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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....
Bite my shinny metal ass.
Highway to the...... Auto-Zone
Call them what they are KILLER ROBOTS!
Please explain how "performing early warning tests, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance" qualifies them as KILLER ROBOTS.
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.'"
Endless Sky has an interesting endless autonomous war.
They're unmanned fighter jets, didn't you read the scary headline?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What side do you want?
The Crimean War of 1854 was the first one covered in the media of the time, so that's when people in general had some idea of the ugliness of war. That sort of thing hasn't been around that long.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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...
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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.
I guess my mistake was in reading TFS.
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.
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."
The curse of the last century and probably still going on into ours is simple:
Weapon technology evolved faster than any human mind can comprehend, or any human ethics evolved with same speed. The previous Iraq war killed probably 5 million people. But it is downplayed as surgery strikes. And the aftermath probably is about to kill 20 million due to the ISIS crisis which no one dares to tackle.
For reference: WWII is considered to have killed 50 million. Bombing Iraq back into the "middle ages" and having ISIS running mad in that area is already approaching 50% of that death toll.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
it's not a fighter if it performs those tasks, that's not what fighters do
Or it could be that your numbers from the Iraq war are off by more an order of magnitude. The Iran-Iraq war had far higher casualty counts and was under two million. For reference, the Mongols kills more people in the region of Iraq than was killed in the entire Iran-Iraq war and the Moguls killed far, far, far more when they conquered most of India. When there were fewer people ways were still found to kill more without advanced weapon technology, but do continue with your narrative, I enjoy fiction as much as history.
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.
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.
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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...
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.
just asking...
Call them what they are KILLER ROBOTS!
Are you trying to make them sound worse or incredibly much cooler?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
PS can we give them awesome-swords as well? What's a killer robot without a sword to pull out at the coolest moment?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Australian killer robots if you don't mind, still as long as it costs a fraction of the F35 Flying Pig, a sound investment. Although fitting extra gear a waste of money, should just be more a boomerang style drone, if it find a target it rams it and blows up, if it doesn't it returns, if it finds a target and misses, well, try, try, try again.
As an interceptor, you just want it out their fast and kill the psychopath in the enemy fighter, so killer robot or killer human, which is worse in reality. I got to go, with the killer human being worse, of course the person who sends out the drone is also pretty bad but in defensive mode, annoy the crap out of the enemy pilot by removing their head from their shoulders.
Nothing is fair in war, it is the disgusting creation of very primitive genetic throw backs, worthless creatures who have no place in a modern sane society. Then all you need is a mobile air defence platform, not a fighter at all but a much larger craft, capable of producing a mobile defence zone to take out all enemy flying weapons.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
1-Russia, China, and North Korea spend a lot of time and money on "Hacking" western computer systems. Taking remote control of these jets seems like it would be a high priority target for them. 2-Replacing all our manned jets with robot fighters would allow America to destroy its enemies without any "Human" cost. Add robot ground soldiers and they can invade anyone, at any time, for as long as desired. How long would the Vietnam war have lasted without the draft and casualties? 3-No casualty wars means no inhibitions to war. Iran and Syria would be invaded, as would any country that doesn't obey America.
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.
3/2 is a fraction...
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.
Just keep in mind that 7/2 is also a fraction.