Robots That Hunt in Packs

I think replacing soldiers with robots is a good idea if done properly. If robots can be made versatile enough they could do most things soldiers do in battle. The autonomousnes of the robots would be limited to moving and searching. Instead of soldiers on the battlefield the soldiers would controll the robots in combat or similar situations. There is no ethical issue with robots that are controlled by a person when ethical decisions need to be made. Robots can be mass produced in the thousands people can't.

Is this the roots for Cyberdyne and Skynet? Let's hope not.

I think that they should design these robots to help out with farming and disaster clean up and other things of this nature with the capability of armed force because then the robots could help the civilians out and still have the capability to take on people that try to remove this help.

Im in.

War has two costs: money and lives. The USAF know that their ability to wage war depends on the popularity of that war among the people. Popularity is based on two factors: victory and cost.

Many tasks done by soldiers today could easily be done by human controled "puppet robots" directed from very safe and remote bunkers. This would greatly reduce the human cost of war, but greatly increase the fiscal cost (the robot, repairs, and extra pay and training recieved by the controler). As of right now, it just makes more sense to put humans in harms way at calculated risk rather than spend the extra billions (or trillions) necessary to mechanize the basic soldier.

An autonomous robot soldier is a moral risk, because it is capable of errors that humans would not make. That does not mean that it would make more or less errors than a human soldier, but the fact that they are different makes them seem more preventable (and thus egregious) to fickle ethicist. So, humans must give all kill orders, meaning that there can never be truely autonomous robot soldiers.

Thus, the army would love to take existing robot soldier prototypes and have a means to semi-automate them. If "difficult" decisions (ie kill orders), were still tied to a human controller, but that control was not tied down with mundane orders (like movement), then that one controller could easily opperate 3-5 robosoldiers. 3-5 robosoldier is, incidently enough, the kind of numbers you would need for a patrol (flanking, cover fire, etc).

This would take the fiscal cost of robosoldiers down (far fewer human soldiers would need to be trained as operators), making them a better option for the field.

Furthermore, 3-5 robosoldiers means a more complete view of the battlefield, giving the controler a better picture of the situation for more informed decisions of action. Freed from the bonds of controlling movement and aim, the controler only has to make those necessary moral decisions, like which victims to evac first or when to use leathal force.

The armament the robot in the picture is carrying and that part about the "non-cooperative human subject" makes me think someone needs to send these folks a copy of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics -- just as a reminder.

-ldw

Robots are a powerful tool. That Kind of power is doubled every year, or in other words the amount of memory that can be stored on a machine is doubled every year. in 2005 a robot beat the worlds best chess player. With that kind of power doubling every year we can be outsmarted by even our own blenders in a couple of years. Robots with weapons or bombs strapped to thier backs arent the best idea who knows who might tamper with those machines?

i agree with the comment from Polish. why do we have to invest that kind of power with machines? why cant they help out with jobs that are hard and require much labor.

Sicncerely,
That Dude

P.S. information came from last days on earth from the national geograpic channel and inspiration from Mrs. Ashton
and Bill Nye

Hey:
non-cooperative human subject. I like that.

So, I can look forward to being hunted down by 50 cal sporting robots.

No place to run no place to hide. Sounds like another fear based control system to used by the military.

Einstien I agree with SuprScience9 and CROYCO both of them are right. Computers are getting smarter and how much longer before they start to think of us as inferior? When that happens I don't want a robotic team of soldiers on my trail.
Einstien

Marry technologies! As a retired Navy man I know that there are tecnologies that can and should be combind to enhanlce robotic vehicles.
As an example we currently have IFF technology which I am sure has improved with smaller displacement, enhanced power, and reliability. Just this one area could be embedded on the robot with a transmitter and a receiver. The respective friendly force would have like components and there by identity as to friend or foe (IFF) could be readly established. This code was reset daily and this could be done so by various means today (remote hands on).
Further more to secure the system a piliffer device installed would disallow the enemy access and there by protection afford our personnel.
This same system could also be deployed for the anti personnel/ equipment intrusion munitions.
This is just one of many areas where existing technology can overlap.

"Artificial Intelligence" is, essentially, oxymoronic.

By its very nature intelligence is the capacity to see and understand wholeness. By that standard most of what we humans "do" is not very intelligent.

Cleverness, and the capacity to follow "programs" is something else...and "robotic" semi-autonomous devices portrayed in this article might have some useful civilian roles.

In any event, the military has access to billions of dollars to play with and there is no shortage of contractors willing to take the money, so this tech will be "developed".

I suspect that we'll have multimillon dollar "robots" being taken out by all manner low tech countermeasures once "the enemies" get wind of these "babies".

There is no need to get into the countermeasures here since they are actually quite obvious to anyone with a bit of imagination.

Perhaps, 50 years from now, these buggers could "work".

On the other hand, if we're still mired in stupid wasteful wars 50 years from now....most of what's left of the the human race will likely be too poor/backward to afford such devices.

As usual, the scientific/technological issues are trumped by social/political/economic and common sense realities.

When/if we do succeed in creating mechanisms that are genuinely intelligent, they will eventually have elements of being and functionality that will likely exceed our own as the "things" will be self evolving....but I digress.

Aside from the massive programming, cost, armor, and range problems that crop up when first thought about, the unfortunate moral dilemma erupts.
This device will save lives by not endangering as many of our own soldiers; but with out the treat of losing lives, what will stop the governments from starting any war any where and anytime they want? Cost in dollars will be the determining factor in war declarations. It is my small, personal, but firm opinion that robotic systems in the military should serve a purely auxiliary or supporting role. Air + Ground Recon, patrol/search systems, bomb disposal, and forward personnel assistance (carrying gear/wounded). This is not to say they could not help on the front line with a half-dozen .30's strapped to the front as an autonomous tank, but this is not the course i think we should take.
I'm sure many will disagree with me, claiming the saving of lives justifies the development of a remote controlled war, but saving human life does not outwiegh the cost losing our humanity.

Well here is what I think, the whole idea of having AI controlled robots is a bad one. Military robots should be used but forget this whole idea of AI controll. AI is prone to glitches and other such problems (I don't thint that we are even remotely possibly somewhat close to AI that can think for it's self and start killing people so forget about that). These robots would basicly be remote controle cars with guns on them. The only thing remotely close to AI would be maybe a system for automatic wandering survalence. The wars that are happening now are are a pointless attempt to calm down a part of the world that will continue fighting and opressing eachother until they are all dead or some other country gathers up enough military power to overwhelm all the violent countries and force them to stop fighting long enough for them to break free of the endless cycle of violence. The wars that are currently being fought are not worth the loss of life that has been occuring. Trivial wars like this should be fought by robots. Robots would be less effective against a lerger more developed country beacuse a single EMP could take them all out. Robots would be best for wars against lo-tech make-shift military organizations like the one we are fighting now.

Hey people simple fact WAR IS WAR there are no rules its kill or be killed an if we can kill them w/o them killing us than thats a good thing and plus right now with our "2 way" thinking proccessors robots would not be able to "turn" on us. Only "3 way"(quantum proccessors) proccessors have the capablities of saying maybe I should go against my programming and do something im not supposed to do. So please my Fellow technology fans dont talk about something you dont know anything about

Actually, the widest application of such robots will probably be by Al Qaida or similar terrorists groups, who are running rather short on suicide bombers. A suicide robot does not have to be very sophisticated. I am surprised that terrorists have not done more with trained animals, as a large dog can certainly be trained to go to a certain street corner or public building and will then do so by itself with a pack on its back. Of course, sentries would quickly learn to shoot stray dogs, so that is not a long term plan.

The Department of Homeland Security has been very interested in all radio-controlled airplanes, ground vehicles, and boats, as some "model" airplanes are getting quite large. Most could carry a kilogram of plastic explosive. Equipped with smart geo-sat guidance systems getting there will not be a problem.

Video security cameras are a good example of how humans can't be replaced. Video security will never catch crime in real time unless eyeballs are on the likely screen scenes all the time. Humans can monitor about a dozen screens for movement if they are in the right array. Humans are much superior to any AI at recognizing a coyote running through a picture adjacent to a high chain link security fence, or seeing someone in camouflage with bolt cutters approach
the same fence.

I was frustrated for years that the Pentagon refused to use volunteers in the USA to monitor security camera feeds from Iraq. Such 24/7 monitoring of video from highways could have saved thousands of casualties from roadside bombs. Instead the standard practice was that (after the bomb went off) intelligence teams would go back over the video records from stationary cameras and see if they could identify the perps placing the bomb, which was stupid and too late. Plenty of volunteers, many vets with security clearances like myself, get tired of playing video games in our dens and would have been willing to monitor video feeds from the war zone for nothing, looking for that truck that stops alongside the road and puts out a suspicious object.

Nothing replaces eyeballs, but those eyeballs no longer need to be on the front line, on the same continent, or even belong to able-bodied young soldiers in uniform. They can belong to any citizen willing to put in the time, even the elderly in rest homes and the 12-year-old taking a an hour break from homework, or the bored businessman drinking Scotch in his motel room.

I agree with mike cook they should use robots in the army but leave out the AI because the robots will probably become accedingly useful and will be upgraded to quantum processors and then the odds are that they will turn on us and then we are guaranteed an early apocalypse. The funny thing is this is remarkably like how the evil robots in "Terminator " would have started out as.

The robot shown in the picture is the Gladiator Concept Validation Model, or CVM. This vehicle was the first of three vehicles developed for the Marine Corp starting in 2002. The "Tracked CVM" was a diesel-hydraulic powertrain. There were two other vehicles developed under the CVM program. Both were six wheeled vehicles that used a diesel-electric powertrain. All vehicles could be operated up to 2000 meters with line of sight and sported three weapon options: the M240 machine gun, M249 machine gun, and a 9mm Uzi. They also hade the LVOSS obsurant system and APOBS breaching system. They also fired the FN303 less lethal weapon.

The CVM UGVs had enough ground tractive force to pull a HMMWV. They were able to climb and decend slopes up to 100% (45 degrees) and were capable of crushing an enemy if need be. They weighted about 2000 lbs. and were armored to withstand multiple hits from a 7.62x39mm round point blank. These were some tough vehicles. All three vehicle were rolled over multiple times during the Marine Corp evaluation and they got right back up and drove off. The tracked vehicle shown above was even driven into 3 feet of water at one point. Due to the highly modular designs of the CVM vehicles the tracked vehicle was up and running again within a day.

The CVM program ran up until about 2006 when the Marine Corp selected Carnagie-Mellon to produce their version of the Gladiator. The project is currently on hold until other priorities are fulfilled in the Marine Corp.

If you would like to know more about the Gladiator CVM program, please feel free to email me at brad@airguns.net.

Humans need to make the kill order. No question. We don't need Cylons or Terminators. The computer needs to be given an objective which it can get to on its own with out the need for extra input. The weapon or gun needs to be a totally separated system which happens to be mounted on an platform which can make limited decisions for itself. Skynet is a Looong way out. Don't plan on it coming from the military either. Maybe some dumb ambitious hacker, or someone like that launching something on the internet. (on the off point would PETA call it endangered species? But anyways... back on topic)Make the two systems seperated from each other. Total AI is a bad thing. Giving some freedom to a computer is risky on its own. I think that to a limited point it is a worthwhile risk. One question though, in the event of failure in an Artificially Intelligent platform, Where does the Shit roll?

High-Tech Fly paper. Let's see the enemy sneak up on us now. Make it so that it gets worse if you try to blow it up. Of course we would have an antidote that would render it inert.

How about something that would just plain scare the crap out of your enemy.

These robotoys cost alot of money. Low-Tech solutions could bring better pay and incentives, and still save lives.

Terminator has arrived. SkyNet will deploy several ground based drones into killzones. Nothing living will survive. The enemy will fear these machines because they know no mercy. Soon SkyNet will turn on it's makers and end the human race as we know it. Science fiction or science fact? :-) I'm for this technology. The "enemy" does not fight man to man. They use IEDs so why can't we design killer robots. Same concept. Unattended death and destruction.