Slashdot Mirror
Boeing's Autonomous Fighter Jet Could Arrive Next Year (engadget.com)
Slashdot reader technology_dude writes in response to an Engadget report about Boeing's plans to develop an autonomous fighter jet: In Season 1, Episode 23 of Star Trek, the Enterprise visits two worlds that are at continuous war. The war is ran via computers, and people that are victims in a "hit" report to a facility to be terminated. Kirk tells the world's leaders that there can be no peace if there is no cost to the war. We avoid war because of its cost and ugliness. Remove that and you remove the reason to stop. It looks like we may need the Captain to intervene here on planet earth. We seem hellbent on automating our militaries. The report says Boeing's recently unveiled autonomous fighter jet, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, is expected to arrive as soon as 2020. "The aircraft is designed to fly alongside crewed jets during combat, performing early warning tests, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance," reports Engadget. The company says the jets will cost a "fraction" of a manned fighter.
So SkyNet's air force arrives before SkyNet proper....
Call them what they are KILLER ROBOTS!
Highway to the...... Auto-Zone
We avoid war because of its cost and ugliness
Correction: we used to avoid war because of its cost and ugliness.
Now we just censor the ugliness via quid pro quo with the media companies.
And nobody gives a fuck about the costs anymore. What's another couple of trillion tossed into the bonfire...
In Season 1, Episode 23 of Star Trek, the Enterprise visits two worlds that are at continuous war. The war is ran via computers, and people that are victims in a "hit" report to a facility to be terminated.
That's not how it would ever work. One side would eventually cheat, commit the people who didn't suicide to war, and win.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I automatically dismiss articles that contain the word, 'could'. Literally anything 'could' happen. This is pure speculation. Clickbaitorama.
Endless Sky has an interesting endless autonomous war.
What side do you want?
Which for some reason has a 5 IMDB rating.
You could just build fast drones loaded with explosives and aim them at aerial targets or ground targets. Also probably won't turn into the floor wax desert topping the F-35 has.
There was a cost to the war. The people were killed. It was kind of a naff plot.
What we need to worry about is a future where the rich and powerful don't need us. Where virtually everything is done by a small number of machines and a tiny engineering class who serve the ruling class, much like the merchant class served the aristocracy of old in the Dark Ages.
Right now the rich need us to buy their stuff and they need to balance military and civilian life. Once they've got automated kill bots, custom life extension treatments and robots to make their baubles we're all pretty much worthless to them. History has not been kind to people who aren't needed for anything in particular...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The Star Trek example is irrelevant, since when US makes a no US victim war, the other party gets a lot of victims, including many innocents.
The company says the jets will cost a "fraction" of a manned fighter.
So... $75M each instead of, say, $85 for the Lockheed F-35. And $70M w/o the undercoating.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Good thing we won't be holding AI music concerts in a city that's actually a giant robot any time soon.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
97/100 is a fraction.
"The company says the jets will cost a "fraction" of a manned fighter."
Yeah, I'll bet this justification won't last. Costs will rise, there will be "unanticipated issues and delays", this thing will get expensive. And fast. It's the way of military weapons systems.
OK, sure, you won't need a cockpit, and an ejection seat, and oxygen. Can you do without wings, an engine, and control surfaces? No. Can you do without sensors, cameras, radar, communications? No. Can you do without weapons systems? No. Can you do without fuel tanks, landing gear? Nope. Would you like long mission times, range, speed, altitude, high performance? Yep.
Long term, the best you can hope for is that this is 10% cheaper. And once they start making these autonomous with advanced computing, hunt & seek, all weather, reconnaissance, stealth, countermeasures, refueling, AI and a cherry on top, I'll bet they cost more.
Besides, the defense companies have gotta make that sweet, sweet profit! And profits going down aren't part of the plan.
Remember, this is a military contractor. 99/100 is a fraction. For that matter, so is 3/2.
It's clear that the future of traditional war will be air power. Bombers taking off from Missouri, the heartland of the US, were used in the Iraq war. Their is no distance they can't cover with assisted fueling.
Why didn't the ships in Star Wars auto-fly and auto-target/kill?
Spielberg didn't see the future. James Cameron sort of got it with Terminator, except the machines weren't very good shots.
Automated war is terrifying.
From the ground, motion detection and enemy identification from a mile is not out of our reach (I'm sure some our working on this, it's not complicated).
It's this sort of tech that will result in a nuclear exchange (EMP = stop that shit). In my opinion.
How easy is this stuff? Here's an auto-aiming Nerf sentry turrent:
https://newatlas.com/nerf-vulc...
What's my point? I don't actually know. But automating war creates more enemies. Not waging war, not so much.
BlameBillCosby.com
"You can be my wingman anytime." "Bullshit, meatbag. You can be mine."
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
it's not a fighter if it performs those tasks, that's not what fighters do
Movie: Stealth covered this like 10 years ago. Today the military is prioritizing wolf pack fighter teams more than swarm technology. This is the angle that DARPA has open invitational SDR swarm war games with drones, a worthwhile program in my opinion. Wolf packs within swarms are more efficient. In massive RvB aerial engagements it's always the wolf packs that win. That's what Top Gun tactics are built around so that's where they want to go with it. You'll have your dedicated jammer/defenders and hunter scenarios. Regardless if they are manned or unmanned, the tactics remain the same until they are eventually replaced with machine learning will. A.I. will take the battlefield to the next level making up for inefficiencies in large scale manned aerial engagements. Manned aerial vision (even with a 360 augmented view), reaction, and prosecution are slower than a machine. It's all about efficiency. If an enemy gets past defensive measures and destroys the mobile controller, satellites, and radio systems it's going to be a one sided battle if invasion is the next step. Even though it can be used for offense, air and space superiority is paramount to defense. The funny thing about drones is they always have an RTB protocol that can be taken advantage of. Team A vs Team B and as soon as the engagement begins Team B flies for home while Team A shoots them out of the sky. Better yet reprogram their RTB to be your landing site and now you have all of their aircraft too. The whole concept is ridiculous and just a matter of time before entire fleets are turned on their owners. It's not Skynet but it'll seem like it when your own countries forces are used against you. "Mr. McKittrick I've come to the conclusion that your new system sucks". Take men out of the loop and it's just million dollar battlebots in the sky. Like most murder bots the creators are too busy working on if it's possible than to stop and think if they should.
Once a group of people suffer no personal loss by physical actions, all sense of conscience will go out the door. Just look at who is stoking the fires of war in world now and who actually goes out to fight these wars. They are not the same people! Imagine who these people would consider as an "enemy" if they have a machine army in their control?
The real danger with a concert in a Macross future isn't Macross Plus, It's Macross. You could wind up with Lynn Minmei.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The stealth fighter doesnt even have afterburners. They should call the F-117A a light bomber, really.
Truth is there really hasnt been any so-called "dog fighting" since the jet engine took over. Whoever sees the enemy first and fires their super sonic air to air missles usually wins.
So once all the humans have been removed from the equation my prediction is war will turn into a spectator sport, similar to how football or the Olympics are now. It will of course be pay-per-view and you will be able to gamble on it. Hell they may even get gamers involved (via remote-play of course) pitting their skills against the algorithmic powered metal killing machines (although if they're only destroying other machines then i guess technically they're not killers).
with modern tech they can. They can have small scale boutique level factories run by robots make their things. A tiny cadre of engineers will keep it all running. Automated killbots and drones armed with bombs and guns will keep the rabble at bay.
In the past the wealthy had to maintain military to avoid being overthrown. They then had to maintain a healthy civilian life for the military to shift into when they were at the apex of their careers so that again, they didn't get over thrown. Kill bots and automated factories do away with all that. They don't need to bother.
Have you seen Battle Angle Alita (or more to the point, read the comics). Like that. The wealthy will live on high dumping their garbage on us. Or think of the American Indian Reservations before the casinos. That's what happens to people who aren't needed or wanted in a society that doesn't set a high intrinsic value on human life.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The given example was poor: there was a huge cost in lives sacrificed willingly.
In the real world there is also a huge cost. Money and lives. Of course, when we have the autonomous weapons, it's foreign lives so they aren't really a loss to us. But what about the money?
When our military costs, combined with the cost of subverting other governments and also the surveillance of our own citizens total more than the military cost of all other countries combined, then we can count that as a significant cost.
If instead, a similar amount of money were invested in helping countries instead of threatening them, we would be loved and wouldn't need a military. If some of that money was invested in helping our own citizens instead of threatening them with Big Brother, we could empty our jails and many hospital emergency rooms. If we put some money into parental guidance and education and a proactive health care system, we could have a model society.
But then Boeing's profits would drop considerably, and their donations to congresspeople would follow.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I don't get the terminology. Autonomous jet aircraft? Isn't that the same thing as a drone?
I'd only see this as a deterrent, not an actual combat aircraft. Still, if you don't train with it, you run the risk of not knowing what to do in an actual event.
Been there, done that. Wink wink, nudge nudge. A footnote: It doesn't have a sense of humor.
The human body is the failure point in modern fighters. G forces must be limited for a human to survive. The human can not be on that plane. Further human life support systems take up a lot of space. With robotic warriors no cock pit is required. That space can be used for fuel and weapons. Then there is another cost factor. Ruined or dead airmen and their survivors cost a fortune. No more mangled men and bodies to deal with at all. No human operated aircraft will be able to compete in combat. And it gets better. Ships also are better without sailors. Imagine a mother ship launching a smaller ship for the last 300 miles into a combat zone. The zombie ship needs no humans etc.. Once that zombie is on site it can wage all kinds of war more effectively than a human occupied vessel. In essence the conventional warship becomes a tow boat and fuel and weapons hauler that stands outside the battle arena. These days a small unmanned zombie warship could easily have more fire power than weapons of all types, used by all sides during WW2. And we don't even have to worry about radiation in the combat zone. So far air and water are the easy places for automatons. Land has far more challenges but we will soon see the Army soldiers become a historic oddity. These things are already taking place.
Did he say no military?
just asking...
now we just need anti-matter weapons
War being the face-off of armies is only a consequence of nations preparing to defend themselves from armies of other nations.
War is simply a beating other nation or group into submission. If that other nation or group doesn't have an army, the better for the attacker.
Therefore, there is always, always, a cost of war, at least for the ("vae) victis(") side. And robotic armies absolutely will be used to kill civilians and raze down their property if they refuse to comply.
Nations playing simulated warfare without (or without threatening to) killing civilians or destroying civilian property and infrastructure is merely a sport and need not stop, as long as sides can support their participation financially.
Don't remove a human mind from the orders/trigger of others.. Think about it, do you want a single president or any individual to be able to set orders to destroy/attack 'anything' without additional minds(ethics) in the way.. Sure ONE attack could be carried about by any individual but we are talking dozens, or thousands of armed craft that could wage wars or cause terror without method to stop it. All from the desk of one nutter.
Sheesh, I know I'm being a grammar Nazi here, but this one is a pet peeve of mine. The past participle of "to run" is "run" not "ran." So the sentence should be "is run" not "is ran." I'm constantly telling students of my CFD courses that simulations are "run," they're not "ran."
Somewhere i got the impression that the US Navy is already building an automated war ship. i would be shocked if they have not done so. There is and has been one civilian helicopter making daily deliveries back and forth across the Mexican border for several years. It has no pilot.Obviously if a device can carry mail or whatever it can carry any number of military devices. One good use for automated helicopters is picking up wounded warriors from battlefields far to dangerous to end in a piloted craft. We can only hope that such devices prevent wars.
Just saying...
Seriously, not having a pilot will allow the plane to be smaller, lighter, faster and more maneuverable.
3/2 is a fraction...
It scares me people are looking to Star Trek for moral guidance.
People abusing women, themselves, and acting like they're smart because their guns go "bee boop" when they push the buttons.
This weapons KILLS people and destroys stuff. The same as guns and bombs and missile - oh, wait, our fighter jets do that now. It is saves pilots, like a mother I heard interview on NPR in Nevada who get her kids ready to school in the morning and then spends a eight hour shift killing people in our foriegn wars by remote control.
They want money. And they only get it if people buy their shit, which they won't do if they don't need a replacement. Of course they want war to continue forever! Its good for the bottom line.
This is a drone controlled by a pilot in the field of combat, rather than a pilot in an office building in the Virginia. Sounds like it's putting the controller more at risk, not less. The air force actually had TV-equipped drones in WWII. They were old bombers loaded with explosives that were flown by radio from another aircraft, and which were directed to fly into targets and explode. This sounds like a development of that program.
10/10 is also a fraction
No other country will need to develop this tech themselves. They can just hack them and use them to attack targets in the mainland USA. Might actually make America think twice about murdering people abroad without thought of repercussion... oh wait. Déjà vu anyone.