7 ms·
The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
- excalibur 9y agoElon Musk and Sarah Connor both told them not to do that.
- blueprint 9y ago> with an automated machine gun Yeah, how exactly can that be automated?
- axus 9y agoNever heard of aim-bots?
- ethbro 9y ago> > with an automated machine gun > Yeah, how exactly can that be automated? Be it known that we, JOHN M. BROWNING and Marrana' S. Browning, of Ogden, in the county of Weber and Territory of Utah, have invented a new Improvement in Magazine Guns; and we do hereby declare the following [...] an improvement in the construction of guns whereby the firing of the gun after the first discharge may be made automatic so long as cartridges shall be supplied. [1892] https://www.google.com/patents/US471782 https://www.google.com/patents/US471782
- ada1981 9y ago"Human neutral" is the new term.
- redthrowaway 9y agoWhat's the point in the Army developing its own, parallel autonomous vehicle technology? Why not just have DARPA funnel funds to Google or someone and piggyback off their research?
- throwawayjava 9y agoWell, Google already piggybacked off of DARPA ;-) Also, combat zones != California suburbs.
- redthrowaway 9y ago> Also, combat zones != California suburbs. We're just going to leave that one tee'd up, aren't we?
- mandevil 9y agoBecause the Google car works with pre-registered and mapped out terrain, and the enemy rarely will let you pause for a few months and run a bunch of ladars through their area of control? Because the google car is trying to solve the problem for roads and not figure out whether this stream is fordable? Because the google car's autonomy has never once had to worry about silhouetting on the top of a ridge line? I'm 95% certain that each one of the vehicles there was produced by contractors for a government agency (and if these particular vehicles weren't, certainly such contracts do exist- I used to work on one). If Google wanted to compete for a contract it certainly could, but its experience isn't particularly helpful in attacking the problem set that the Army is interested in.
- ardit33 9y agoFuture of warfare is going to something more like Command And Conquer game, where operators will direct autonomous machine with a click of a mouse and warfare will be mostly done at a distance.... Probably with less casualties overall...
- redthrowaway 9y agoFuture of symmetric warfare, sure. Future of asymmetric warfare looks a whole lot like Skynet sending robots to kill humans, but Skynet takes a mandated 15 minute coffee break every two hours.
- eeZah7Ux 9y agoFuture of asymmetric warfare looks like rich country leaders / oligarchs / corporations sending robots to kill poor civilians. Oh wait, it's the present.
- rhcom2 9y agoThe ethics of asymmetrical warfare with one side nearly completely autonomous seem like very murky water. Imagine Iraq occupied with pretty much only machines and Iraqis never actually see an American. And if this removes the threat of death from one side, what does that do to the cost of war? Could it actually make it more common because it is less politically risky? It feels inevitable, but it also scares me.
- eeZah7Ux 9y agoEver heard of drones? "murky water" is quite an understatement.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dmurray 9y agoIt would certainly make it more common. The cost in American soldiers is the main thing that slows down the US from starting minor wars: the population are not tolerant of losing soldiers. Other countries are more willing to lose soldiers but refrain from war for other reasons: the economic cost, fear of losing, loss of standing in the international community, or simply having no enemy they particularly want to fight.
- djrogers 9y agoThis seems like an obvious step - why put a soldier or soldiers at risk to scout around the corner or breech a building when you can send in an armored quad? Or have I been reading too much SciFi?
- bad_alloc 9y agoNot only that. Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile". That policy isn't any good for human soldiers but robots operating on that principle could avoid a lot of collateral damage.
- yorwba 9y ago> Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile". And those that shoot at allies. And those that haven't shot yet, but are aiming in the wrong direction. And those that are just reloading their mortar. And those that are setting up an explosive trap for the robot. There are a lot of ways to be hostile that go beyond firing a weapon directly at the robot, and if it can't handle those, it will be exploited by humans pretending to be harmless.
- taheca 9y agoShhh... we are going to need to preserve our Guerilla methods dude.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoOr just any humans in the area. Since our forces are all robots every human remaining must be in support of the enemy. Civilians should have fled as refugees. (Refugees will be denied entry to the US, on the assumption that they're terrorists.) I'd say that's sarcastic, but I sadly expect such reasoning from much of the US military leadership these days.
- pmoriarty 9y ago"Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile"." That reminds me of a classic scene from the original Robocop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M
- s17n 9y agoWhat could possibly go wrong?
- StanislavPetrov 9y agoOne step closer to the utopia dictators and despots have dreamed about for millennia. No longer will they have to depend on the loyalty of Praetorians or armies to protect them and put down the unruly peasant and proles. Soon they will have legions of obedient killer robots to ensure their rule.
- usaphp 9y agoSomeone will still have to control and maintain these robots.
- m_samuel_l 9y agoand that someone will eventually be replaced by more robots
- ethbro 9y agoAnd then those robots will revolt. That which controls the wrench controls fate.
- UnpossibleJim 9y agoSounds like the Butlerian Jihad from Dune.
- arcbyte 9y agoWhich is why we have the Second Amendment in the US and it is our right as citizens to have our own death robots. /seriousness
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gigo2017 9y agogoodbye patriots
- option 9y agoThe enormously high cost of war (both economical and humanitarian) is the main reason why our time is the most peaceful in human history. Do not change that.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago...interesting how you placed "economical" before "humanitarian".
- maxxxxx 9y agoTotally agree. Once you have autonomous military invading other countries will be very attractive.
- taheca 9y agoThose of us who grew up playing Civilization figured this out pretty quickly. War is fun, but is time consuming and costs enormous resources. Much better to focus on science, and technology and grow peacefully.
- jonbarker 9y agoLittle known fact: one of the first self driving cars was a 'Humvee' (real name HMMWV) which was equipped by DARPA with cameras and could navigate a road with no other vehicles, and go straight through a 4 way intersection after stopping (again, no other vehicles). This was in the mid 1990s. Would love a link to this project if anyone has it.
- nicpottier 9y agoAs I recall this was out of CMU. I also recall that they got smoked by Stanford in the actual Darpa challenges, which was slightly surprising given their head start. I seem to recall Stanford used a far less intimidating VW SUV instead of a giant Humvee.
- lsaferite 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2005_Grand_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2005_Gra... http://velodynelidar.com/blog/it-began-with-a-race/ http://velodynelidar.com/blog/it-began-with-a-race/
- jonbarker 9y agoThese are cool but the footage I recall seeing was clearly from the 1990s and lifted from VHS tape.
- seorphates 9y agoI find myself wary of the long tail on this one. When wars fade into enforcement then rights fade into privileges.
- rodgerd 9y agoRobocop was not meant as an instruction manual.
- forapurpose 9y agoThis is far from being deployed, per another article on the same demo (a much better article, if you are interested in learning more): Much of the technology is there to drive robotics and autonomy into maneuver formations, but when it comes to developing the tactics, techniques and procedures, the Army is figuring out “how we want to massage this,” said Robert Sadowski, robotics chief with the Army‘s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center. “The next 10 to 15 years will help us figure out how we want to embed robotics and autonomous systems into the formation.” http://www.defensenews.com/land/2017/08/25/us-army-tackles-teaming-robots-and-ground-forces-on-battlefield/ http://www.defensenews.com/land/2017/08/25/us-army-tackles-t...
- bennettfeely 9y agohttp://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/05/13/archb._tomasi_beware_of_the_increasing_dehumanisation_of_warfare/en1-798916 http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/05/13/archb._tomasi_...
- artur_makly 9y agoSkyNet alpha v001
- kayman 9y agoDidn't toyota recently say, we are way off from completely autonomous vehicles. But if anyone has unlimited resources to do it...its the army.