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Killer Military Robot Arms Race Underway?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Feb 27, 2008 04:21 PM
from the skynet-unavailable-for-comment dept.
from the skynet-unavailable-for-comment dept.
coondoggie writes to tell us NetworkWorld is reporting that one researcher seems to think that a military robot arms race may be imminent between both governments and terrorists. "We are beginning to see the first steps towards an international robot arms race and it may not be long before robots become a standard terrorist weapon to replace the suicide bomber, according to professor Noel Sharkey, from the Royal United Services Institute Department of Computer Science. [...] Currently there is always a human in the loop to decide on the use of lethal force. However, this is set to change with the US giving priority to autonomous weapons - robots that will decide on where, when and who to kill, according to the professor."
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News: America's Robot Army 139 comments
Popular Mechanics explores the increasing level of reliance the US military has when it comes to robotic assistance. In the last few years, robot drones have reached an all-new level of sophistication, with several models already deployed in the field. Now, the next generation of robot helpers is nearing the end of its test phase. PM offers up a preview of what we could expect to see in the field within the next five years. "The MULE (Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment) is roughly the size of a Humvee, but it has a trick worthy of monster truck rallies. Each of its six wheels is mounted on an articulated leg, allowing the robot to clamber up obstacles that other cars would simply bump against ... Barely a year old, the prototype is a product of the Army's Unmanned Ground Vehicle program, which began in 2001. It has yet to fire a single bullet or missile, or even be fitted with a weapon. Here at the test track it's loaded down with rucksacks and boxes, two squads' worth of equipment."
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obligated (Score:4, Funny)
I-41 (Score:3, Interesting)
That, or the obvious "WarCrimes Master 2020".
Or how about just "KillJoy-3000" [wired.com]
Re:No they won't run on Linux (Score:4, Funny)
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Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:4, Interesting)
I would think that automated weaponry can only help counter-terrorism forces, unless there is some kind of huge mishap or malfunction. The terrorists depend on fighting the will of their opponent. Would so many in the US be so hot to leave Iraq if there were not so many American casualties? I personally doubt it.
On a side note - I'm not interested in debating foreign policy or the situation in the middle east as far as who's at fault, right/wrong, etc. Just commenting on what I know of current conditions.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with this, for the most part. The only reservation that I have with it is that when you compare wars in the middle east (includes the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and Desert Storm) to wars in America's past history, hardly anyone has been killed (again, comparitively). Granted, there have been many MANY casualties on the American side, but not really all that many KIAs.
Re:Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:4, Insightful)
As for recruiting, the USA has been demonized by terrorist groups, and unfortunately the US has given lots of recruiting ammunition with Iraq and the problems there. Combine that with a lack of communication of all sides of the issues, a large uneducated population, and a fundamentalist religious group that makes fighting and dying "holy", and there is little chance of the terrorist groups running out of recruits.
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Re:Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the fact that the initial campaign on Baghdad was called "Shock and Awe" was a pretty big give away. I mean, isn't that exactly what terrorism is? Shock and awe? A quick, violent, show of force with plenty of collateral damage which is intended to demoralize your opponent.
War: Well funded acts of terrorism.
Terrorism: Poorly funded acts of war.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, but then they'll just start strapping the explosives to random retarded/crazy people [nytimes.com]. If one RTFA, it appears that the women didn't actually have Down syndrome as originally claimed, but were possibly schizophrenic instead. Convincing these folks should be quite a bit easier than selling the 72 virgins story.
Re:Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:4, Insightful)
Teenage angst? Mid-life crisis? Clinical Depression?
Does anyone think that the middle east doesn't have something equivalent.
I'm not so surprised that they have an influx of recruits regardless of what the US was doing.
It's important to remember, suicide bombing has been going on longer than the time the US has been in the middle east.
It will probably continue as long as someone over there is mad enough about something.
War, politics, technology, religion, cartoons, maybe skin color. They seem to have a lot of material to go on.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Insightful? I'm not sure the Islam-believing terrorists are fighting just to get "us" out of their land. It's a war on infidels, in their lingo, isn't it? An infidel is not one who is in their land "torturing, killing, and oppressing their family members." According to the omniscient Wikipedia: "An infidel (literally, "one without faith") is one who doubts or rejects central tenets of a religion, especially those regarding its deities"
The lie that terrorists exist because the United States is torturing
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Meanwhile, in Baghdad (Score:5, Insightful)
Those kinds of stresses inevitably lead to the mental break down of individuals making them far more susceptible to those who would manipulate them into self destructive behaviours. Of course the worst thing about that kind of sustained flagrant abuse, is it will create a generation of people and take decades to resolve.
The track record for creating terrorists/freedom fighters by this route of invasion and brutal occupation, is pretty much rock solid, with genocide (the substantial eradication and eviction of the indigenous population) being the only way to resolve the situation (the current choice ?), other than of course getting the fuck out, paying reparations and making sure all those who committed crimes during the occupation are caught, prosecuted and convicted (it only makes sense as you really do not want these deranged individuals back in the general population without extensive rehabilitation).
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A modest proposal (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The future (Score:5, Funny)
* Yes, but do they have frickin' laser beams attached to their head?
* In soviet Russia, Robots arm YOU!
* I, for one, welcome our new gun-toting robot overlords (points for being uncomfortably close to the truth)
* References to the matrix or terminator series and/or I robot.
Re:The future (Score:4, Interesting)
Pah! You forgot "Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick. Now that is a story about exactly what is under discussion: an escalating robot arms race that turns out quite poorly for everyone.
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And yet, for all the warnings (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, ir we can turn these robots into good civil use, then it will help. In particular, if we really want to settle on Mars and perhaps the moon, we will need robots. They will enable us to do the building in a fraction of the time and most likely at a fraction of the costs.
Re:And yet, for all the warnings (Score:5, Funny)
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Obligatory (Score:3, Insightful)
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
(and ps: yes I know these are just fictional but I can't pass up a chance to quote the master...hell he even invented the word Robotics!)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Because some kid could walk up to a robot, and tell it to waltz off a cliff and it would do so. (in such a way as to not kill any people on the way down) I believe the second and third laws would need to be switched.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"With Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson, 1947. An all-time classic, and one that still gives me the absolute creeps today.
Cats and newspapers (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if the tech does reach that level, building a military bot is another level beyond that. And somehow, I think that it is not going to be well understood by guys whose concept of hi-tech is a retractable box knife.
It's gonna be a longgg time before I worry.
Re:Cats and newspapers (Score:5, Funny)
1) Current autonomous robots damage their surroundings and are hard to control.
2) The military (and possibly terrorists) want to put really big guns on autonomous robots.
3) Therefore you are NOT going to worry.
Either I misinterpreted you, or you have an interesting view of what to worry about.
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Re:Cats and newspapers (Score:5, Insightful)
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Gundam Wing talked about this. (Score:5, Insightful)
humans out of the loop for a while now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to worry. (Score:5, Funny)
Remote controlled? Yes. Autonomous? No. (Score:4, Insightful)
This short article seems to do little more than stir the FUD pot.
If you want to talk about having unmanned, remote control vehicles, some of which require little more than occasional supervisory control most of the time, I'm with you. We have them already, and more are in development all over the world. Expect to see lots more of them come about in the near future. As alluded to, this will be the robot arms race.
Terrorists using remote controlled devices to deploy and detonate bombs? Sure. It's not all that hard to believe that someone with some decent technical skills can put together a remote control kit on a full-sized car, then strap explosives to it (for example).
But c'mon. Killbots that can think and function completely on their own? ...and be effective enough in its mission to justify the costs of deploying it in lieu of something remote controlled by a human? Such a device is still a ways off for the U.S. Military, let alone some terrorist organization.
Better buy them now (Score:4, Funny)
3-2-1 ACTIVATE (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this is a natural progression for nations with an organised military. Once the basics are down machines can be churned out much quicker than we can train humans and you don't need to be as accurate and quick thinking as a human would be - sheer numbers and a shotgun approach would suffice and so who has the greatest manufacturing capacity would have the advantage.
Looking further into the future I'm sure wars will be fought totally on a technological basis e.g. hacking networks to shut down utilities and enemy soldiers to disable them etc. Maybe even further along wars will be won and lost without loss of human life - "Ok we surrender, we have no food, water or power and our Unisols are pointing their guns at us. You can have our continent."
I may have the wrong sci-fi series but I'm sure I remember a Star Trek episode where wars were fought by computer and afterward the required number of human casualties were euthanised to balance the books? Maybe at that point the geek shall inherit the earth and FPS skills will finally be recognised for what they are :-)
Futurism isn't (Score:5, Insightful)
2) I imagine fear of friendly fire will keep handlers at the controls of robots for quite some time.
3) I think there have been a few robotic sentries made that act autonomously but constantly report and can be overridden (S. Korea, perhaps?)...
4) Unsettling thought the implications may be, eventually I think robotic, autonomous war machines will be built - and for the builders, it will be quite a plus. Probably a bit of a downer for everyone else.
It may be seen in retrospect as another of those "Roman Conquest" moments where a powerful, advanced culture stomps all over more primitive cultures - but the survivors end up better off, at least for a while. History, like sausages, is a process whose benefits are better (more comfortably) enjoyed than understood.
Always a human in the loop (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine what we'll see is weapons deployed around the world with their controllers located somewhere else safe. That means easier/faster deployment and none of your own soldiers in harm's way. Maybe UAV's push proposed targets to commanders instead of commanders pouring over recon
I develop these systems, this story is 4 pageviews (Score:5, Insightful)
First, very few robotic systems in the whole world right now are even weaponized, yet we're supposed to believe automated killing is "just around the corner". Second, no military anywhere has deployed fully automated (no human on trigger/joystick) weaponized systems ever, yet we're to expect legions of them very soon. Third, "terrorists" will supposedly get their hands on these systems and reverse engineer them to their advantage - do I even need to explain how improbable this is? Military and private research funded to the tune of billions haven't even been able to develop these systems yet, but we're supposed to believe some terrorist organizations with almost no funding and little access to high-level engineers will be able to understand and rework these same nonexistent systems. Is it impossible? No. I don't doubt that given enough time eventually some extremist group will have a CS PhD/MS level member who could figure something out. That still doesn't negate the fact that no groups have even captured and reverse-engineered current robotic systems, which are much less advanced than this alleged future autonomous platform would be. And finally, if one of the major world governments developed and deployed fully autonomous armed robots, does anyone really think there wouldn't be a remote shutdown/disable sequence or other back door?
It's fun to discuss possible dystopian Terminator style futures, but it annoys me to no end when some researcher or professor says we're all imminently doomed and the net runs away with the idea. We're still very far from fully automated systems with weapons. Even US tanks, which have highly advanced target acquisition and recognition systems, aren't fired except by a human operator. You'll see fully automated targeting and firing in manned vehicles long before you see it in unmanned platforms IMHO.
And to stem off people who point out that many UAVs fly totally unmanned, with weapons, and with no joystick control - there are multiple ground operators constantly monitoring and updating mission parameters for each of these UAVs, also all firing sequences are still human in the loop.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondarily there are cluster munitions that do automatic target selection within the drop zone. They are perhaps part of a more broad catagory of autonomous target selecting munitions such as homing turpedos and missiles.
Killer Robot Arms? (Score:4, Funny)
Terrorists don't make 155 mm artillery shells... (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrorists don't make 155 mm artillery shells or munitions of any type. They rig what's available and hence IED, VBIED and other such improvised weapons are based on the highly available and cheap unspent munitions. Therefore it's not inconceivable that if sufficient "modern" militaries use robots in the future terrorists will be fashioning their new weapons out of those pieces instead. It will not be as good as the original, they're not going to build them from scratch nor somehow innovate since there's no need to. Just like their current versions of improvised weapons it'll be what they can slap together to at least scare if not also do some harm. It sounds crazy but I can see militaries in the future abandoning the "robot casualties" in war before learning how they can be used against them. After all, we don't seem to learn much from history and it'll likely be much like weapons caches left behind in past wars and other mistakes from a lack of foresight on our part.
Probably not (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see sex robots as appealing to people with a blow up sex doll and too much money.
I won't be surprised to see them arrive, but I'm skeptical they are going to be received as much more than ridiculously expensive sex toys. A
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What will Nevada casinos pay? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Knowing they are really just masturbating with a sex doll that will be enough to turn most people off the whole idea. If the expense hasn't.
Sure it might do well as a novelty in Vegas as another entertainment diversion, but as a substitution for prostitutes or even just casual promiscuity/infidelity? I'm unconvinced.
After all, it is not sex, it is masturbating with a sex toy. In fact, this will probabl
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I usually frown upon this... (Score:5, Funny)
I sure hope this professor is a nice person.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Well in a battle between a nation-state's military and a guerrilla force, "sophisticated" is relative and the arms race can be neck-and-neck while both sides still operate at completely different levels of sophistication.
Look at the arms race between the IEDs used by insurgents in Iraq and our army -- they go from simple stashes of explosives buried under ground, to re-purposed mines in stacks to even shaped charges, while we go from armored Humvees to MRAPs. They're still basically using cobbled together piles of high explosives, while we're using extremely expensive vehicles, and we're trying to come from behind in this race.
Or the terrorist equivalent of our cruise missiles -- an old station wagon stuffed with explosives and driven by a would-be martyr.
Similarly, a "sophisticated" robot or the terrorists might be a wheeled pallet with a simple electric motor and some kind of remote control (even a thin wire based one to prevent jamming or source tracking like they do now with IEDs) that can carry a pile of explosives into the line of police recruits or next to the checkpoint. While our robot has to be something with complicated vision and maneuvering and fire control systems, and that might put the two robots on somewhat equal footing.
Of course in the absolute sense of terrorists actually trying to match the technology we deploy, that's simply insane, just as much as it is for them to use APCs or cruise missiles when there are much simpler but from their standpoint equally effective methods. In this sense you're absolutely right.
Also, I'm with you on having autonomous guns that make their own decisions on when to fire is a very bad idea. You can have the robot decide how to shoot, even exactly when and where. But the question of whether the robot shoots at all should be decided by a human.
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