6 ms·

> U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), experts show that humans can single-handedly and effectively manage a heterogenous swarm of more than

by teeray 2y ago

> U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), experts show that humans can single-handedly and effectively manage a heterogenous swarm of more than 100 autonomous ground and aerial vehicles, while feeling overwhelmed only for brief periods of time This will surprise nobody who has watched professional Starcraft players.

KumaBear 2y ago
Watching professional starcraft players makes you question if they are human. Their control of vast quantities of units and platoons is unreal at moments.
- crooked-v 2y ago
  The real limiter is (unironically) the quality of the drone pathfinding.
h2zizzle 2y ago
No Newtype powers required.
datadrivenangel 2y ago
Good unit AI for RTS allow for amazing results, and there is so much more control/automation that most RTS games could allow for.
easterncalculus 2y ago
It makes me wonder if there could be some sort of lower-cost real-life strategy game with cheap(er) homemade drones eventually, kind of like FPV racing now. I'm not a big RTS person but that sounds really fun.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Robot wars but instead of 1v1 you have large teams of drones on a well enclosed football field. I can't decide if that would be cool or terrifying.
  - djmips 2y ago
    Both
- mkoubaa 2y ago
  If the drones were not destroyed as part of normal gameplay it could make sense. So rather than a battle Royale maybe something like drone laser tag mechanics
  - easterncalculus 2y ago
    Exactly, laser tag was exactly what I had in mind. Over a long enough space I could definitely see it being fun, and just have them turn off when they've been tagged. Plus, at the end they could probably clean themselves up and drive away.
    - mkoubaa 2y ago
      StarCraft units are semi-autonomous anyways. You don't want a human controlling the drones every movement, that would be awful
szvsw 2y ago
> feeling overwhelmed only for brief periods of time There is something deeply, darkly comedic (depressing?) about the qualitative language here. Primarily the way it simultaneously intersects with modern discourse around wellness, anxiety, and mental health in such a banal manner at the same time as the latent/implicit violence of action (given that the obvious subtext is operating semi-autonomous killing machines).
- parsimo2010 2y ago
  Agreed- they write as if being overwhelmed 3% of the time is a victory. A good system would have people feeling overwhelmed 0% of the time.
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    >A good system would have people feeling overwhelmed 0% of the time. There are benefits to being pushed past your limits from time to time. Also, there's just no such thing as 0. When you're designing limits you don't say "this never happens", you're saying "this event happens less than this rate for this cohort".
    - parsimo2010 2y ago
      I'd agree that it is worth pushing your limits during training, but the best-case scenario during actual conflict is to be as close to 0% overwhelmed as you can be.
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        How does that follow? That would mean leaving some performance on the table the rest of the time. It doesn't seem clear at all whether one outweighs the other.
        chimpanzee 2y ago
        Overwhelming an enemy involves getting inside their OODA loop. I can't see a real life-or-death scenario, outside of training, where you'd want your enemy to successfully get inside your OODA loop and disrupt your flow and rhythm, even for 0.1% of the time. You of course don't want to become comfortable and complacent, risking losing focus, but there must be better ways of avoiding that other than being occasionally overwhelmed.
0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
So Overwatch/ DVa is onto something.
parsimo2010 2y ago
> The most common reason for a human commander to reach an overload state is when they had to generate multiple new tactics or inspect which vehicles in the launch zone were available for deployment This seems misleading- what they said is that when everything is on cruise control the commander does not feel overwhelmed. But if they have to do some high cognitive load task (like reading statuses) or react to a complex situation the commander will feel overwhelmed, which is bad. We want to be able to react quickly and appropriately to all situations, which we can't do when overwhelmed. Being able to handle dozens of bots in a calm situation is meaningless. We need to staff our bot controllers/monitors/commanders at a level that they can handle those top 3% complex wartime scenarios.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  >> to generate multiple new tactics or inspect which vehicles in the launch zone were available for deployment Following up on GP's analogy, I read this as "human overwhelmed by micro" and "human overwhelmed by macro", which... tracks. From my own StarCraft experience, the two most taxing parts of the game - the ones where I could easily get confused and lose track of the battle, or even forget what I was doing and why, were: 1) Micro, i.e. "generating new multiple new tactics" on the fly, manually controlling a bunch of units, whose survival depended entirely on me being able to do it faster than my opponent. 2) Macro, i.e. "inspecting which vehicles in the launch zone were available for deployment" and deploying them, while queuing production of new ones - while trying to keep track of the front line(s) and spot potential sneak attacks and overall pay attention to the whole map. "Macro management" is easy when it's the only thing you do - but when there's a battle going on, you end up looking at a different part of the map for a second, every second; it basically becomes a form of "micro", except you're micromanaging your attention. In both cases, the source of the overwhelm is the pressure of battle - things are changing so fast that few seconds can decide the fate of the battle, possibly of the overall game - but the battles between peers can drag on for minutes, requiring you to sustain that level of focus for extended time, and keep it split between the fighting and the base management; as there too, few seconds of error can put you at a large disadvantage down the line. All this to say - I'm not a soldier, so I might be wrong, but I feel that real-life warfare, at least now, isn't this fast-paced. That may change in drone vs. drone scenarios, but with humans on the ground, I imagine taking it slow and methodical will remain the dominant approach.
nickpinkston 2y ago
DARPA needs to partner with our Korean allies who already know how to push up their APMs in these scenarios.
- croes 2y ago
  [flagged]
itishappy 2y ago
Professional Starcraft players prove that this is possible, but my own experience playing Starcraft indicates it's not all that common.
mkoubaa 2y ago
This is why we can't deal with China right now
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
29athrowaway 2y ago
Or AlphaStar from DeepMind.
_carbyau_ 2y ago
But not everyone is a Professional Starcraft player, even with training. Besides, I'd prefer a Supreme Commander interface where patrol points can be added/deleted/moved on the fly while factories produce more into that loop including ferry points along the way. Supreme Commander made me feel it was more about strategy than action count.
- BoredPositron 2y ago
  When controlling swarms of drones in a combat situation your micro will matter more than your macro IRL you won't have one operator do both.
sklargh 2y ago
Came here to say this - or a more distant comparison - air traffic controllers. Also control is a tricky term - are they directly controlling or tasking a semi-autonomous robot.

by teeray 2y ago

KumaBear 2y ago

Watching professional starcraft players makes you question if they are human. Their control of vast quantities of units and platoons is unreal at moments.

crooked-v 2y ago
The real limiter is (unironically) the quality of the drone pathfinding.

h2zizzle 2y ago

No Newtype powers required.

datadrivenangel 2y ago

Good unit AI for RTS allow for amazing results, and there is so much more control/automation that most RTS games could allow for.

easterncalculus 2y ago

It makes me wonder if there could be some sort of lower-cost real-life strategy game with cheap(er) homemade drones eventually, kind of like FPV racing now. I'm not a big RTS person but that sounds really fun.

colechristensen 2y ago
Robot wars but instead of 1v1 you have large teams of drones on a well enclosed football field. I can't decide if that would be cool or terrifying.
- djmips 2y ago
  Both
mkoubaa 2y ago
If the drones were not destroyed as part of normal gameplay it could make sense. So rather than a battle Royale maybe something like drone laser tag mechanics
- easterncalculus 2y ago
  Exactly, laser tag was exactly what I had in mind. Over a long enough space I could definitely see it being fun, and just have them turn off when they've been tagged. Plus, at the end they could probably clean themselves up and drive away.
  - mkoubaa 2y ago
    StarCraft units are semi-autonomous anyways. You don't want a human controlling the drones every movement, that would be awful

szvsw 2y ago

> feeling overwhelmed only for brief periods of time There is something deeply, darkly comedic (depressing?) about the qualitative language here. Primarily the way it simultaneously intersects with modern discourse around wellness, anxiety, and mental health in such a banal manner at the same time as the latent/implicit violence of action (given that the obvious subtext is operating semi-autonomous killing machines).

parsimo2010 2y ago
Agreed- they write as if being overwhelmed 3% of the time is a victory. A good system would have people feeling overwhelmed 0% of the time.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  >A good system would have people feeling overwhelmed 0% of the time. There are benefits to being pushed past your limits from time to time. Also, there's just no such thing as 0. When you're designing limits you don't say "this never happens", you're saying "this event happens less than this rate for this cohort".
  - parsimo2010 2y ago
    I'd agree that it is worth pushing your limits during training, but the best-case scenario during actual conflict is to be as close to 0% overwhelmed as you can be.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      How does that follow? That would mean leaving some performance on the table the rest of the time. It doesn't seem clear at all whether one outweighs the other.
      - chimpanzee 2y ago
        Overwhelming an enemy involves getting inside their OODA loop. I can't see a real life-or-death scenario, outside of training, where you'd want your enemy to successfully get inside your OODA loop and disrupt your flow and rhythm, even for 0.1% of the time. You of course don't want to become comfortable and complacent, risking losing focus, but there must be better ways of avoiding that other than being occasionally overwhelmed.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago

So Overwatch/ DVa is onto something.

parsimo2010 2y ago

> The most common reason for a human commander to reach an overload state is when they had to generate multiple new tactics or inspect which vehicles in the launch zone were available for deployment This seems misleading- what they said is that when everything is on cruise control the commander does not feel overwhelmed. But if they have to do some high cognitive load task (like reading statuses) or react to a complex situation the commander will feel overwhelmed, which is bad. We want to be able to react quickly and appropriately to all situations, which we can't do when overwhelmed. Being able to handle dozens of bots in a calm situation is meaningless. We need to staff our bot controllers/monitors/commanders at a level that they can handle those top 3% complex wartime scenarios.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
>> to generate multiple new tactics or inspect which vehicles in the launch zone were available for deployment Following up on GP's analogy, I read this as "human overwhelmed by micro" and "human overwhelmed by macro", which... tracks. From my own StarCraft experience, the two most taxing parts of the game - the ones where I could easily get confused and lose track of the battle, or even forget what I was doing and why, were: 1) Micro, i.e. "generating new multiple new tactics" on the fly, manually controlling a bunch of units, whose survival depended entirely on me being able to do it faster than my opponent. 2) Macro, i.e. "inspecting which vehicles in the launch zone were available for deployment" and deploying them, while queuing production of new ones - while trying to keep track of the front line(s) and spot potential sneak attacks and overall pay attention to the whole map. "Macro management" is easy when it's the only thing you do - but when there's a battle going on, you end up looking at a different part of the map for a second, every second; it basically becomes a form of "micro", except you're micromanaging your attention. In both cases, the source of the overwhelm is the pressure of battle - things are changing so fast that few seconds can decide the fate of the battle, possibly of the overall game - but the battles between peers can drag on for minutes, requiring you to sustain that level of focus for extended time, and keep it split between the fighting and the base management; as there too, few seconds of error can put you at a large disadvantage down the line. All this to say - I'm not a soldier, so I might be wrong, but I feel that real-life warfare, at least now, isn't this fast-paced. That may change in drone vs. drone scenarios, but with humans on the ground, I imagine taking it slow and methodical will remain the dominant approach.

nickpinkston 2y ago

DARPA needs to partner with our Korean allies who already know how to push up their APMs in these scenarios.

croes 2y ago
[flagged]

itishappy 2y ago

Professional Starcraft players prove that this is possible, but my own experience playing Starcraft indicates it's not all that common.

mkoubaa 2y ago

This is why we can't deal with China right now

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

29athrowaway 2y ago

Or AlphaStar from DeepMind.

_carbyau_ 2y ago

But not everyone is a Professional Starcraft player, even with training. Besides, I'd prefer a Supreme Commander interface where patrol points can be added/deleted/moved on the fly while factories produce more into that loop including ferry points along the way. Supreme Commander made me feel it was more about strategy than action count.

BoredPositron 2y ago
When controlling swarms of drones in a combat situation your micro will matter more than your macro IRL you won't have one operator do both.

sklargh 2y ago

Came here to say this - or a more distant comparison - air traffic controllers. Also control is a tricky term - are they directly controlling or tasking a semi-autonomous robot.