Military Robots Get Machine Guns

javaxman writes "Next spring, the U.S. military is expecting to deploy Talon robots with machine guns. They can also be equiped with rocket launchers. Really, they're remote-controlled 'bots, not true autonomous 'bots, so you can save the Skynet jokes for, um, some day in the not-to-distant future. This is just the first, or maybe second step. As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!"

Captured robots

[fembots]

Can these robots be captured and reconfigured to turn against its ex-master, or do they have self-destruction function?

This reminds me of an old Canon printer advertisement, where the Martians use this bubblejet printer to print realistic Mars landscape photos and place them in front of the Mars probe's visual sensor.

not really new

[cyrax777]

police departments have been using shotgun armered robots for a while to shoot bombs and stuff via remote.

Human oversight

[grunt547]

From the article:

"Driving, observing and shooting are always done with a man in the loop," the Foster-Miller spokesman said. "The labs like autonomy, but the users themselves always like to have control."

It's really not too shocking to think about a computer in charge of deadly force. Sure, think about Arnold in Terminator, but this is not a new idea. We've put computers in charge of our weapons systems for years. Back in the days when strategic bombers with nuclear weapons were our primary deterrent, the computer (such as it existed in the 50s and 60s) was in charge of dropping the bombs. This was even more common on conventional platforms, where accuracy actually mattered. The computer can figure out where the best place to pickle off the bomb is, and all the pilot does is flip a consent switch that actually allows the plane to release a weapon. All the pilot knew was that the bomb would release at some point. This system offers a lot more control to the human operator, who I guess will be playing an FPS in real-life.

Re:Not so bad...

[bob beta]

Fewer of 'theirs' if they get a f-ing clue and give up sooner.

Remote controlled war!

[intnsred]

This has to be the Pentagon's dream come true: a remote controlled war.

Now the US can slaughter people in developing countries without the fear that some of our own soldiers -- fighting for "freedom", of course -- will be killed or injured. I suspect we'll see the number of "Operation Freedoms" increase dramatically.

How come I don't think this is progress?

the future is starting

[Lord Ender]

One of my coworkers is a military man. He says there will always be need for a human with a gun to be on the ground in war.

But if you have a soldier controlling a robot with a gun, he can literally have eyes in the back of his head. The thing could have cammeras on all sides. His hands would be perfectly steady. He could be simultaneously seeing infra red, heat vision, and what ever other kind of cammera they have mounted on it buy looking at multiple monitors. And think if the great help in communication. You could just yell "he's around the corner" to the other controller right next to you, like at a LAN party. No hand signals or radios needed. You could have a speaker mounted on it for ording civilians around.

Soon we will be fighting zero casualty (on our side) battles. That is, until someone develops the perfect jammer and sells it widely.

Re:Rolling on the floor, laughing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Being an ass, eh? are your kids fit enough to be a soldier? are you? About one third [obesity.org] of America's children are fat, and that is going to be one fucking massive drain on the country when they grow up. Really fat kids get really phat problems.

Re:What about ethics?

[j.leidner]

Could your code be misused in a way you would not approve?

GNU should append a clause to their licenses that military use is prohibited so that nobody can get harmed by Free code.

Jammers should sell well

[samantha]

According to an article in Technology Review last month our troops in Iraq often find their comm isn't too great on the frontlines for much more than sporadic email at the best. Imagine the equivalent or worse comm problems with these remote controlled robots engaged in live fire. A couple of bucks worth of nasty kidstuff electronics overcomes millions in robot devices. Sounds like another winner from those folks who cornered the market on $400 hammers.

I wish the boys would grow up a bit or at least make toys that friggin are useable.

How would you design the interface?

[piotrr]

So.. these drones will be remote controlled? Yes, I read the thread, bear with me. They are going to save on "OUR" human casualties, by killing more of the enemy via a remote link to an actual soldier controlling these mechanoid suckers. Instead of losing lives, "we" will only lose millions of items of immense monetary value, which still is considered the smaller loss. Of course a surviving fighter pilot gets one hell of a scolding if the plane gets lost, but it's basically the same thing here: If you have more tech than soldiers, it's a good thing to empower every soldier with more tech than he or she is worth, so to speak.

Now, what is the interface going to look like? I am assuming a live-feed, encrypted, RF signal with video and audio and not some command line interface thing because we don't have that kind of autonomy in AI yet... unless you count my industry. I am not in defense works, I am a game designer. We have AI that could do the job. Sure, the bots would freeze up for seconds at a time trying to convert the terrain into a pathmap grid, and it will get stuck in odd loops between rocks and hard places, but my point is that some degree of autonomy is possible if the operator is taking a piss or getting another jolt, pizza, mountain dew, what have you.

And so, what interface will the "mechanized infantry" be using against its operator? One 'bot per remote operator "Operation Flashpoint" style (or "Mechwarrior" / "Starsiege" style?) or two to four 'bots per operator, "Hidden & Dangerous"-style or maybe even eight ("Full Spectrum Warrior") or 60 ("Ground Control") 'bots for every operator?

Especially if bots feature some kind of learning, remembering last used commands, path maps, all of these alternatives are more or less feasible. I actually think the "Quake 3" or "OFP" approach is the least appropriate because a bot can be destroyed, chaffed, EMP'd, taken out of range, fall down a hole, lose the connection or start dropping packages like crazy. Controlling a bot lagging over radio with a jerky video feed is not a first person shooter experience you would want to participate in, not even for fun, and especially not when you are sitting in a command bunker undefended save for those ABC mechanoids.

Instead, imagine a setup where each operator shares his or her attention between members of a squad of four or five 'bots. Equip the 'bots with a few different pieces of equipment while they're awaiting deployment, maybe tweak one of them for speed and recon, another for damage soak and a third with a long-range weapon, and so on. Now, keep in mind that a video feed is possible but not speedy enough to make instant point-and-click orders. Thunderstorms, sandstorms, building occluding the signal and so forth will make that much too unreliable. Instead, the operator gives move orders to the 'bots, identifies targets, marks them on the IFF using bandboxing or clicking, the bot remembers distingishing features and asks for confirmation when a takedown is possible.

The only thing the USA has to worry about now is Korea. No matter how smart US operators become, how streamlined their interface or how autonomous their remote controlled heavy weapons platforms, they will remain unable to stop the Zerg rush, kekekekeke.

Re:Captured robots

[swv3752]

So what happens when someone converts an old microwave to an EMP blaster [slashdot.org] and shorts out the joystick, then sends thier own signal to the bot?

Sure there are ways to harden the electronics but...

I am Shocked, Shocked

[freality]

And look at the other robotics story on the front page:

"AFP is reporting that, starting today, "Japan's growing elderly population will be able to buy companionship in the form of a 45-centimeter (18-inch) robot" designed to help them avoid senility. The robot, named Snuggling Ifbot and developed by Dream Supply, will be able to respond to verbal commands. "If a person tells Snuggling Ifbot, "I'm bored today," the robot might respond, "Are you bored? What do you want to do?"". It retails for 576,000 yen (5,600 dollars) and there is no English version currently available but "its makers plan to program the robot in English -- not for export, but to teach the language to Japanese children.""

Reminds me how Japan's largest computer is used to model weather and the earth, and our largest computers are used to model nuclear explosions.

Well, I guess that's the difference between the conquered and the conqueror. If we conquer the world does that make every country more sane than us?

Re:Not so bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I defy you to name a single instance in which the U.S. has exported nuclear weapons."

I was told by a CIA contractor that he was 95% sure, from insider sources, that we had given a nuke to Israel. Aside from that, we certainly export nuclear weapons, they just remain within the control of U.S. troops within foreign countries.

Many of the practices sited as being exported from the U.S. by the previous poster have at least some justification. American greed, and the techniques used to propagate it are certainly spreading around the world. We did not invent greed, but the methods are all American.