible. What exactly that looks like in practice, I honestly don't know."
So does that mean he thinks we'll eventually see the deployment of fully autonomous weapons in combat? I think it's very hard to imagine a world where you physically take the capacity out of the hands of rogue regimes... The technology is so ubiquitous that a reasonably competent programmer could build a crude autonomous weapon in their garage. The idea of putting some kind of nonproliferation regime in place that actually keeps the underlying technology out of the hands of people -- it just seems really naive and not very realistic. I think in that kind of world, you have to anticipate that there are, at a minimum, going to be uses by terrorists and rogue regimes. I think it's more of an open question whether we cross the threshold into a world where nation-states are using them on a large scale.
And if so, I think it's worth asking, what do we mean by"them"? What degree of autonomy? There are automated defensive systems that I would characterize as human-supervised autonomous weapons -- where a human is on the loop and supervising its operation -- in use by at least 30 countries today. They've been in use for decades and really seem to have not brought about the robopocalypse or anything. I'm not sure that those [systems] are particularly problematic. In fact, one could see them as being even more beneficial and valuable in an age when things like robot swarming and cooperative autonomy become more possible.
So does that mean he thinks we'll eventually see the deployment of fully autonomous weapons in combat? I think it's very hard to imagine a world where you physically take the capacity out of the hands of rogue regimes... The technology is so ubiquitous that a reasonably competent programmer could build a crude autonomous weapon in their garage. The idea of putting some kind of nonproliferation regime in place that actually keeps the underlying technology out of the hands of people -- it just seems really naive and not very realistic. I think in that kind of world, you have to anticipate that there are, at a minimum, going to be uses by terrorists and rogue regimes. I think it's more of an open question whether we cross the threshold into a world where nation-states are using them on a large scale.
And if so, I think it's worth asking, what do we mean by"them"? What degree of autonomy? There are automated defensive systems that I would characterize as human-supervised autonomous weapons -- where a human is on the loop and supervising its operation -- in use by at least 30 countries today. They've been in use for decades and really seem to have not brought about the robopocalypse or anything. I'm not sure that those [systems] are particularly problematic. In fact, one could see them as being even more beneficial and valuable in an age when things like robot swarming and cooperative autonomy become more possible.
Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA&t=
A deployed soldier can be upwards of half a million a year in costs.
[Citation needed]
In the land of $100 hammers and $1000 toilet seats, you really need proof of this? Give me a fucking break.
Yes, we need a citation, because the $500k number is total bullcrap. It is implausible that a deployed combat soldier, at the far end of a 10,000 mile supply chain, costs so little.
Here is a citation that the actual cost is $850k to $1.4 million per soldier per year.
War ain't cheap.
This does not surprise me at all, especially as the cost is arrived at by taking the total campaign cost divided by the number of soldiers.
Everything the US military does costs an eye-popping amount. The V22 Osprey costs $64000/hour to operate. The Bradley AFV cost over $50 for every mile driven. Recoilless rifle ammunition runs between $500 and $3000 per round. Every time an A10 opens up its mighty 3900/ round/minute cannon, each of those rounds costs $150.
The current administration's plans for increases in troop levels in Afghanistan are expected to cost the US taxpayer over a trillion dollars when all the downstream costs are included. In return they hope to secure access to about a trillion dollars in mineral reserves for US companies.
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