[[{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/223181","site":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":223181,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"basic_content","bundle_name":"Basic content","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/223181","url":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/whats-so-scary-about-nuclear-armed-drone","path_alias":"whats-so-scary-about-nuclear-armed-drone","label":"What\u2019s So Scary About A Nuclear-Armed Drone?","content":"<div class=\"media media-element-container media-default full-width\"><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"Long Range Strike Bomber Concept Art\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=yUcLdii6\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=CcSH6Leg\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=E64WGRPH\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=jlTkyvvJ\" src=\"\/sites\/all\/modules\/bonnier\/sandcastle\/images\/placeholder.gif\" \/><noscript><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"Long Range Strike Bomber Concept Art\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=yUcLdii6\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=CcSH6Leg\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=E64WGRPH\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=jlTkyvvJ\" src=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=CcSH6Leg\" \/><\/noscript><div class=\"caption-wrapper indent\" style=\"\">\n  <div class=\"field-credit\">\n    <p>Northrop Grumman<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"field-title\">\n    <p>Long Range Strike Bomber Concept Art<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>It's a plane designed for the war no one wants to fight. The Long Range Strike Bomber is the Air Force\u2019s secretive and long-running project to develop the next generation of nuclear-armed bombers, designed to unload hell in hostile skies. And there's a chance that it'll be optionally manned, allowing it to fly some missions as a drone.<\/p>\n\n<p>Sounds pretty terrifying, right? Well, despite years of advancement in unmanned technology, military brass isn\u2019t comfortable trusting a drone with nuclear weapons just yet, even as they develop the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/article\/technology\/air-force-working-new-bomber\">bomber of the future<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/weapons\/R43049.pdf\">Almost half<\/a> of the 159 bombers currently serving within the United States Air Force are B-52s, a class that first entered service in 1961. Of pure bomber varieties introduced since then, only two currently fly: the supersonic B-1 Lancer, and the iconic stealthy black wedge known as the B-2 Spirit. All three were designed to carry nuclear weapons long distances, and together, they formed the bomber leg of America\u2019s \"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/nuke\/RL33640.pdf\">nuclear triad<\/a>.\" (The other legs are nuclear missile armed submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos scattered throughout the heartland). The triad was an integral part of American strategic planning during the Cold War, but following the collapse of the USSR, it\u2019s taken a bit of a back seat.<\/p>\n\n<p>This is evident in the size of the B-2 Spirit fleet. Tailless and stealthy, the Spirit is by far the most advanced bomber ever fielded by the USAF, but it was built just as the USSR started collapsing. Political pressure from Congress in the <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/1990-07-23\/news\/mn-625_1_les-aspin\">early 1990s<\/a>, along with a diminished threat kept the fleet of Spirits small. When one <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/id\/24992781\/#.VI829CvF-So\">crashed in 2008<\/a> it left a fleet of just 20 planes. The Air Force wants to avoid the B-2's small fleet size with their next bomber, hoping to produce between 80 and 100 planes.<\/p>\n\n<p>Given the tremendous importance of this next-generation vehicle, and the large numbers the Air Force wants, does it make sense to borrow from recent unmanned innovations? On Friday, <em>Popular Science<\/em> visited the Pentagon to speak with a senior defense official on background about the future of America's nuclear bombers. When asked if the Long Range Strike Bomber could ever be fully unmanned, the senior defense official told <em>Popular Science<\/em> they don\u2019t expect to see drones in dynamic, contested spaces, where a nuclear-armed bomber might fly.<\/p>\n\n<h6>The loss of a Global Hawk for a battle means a lack of surveillance and intelligence. The loss of a nuclear-armed bomber would mean something much worse.<\/h6>\n\n<p>Despite their prominence in the American imagination and recent wars, drones haven\u2019t flown much in contested airspace -- where a peer or near-peer adversary has had planes and anti-air weapons to use against them. This is both by design and limitation: America\u2019s drone fleet contains slow-flying bombers and scouts, better suited for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/article\/technology\/no-drones-are-not-useless-most-wars\">counter insurgency than a conventional war<\/a>. That\u2019s as far as drone technology goes right now, but it doesn\u2019t mean drones are limited to that role forever.<\/p>\n\n<p>Still, there are reasons to keep them out of the nuke fight. An early <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/war-is-boring\/america-almost-had-a-nuclear-armed-drone-bomber-e494e2e9a286\">Cold War project<\/a> to make an unmanned nuclear-armed bomber was abandoned in large part because of technical constraints with remote piloting. These constraints have largely been overcome, but there are still reasons to keep pilots on board the plane rather than sitting at remote consoles. When asked about advantages that a drone could confer, the senior defense official responded by noting the many advantages of having pilots physically present in cockpits. He also noted that aircraft with pilots on board land where those pilots want them to land.<\/p>\n\n<p>Losing a remotely controlled aircraft to a hostile nation through electronic warfare has historical precedent, so this isn't an ungrounded fear. In 2011, Iran famously captured an American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/tags\/rq-170\">RQ-170<\/a> stealth surveillance drone, likely through a combination of jamming its communications and feeding it false coordinates. The senior defense official addressed the hypothetical scenario of an unmanned aircraft receiving wrong or false instructions. If an unarmed Global Hawk drone had its datalink cut or jammed, that drone could be rendered useless over the battlefield without shots fired. The loss of a Global Hawk for a battle means a lack of surveillance and intelligence. The loss of a nuclear-armed bomber would mean something much worse.<\/p>\n\n<p>In a conventional war, or even worse, an active nuclear conflict, the last thing any military commander wants is to lose control over a nuclear-armed plane. When the Long Range Strike Bomber comes to light, it may include an optionally manned capability, but for nuclear armed missions, it's safe to assume pilots will always be on board.<\/p>\n","teaser":" Northrop Grumman&#039;s bomber could be unmanned but no one wants it like that if nuclear. ","ss_name":"AthertonKD","tos_name":"AthertonKD","ss_name_formatted":"AthertonKD","tos_name_formatted":"AthertonKD","is_uid":183,"bs_status":true,"bs_sticky":false,"bs_promote":true,"is_tnid":0,"bs_translate":false,"ds_created":"2014-12-17T18:30:12Z","ds_changed":"2016-02-26T14:44:59Z","ds_last_comment_or_change":"2016-02-26T14:44:59Z","bs_field_sponsored":false,"bs_field_custom_page":false,"bs_field_display_social":true,"bs_field_feed_builder_exclusion":false,"bs_field_display_author_bio":true,"bs_field_display_bottom_recirc":true,"bs_use_sir_trevor_body":false,"bs_field_flag_gallery":false,"bs_field_flag_video":false,"bs_field_display_off_ramp":true,"ts_bonnier_summary":"\n  <div class=\"field-body\">\n    Northrop Grumman's bomber could be unmanned but no one wants it like that if nuclear.  <\/div>\n","ts_bonnier_eyebrow":"<div class=\"primary-channel-eyebrow\"><a href=\"\/tags\/military\">Military<\/a><\/div>","timestamp":"2016-08-02T15:22:16.759Z","bm_field_display_off_ramp":[true],"sm_field_gallery_items":["0"],"sm_field_image":["http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_4x3\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=hfWg2hD4"],"sm_field_gallery_display":["gallery_none"],"bm_field_sponsored":[false],"sm_field_customhtml_display":["customhtml_none"],"bm_field_flag_gallery":[false],"bm_field_custom_page":[false],"bm_field_flag_video":[false],"bm_field_display_bottom_recirc":[true],"bm_use_sir_trevor_body":[false],"tid":[213284,211692,211535,209276,200279,212414,63,212918,200098],"sm_field_layout_standard":["right-sidebar"],"sm_field_primary_channel":["military"],"tm_vid_2_names":["Kelsey D. Atherton"],"tm_vid_1_names":["long range strike bomber USAF unmanned aerial vehicles remotely piloted vehicles drones Military Technology editor&#039;s picks"],"spell":["What\u2019s So Scary About A Nuclear-Armed Drone?","<div class=\"media media-element-container media-default full-width\"><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"Long Range Strike Bomber Concept Art\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=yUcLdii6\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=CcSH6Leg\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=E64WGRPH\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=jlTkyvvJ\" src=\"\/sites\/all\/modules\/bonnier\/sandcastle\/images\/placeholder.gif\" \/><noscript><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"Long Range Strike Bomber Concept Art\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=yUcLdii6\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=CcSH6Leg\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=E64WGRPH\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=jlTkyvvJ\" src=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/longrange.jpg?itok=CcSH6Leg\" \/><\/noscript><div class=\"caption-wrapper indent\" style=\"\">\n  <div class=\"field-credit\">\n    <p>Northrop Grumman<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"field-title\">\n    <p>Long Range Strike Bomber Concept Art<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>It's a plane designed for the war no one wants to fight. The Long Range Strike Bomber is the Air Force\u2019s secretive and long-running project to develop the next generation of nuclear-armed bombers, designed to unload hell in hostile skies. And there's a chance that it'll be optionally manned, allowing it to fly some missions as a drone.<\/p>\n\n<p>Sounds pretty terrifying, right? Well, despite years of advancement in unmanned technology, military brass isn\u2019t comfortable trusting a drone with nuclear weapons just yet, even as they develop the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/article\/technology\/air-force-working-new-bomber\">bomber of the future<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/weapons\/R43049.pdf\">Almost half<\/a> of the 159 bombers currently serving within the United States Air Force are B-52s, a class that first entered service in 1961. Of pure bomber varieties introduced since then, only two currently fly: the supersonic B-1 Lancer, and the iconic stealthy black wedge known as the B-2 Spirit. All three were designed to carry nuclear weapons long distances, and together, they formed the bomber leg of America\u2019s \"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/nuke\/RL33640.pdf\">nuclear triad<\/a>.\" (The other legs are nuclear missile armed submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos scattered throughout the heartland). The triad was an integral part of American strategic planning during the Cold War, but following the collapse of the USSR, it\u2019s taken a bit of a back seat.<\/p>\n\n<p>This is evident in the size of the B-2 Spirit fleet. Tailless and stealthy, the Spirit is by far the most advanced bomber ever fielded by the USAF, but it was built just as the USSR started collapsing. Political pressure from Congress in the <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/1990-07-23\/news\/mn-625_1_les-aspin\">early 1990s<\/a>, along with a diminished threat kept the fleet of Spirits small. When one <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/id\/24992781\/#.VI829CvF-So\">crashed in 2008<\/a> it left a fleet of just 20 planes. The Air Force wants to avoid the B-2's small fleet size with their next bomber, hoping to produce between 80 and 100 planes.<\/p>\n\n<p>Given the tremendous importance of this next-generation vehicle, and the large numbers the Air Force wants, does it make sense to borrow from recent unmanned innovations? On Friday, <em>Popular Science<\/em> visited the Pentagon to speak with a senior defense official on background about the future of America's nuclear bombers. When asked if the Long Range Strike Bomber could ever be fully unmanned, the senior defense official told <em>Popular Science<\/em> they don\u2019t expect to see drones in dynamic, contested spaces, where a nuclear-armed bomber might fly.<\/p>\n\n<h6>The loss of a Global Hawk for a battle means a lack of surveillance and intelligence. The loss of a nuclear-armed bomber would mean something much worse.<\/h6>\n\n<p>Despite their prominence in the American imagination and recent wars, drones haven\u2019t flown much in contested airspace -- where a peer or near-peer adversary has had planes and anti-air weapons to use against them. This is both by design and limitation: America\u2019s drone fleet contains slow-flying bombers and scouts, better suited for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/article\/technology\/no-drones-are-not-useless-most-wars\">counter insurgency than a conventional war<\/a>. That\u2019s as far as drone technology goes right now, but it doesn\u2019t mean drones are limited to that role forever.<\/p>\n\n<p>Still, there are reasons to keep them out of the nuke fight. An early <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/war-is-boring\/america-almost-had-a-nuclear-armed-drone-bomber-e494e2e9a286\">Cold War project<\/a> to make an unmanned nuclear-armed bomber was abandoned in large part because of technical constraints with remote piloting. These constraints have largely been overcome, but there are still reasons to keep pilots on board the plane rather than sitting at remote consoles. When asked about advantages that a drone could confer, the senior defense official responded by noting the many advantages of having pilots physically present in cockpits. He also noted that aircraft with pilots on board land where those pilots want them to land.<\/p>\n\n<p>Losing a remotely controlled aircraft to a hostile nation through electronic warfare has historical precedent, so this isn't an ungrounded fear. In 2011, Iran famously captured an American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/tags\/rq-170\">RQ-170<\/a> stealth surveillance drone, likely through a combination of jamming its communications and feeding it false coordinates. The senior defense official addressed the hypothetical scenario of an unmanned aircraft receiving wrong or false instructions. If an unarmed Global Hawk drone had its datalink cut or jammed, that drone could be rendered useless over the battlefield without shots fired. The loss of a Global Hawk for a battle means a lack of surveillance and intelligence. The loss of a nuclear-armed bomber would mean something much worse.<\/p>\n\n<p>In a conventional war, or even worse, an active nuclear conflict, the last thing any military commander wants is to lose control over a nuclear-armed plane. When the Long Range Strike Bomber comes to light, it may include an optionally manned capability, but for nuclear armed missions, it's safe to assume pilots will always be on board.<\/p>\n","long range strike bomber USAF unmanned aerial vehicles remotely piloted vehicles drones Military Technology editor&#039;s picks","Kelsey D. Atherton","\n  <div class=\"field-body\">\n    Northrop Grumman's bomber could be unmanned but no one wants it like that if nuclear.  <\/div>\n","<div class=\"primary-channel-eyebrow\"><a href=\"\/tags\/military\">Military<\/a><\/div>"],"bm_field_feed_builder_exclusion":[false],"im_field_author":[200098],"bm_field_display_social":[true],"sm_field_sponsor_label":[""],"sm_field_subtitle":["In one word: Everything\n"],"bm_field_display_author_bio":[true],"im_field_tags":[213284,211692,211535,209276,200279,212414,63,212918],"im_vid_2":[200098],"sm_vid_Authors":["Kelsey D. Atherton"],"im_vid_1":[213284,211692,211535,209276,200279,212414,63,212918],"sm_field_video_display":["video_none"],"sm_vid_Tags":["long range strike bomber","USAF","unmanned aerial vehicles","remotely piloted vehicles","drones","Military","Technology","editor&#039;s picks"]},{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/227440","site":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":227440,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"tout","bundle_name":"Tout","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/227440","url":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/extreme-science-0","path_alias":"extreme-science-0","label":"Extreme Science","content":"","teaser":" http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/extreme-science ","ss_name":"bonnier-admin","tos_name":"bonnier-admin","ss_name_formatted":"bonnier-admin","tos_name_formatted":"bonnier-admin","is_uid":1,"bs_status":true,"bs_sticky":false,"bs_promote":false,"is_tnid":0,"bs_translate":false,"ds_created":"2011-12-10T14:51:38Z","ds_changed":"2015-12-10T17:13:24Z","ds_last_comment_or_change":"2015-12-10T17:13:24Z","bs_field_sponsored":false,"ts_bonnier_eyebrow":"<div class=\"primary-channel-eyebrow\"><a href=\"\/tags\/science\">Science<\/a><\/div>","timestamp":"2016-08-02T15:34:39.981Z","sm_field_subtitle":["Come with Popular Science's extreme-science video correspondent to three of the world's wildest destinations.\n"],"sm_field_image":["http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_4x3\/public\/images\/tout-images\/2015\/12\/xsci.jpg?itok=jzEvXoZ7"],"bm_field_sponsored":[false],"im_field_tags":[204260,212918,212416,63,215359,62],"im_vid_1":[204260,212918,212416,63,215359,62],"sm_field_sponsor_label":[""],"tid":[204260,212918,212416,63,215359,62],"sm_field_primary_channel":["science"],"sm_vid_Tags":["Features","editor&#039;s picks","Space","Technology","Extreme Science","Science"],"tm_vid_1_names":["Features editor&#039;s picks Space Technology Extreme Science Science"],"spell":["Extreme Science","","Features editor&#039;s picks Space Technology Extreme Science Science","<div class=\"primary-channel-eyebrow\"><a href=\"\/tags\/science\">Science<\/a><\/div>"],"sm_field_redirect":["{\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.popsci.com\\\/extreme-science\",\"title\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.popsci.com\\\/extreme-science\",\"attributes\":{\"rel\":\"nofollow\"},\"display_url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.popsci.com\\\/extreme-science\"}"]},{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/224886","site":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":224886,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"basic_content","bundle_name":"Basic content","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/224886","url":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/what-would-killerbot-arms-race-look","path_alias":"what-would-killerbot-arms-race-look","label":"What Might A Killerbot Arms Race Look Like?","content":"<div class=\"media media-element-container media-default full-width\"><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=ge9xkUp2\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mC4Z_BJv\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mWDmcBhV\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=LJOISiKp\" src=\"\/sites\/all\/modules\/bonnier\/sandcastle\/images\/placeholder.gif\" \/><noscript><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=ge9xkUp2\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mC4Z_BJv\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mWDmcBhV\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=LJOISiKp\" src=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mC4Z_BJv\" \/><\/noscript><div class=\"caption-wrapper indent\" style=\"\"><\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>When they appear on the horizon, the robots coming to kill you won't necessarily look like warplanes. That's limited, human-centric thinking, says Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, and it only applies to today's unmanned weapons. Predator and Reaper drones were built with remote pilots and traditional flight mechanics in mind, and armed with the typical weapons of air war--powerful missiles, as useful for destroying buildings and vehicles as personnel. Tomorrow's nimbler, self-piloted armed bots won't simply be updated tools for old-fashioned air strikes. They'll be vectors for slaughter.<\/p>\n\n<p>More likely, the lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) to come will show up in a cloud of thousands or more. Each robot will be small, cheap, and lightly armed, packing the bare minimum to end a single life at a time. Predicting the exact nature of these weapons is as macabre as it is speculative, but to illustrate how we should adjust our thinking on the subject of deploying autonomous robots on the battlefield, Russell offers two hypotheticals. \u201cIt would perhaps be able to fire miniature projectiles, just powerful enough to shoot someone through their eyeball,\u201d he says. \u201cIt would be pretty easy to do that from 30 or 40 meters away. Or it could put a shaped charge directly on a person's cranium. One gram of explosives is enough to blow a hole in sheet metal. That would probably be more than enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>Russell's prediction is one of focused, efficient lethality. But to anthropomorphize this assault cloud, imagining it as a swarm of tiny, flying snipers or grenadiers, is another mistake. Russell estimates that, with enough iteration and innovation, the systems developed in a LAWS arms race could eventually be as cheap as $10 apiece. They would be closer to a plague of guided munitions than an automated fighting force, leaving a locust-like trail of inert, disposable components alongside their victims. Unleashing such a weapon on a city, with orders to kill anyone holding a weapon-like object, or simply every male within a given age group, would be too cheap, and too effective to resist. \u201cNo matter where this sort of arms race ends up, it becomes clear that humans don't stand a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>Russell's worry is not that the future of warfare will be merely unsettling, or unfair. In a commentary published today in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-intelligence-1.17611\">Nature<\/a>, Russell reiterates many of the concerns he presented this past April in Geneva, at a United Nations meeting on the topic of banning LAWS. Among those concerns are the prospects of autonomous weapons being misused\u2014used to commit war crimes, for example\u2014as well as overused. The clear appeal of sending robots into traditionally casualty-heavy situations, such as urban combat, combined with their potential lethality, could transform armed conflicts into a series of one-sided massacres. \u201cThe stakes are high,\u201d he writes. \u201cLAWS have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<h6>\u201cLethal autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.\u201d<\/h6>\n\n<p>The debate over autonomous weapons has typically centered on who, or what, is making the decision to kill. Human Rights Watch and other opponents of the technology have often warned that the benefits of allowing robots to choose their own targets\u2014such as when distance or terrain interrupts communication links between operators and drones\u2014make the fielding of such systems inevitable. Military personnel, meanwhile, insist that there's no will for these machines, and that commanders will always want a human \u201cin the loop,\u201d giving the final order to attack a given target. But the defense industry is nonetheless moving towards this capability. The marketing language used by defense contractor BAE Systems to describe its in-development Taranis stealth drone includes the phrase, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baesystems.com\/enhancedarticle\/BAES_157659\/taranis;baeSessionId=JEWXTgfs9p2iI6IBAfy9YbuVFvE0XHoLZr4S4WJzPFcha8_oaNa7!229364842?_afrLoop=1036241525369000&amp;_afrWindowMode=0&amp;_afrWindowId=null#!%40%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dnull%26_afrLoop%3D1036241525369000%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dit6j283y0_4\">full autonomy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>And in his Nature article, Russell cites two DARPA projects whose aim is to significantly increase drone autonomy. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbo.gov\/index?s=opportunity&amp;mode=form&amp;id=3e4ba23c2b81d58e649301001670e8d1&amp;tab=core&amp;_cview=1\">Fast Lightweight Autonomy<\/a> (FLA) project is developing methods for small unmanned systems to navigate themselves through cluttered environments, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbo.gov\/index?s=opportunity&amp;mode=form&amp;id=0db5a2ebace9cdac0c6c12d56dab686d&amp;tab=core&amp;tabmode=list&amp;=\">Collaborative Operations in Denied Environments<\/a> (CODE) program is explicit about its interest in autonomous combat. \u201cJust as wolves hunt in coordinated packs with minimal communication, multiple CODE-enabled unmanned aircraft would collaborate to find, track, identify and engage targets, all under the command of a single human mission supervisor,\u201d said DARPA program manager Jean-Charles Lede in an agency <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darpa.mil\/NewsEvents\/Releases\/2015\/01\/21.aspx\">press release<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n<p>Despite the mention of a human supervisor, engaging targets is part of CODE, a program intended to deal with situations where unmanned vehicles may be forced to act autonomously. \u201cThey tend to put in a couple of fig leaf phrases, here and there, related to the man in the loop,\u201d says Russell. \u201cbut I think they are interested. And I think without a ban, there will be an arms race, and they will be used.\u201d In fact, he believes that LAWS have already been deployed. Israel's <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/israeli-defence-firm-comes-suicide-drones-1452627\">Harop drone<\/a> is designed to loiter over an area, searching for enemy radar sites. If it detects a given source of radiation, the system automatically crashes into it, detonating its warhead. \u201cThat seems to me to cross the line,\u201d says Russell. \u201cWhat it's doing is possibly indiscriminate. And you could imagine Palestinians putting a radar system in a crowded school, to trick the Israelis into committing a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>But even if LAWS were to function perfectly, and could somehow cut through the fog of war to avoid large-scale friendly fire incidents, or full-blown, automated atrocities, they may share an important similarity with nukes. There's no viable defense against the overwhelming destructive force of a nuclear attack. Russell argues that, once autonomous weapons have matured, they will be just as unstoppable, resurrecting the tenuous doomsday geopolitics of the Cold War's nuclear standoff. If nations don't start the complex process of defining and banning these systems, and preventing an escalation before it begins, he fears it's only a matter of time before the clouds roll towards one city or another. \u201cI imagine that people will come up with countermeasures,\u201d says Russell. \u201cSome kind of electromagnetic weapon, or they might send up their own cloud of counter-drones.\u201d But if his analysis is right, and a LAWS arms races peaks at swarms that number in the millions targeting large populations, would anything be effective against what amounts to an autonomous weapon of mass destruction?<\/p>\n\n<p>Russell laughs, a little too knowingly. \u201cI feel like we don't want to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n","teaser":"<div class=\"media media-element-container media-default full-width\"><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=ge9xkUp2\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci","ss_name":"Erik Sofge","tos_name":"Erik Sofge","ss_name_formatted":"Erik Sofge","tos_name_formatted":"Erik Sofge","is_uid":321,"bs_status":true,"bs_sticky":false,"bs_promote":true,"is_tnid":0,"bs_translate":false,"ds_created":"2015-05-28T15:15:10Z","ds_changed":"2015-06-18T13:50:55Z","ds_last_comment_or_change":"2015-06-18T13:50:55Z","bs_field_sponsored":false,"bs_field_custom_page":false,"bs_field_display_social":true,"bs_field_feed_builder_exclusion":false,"bs_field_display_author_bio":true,"bs_field_display_bottom_recirc":true,"bs_field_display_off_ramp":true,"ts_bonnier_summary":"\n  <div class=\"field-body\">\n    When they appear on the horizon, the robots coming to kill you won't necessarily look like warplanes. That's limited, human-centric thinking, says Stuart Russell, a computer&hellip;  <\/div>\n","ts_bonnier_eyebrow":"\n  <div class=\"field-multi-blog-blog-reference\">\n    <a href=\"\/blog-network\/zero-moment\">FROM OUR BLOGS: Zero Moment<\/a>  <\/div>\n","timestamp":"2016-08-02T15:27:37.405Z","bm_field_display_off_ramp":[true],"sm_field_gallery_items":["0"],"sm_field_image":["http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_4x3\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=log_3wpB"],"sm_field_gallery_display":["gallery_none"],"bm_field_sponsored":[false],"sm_field_customhtml_display":["customhtml_none"],"bm_field_custom_page":[false],"bm_field_display_bottom_recirc":[true],"tid":[206477,214150,200279,211954,212685,210843,212414,63,204260,212918,126],"sm_field_layout_standard":["right-sidebar"],"sm_field_primary_channel":["military"],"tm_vid_2_names":["Erik Sofge"],"tm_vid_1_names":["laws autonomous weapons drones warfare Aviation swarms Military Technology Features editor&#039;s picks"],"spell":["What Might A Killerbot Arms Race Look Like?","<div class=\"media media-element-container media-default full-width\"><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=ge9xkUp2\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mC4Z_BJv\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mWDmcBhV\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=LJOISiKp\" src=\"\/sites\/all\/modules\/bonnier\/sandcastle\/images\/placeholder.gif\" \/><noscript><img class=\"full-width\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" alt=\"\" data-smsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/small_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=ge9xkUp2\" data-medsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mC4Z_BJv\" data-lgsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/large_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mWDmcBhV\" data-xlsrc=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/xl_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=LJOISiKp\" src=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/sites\/popsci.com\/files\/styles\/medium_1x_\/public\/IAI_Harop_PAS_2013_02.jpg?itok=mC4Z_BJv\" \/><\/noscript><div class=\"caption-wrapper indent\" style=\"\"><\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>When they appear on the horizon, the robots coming to kill you won't necessarily look like warplanes. That's limited, human-centric thinking, says Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, and it only applies to today's unmanned weapons. Predator and Reaper drones were built with remote pilots and traditional flight mechanics in mind, and armed with the typical weapons of air war--powerful missiles, as useful for destroying buildings and vehicles as personnel. Tomorrow's nimbler, self-piloted armed bots won't simply be updated tools for old-fashioned air strikes. They'll be vectors for slaughter.<\/p>\n\n<p>More likely, the lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) to come will show up in a cloud of thousands or more. Each robot will be small, cheap, and lightly armed, packing the bare minimum to end a single life at a time. Predicting the exact nature of these weapons is as macabre as it is speculative, but to illustrate how we should adjust our thinking on the subject of deploying autonomous robots on the battlefield, Russell offers two hypotheticals. \u201cIt would perhaps be able to fire miniature projectiles, just powerful enough to shoot someone through their eyeball,\u201d he says. \u201cIt would be pretty easy to do that from 30 or 40 meters away. Or it could put a shaped charge directly on a person's cranium. One gram of explosives is enough to blow a hole in sheet metal. That would probably be more than enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>Russell's prediction is one of focused, efficient lethality. But to anthropomorphize this assault cloud, imagining it as a swarm of tiny, flying snipers or grenadiers, is another mistake. Russell estimates that, with enough iteration and innovation, the systems developed in a LAWS arms race could eventually be as cheap as $10 apiece. They would be closer to a plague of guided munitions than an automated fighting force, leaving a locust-like trail of inert, disposable components alongside their victims. Unleashing such a weapon on a city, with orders to kill anyone holding a weapon-like object, or simply every male within a given age group, would be too cheap, and too effective to resist. \u201cNo matter where this sort of arms race ends up, it becomes clear that humans don't stand a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>Russell's worry is not that the future of warfare will be merely unsettling, or unfair. In a commentary published today in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-intelligence-1.17611\">Nature<\/a>, Russell reiterates many of the concerns he presented this past April in Geneva, at a United Nations meeting on the topic of banning LAWS. Among those concerns are the prospects of autonomous weapons being misused\u2014used to commit war crimes, for example\u2014as well as overused. The clear appeal of sending robots into traditionally casualty-heavy situations, such as urban combat, combined with their potential lethality, could transform armed conflicts into a series of one-sided massacres. \u201cThe stakes are high,\u201d he writes. \u201cLAWS have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<h6>\u201cLethal autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.\u201d<\/h6>\n\n<p>The debate over autonomous weapons has typically centered on who, or what, is making the decision to kill. Human Rights Watch and other opponents of the technology have often warned that the benefits of allowing robots to choose their own targets\u2014such as when distance or terrain interrupts communication links between operators and drones\u2014make the fielding of such systems inevitable. Military personnel, meanwhile, insist that there's no will for these machines, and that commanders will always want a human \u201cin the loop,\u201d giving the final order to attack a given target. But the defense industry is nonetheless moving towards this capability. The marketing language used by defense contractor BAE Systems to describe its in-development Taranis stealth drone includes the phrase, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baesystems.com\/enhancedarticle\/BAES_157659\/taranis;baeSessionId=JEWXTgfs9p2iI6IBAfy9YbuVFvE0XHoLZr4S4WJzPFcha8_oaNa7!229364842?_afrLoop=1036241525369000&amp;_afrWindowMode=0&amp;_afrWindowId=null#!%40%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dnull%26_afrLoop%3D1036241525369000%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dit6j283y0_4\">full autonomy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>And in his Nature article, Russell cites two DARPA projects whose aim is to significantly increase drone autonomy. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbo.gov\/index?s=opportunity&amp;mode=form&amp;id=3e4ba23c2b81d58e649301001670e8d1&amp;tab=core&amp;_cview=1\">Fast Lightweight Autonomy<\/a> (FLA) project is developing methods for small unmanned systems to navigate themselves through cluttered environments, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbo.gov\/index?s=opportunity&amp;mode=form&amp;id=0db5a2ebace9cdac0c6c12d56dab686d&amp;tab=core&amp;tabmode=list&amp;=\">Collaborative Operations in Denied Environments<\/a> (CODE) program is explicit about its interest in autonomous combat. \u201cJust as wolves hunt in coordinated packs with minimal communication, multiple CODE-enabled unmanned aircraft would collaborate to find, track, identify and engage targets, all under the command of a single human mission supervisor,\u201d said DARPA program manager Jean-Charles Lede in an agency <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darpa.mil\/NewsEvents\/Releases\/2015\/01\/21.aspx\">press release<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n<p>Despite the mention of a human supervisor, engaging targets is part of CODE, a program intended to deal with situations where unmanned vehicles may be forced to act autonomously. \u201cThey tend to put in a couple of fig leaf phrases, here and there, related to the man in the loop,\u201d says Russell. \u201cbut I think they are interested. And I think without a ban, there will be an arms race, and they will be used.\u201d In fact, he believes that LAWS have already been deployed. Israel's <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/israeli-defence-firm-comes-suicide-drones-1452627\">Harop drone<\/a> is designed to loiter over an area, searching for enemy radar sites. If it detects a given source of radiation, the system automatically crashes into it, detonating its warhead. \u201cThat seems to me to cross the line,\u201d says Russell. \u201cWhat it's doing is possibly indiscriminate. And you could imagine Palestinians putting a radar system in a crowded school, to trick the Israelis into committing a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>But even if LAWS were to function perfectly, and could somehow cut through the fog of war to avoid large-scale friendly fire incidents, or full-blown, automated atrocities, they may share an important similarity with nukes. There's no viable defense against the overwhelming destructive force of a nuclear attack. Russell argues that, once autonomous weapons have matured, they will be just as unstoppable, resurrecting the tenuous doomsday geopolitics of the Cold War's nuclear standoff. If nations don't start the complex process of defining and banning these systems, and preventing an escalation before it begins, he fears it's only a matter of time before the clouds roll towards one city or another. \u201cI imagine that people will come up with countermeasures,\u201d says Russell. \u201cSome kind of electromagnetic weapon, or they might send up their own cloud of counter-drones.\u201d But if his analysis is right, and a LAWS arms races peaks at swarms that number in the millions targeting large populations, would anything be effective against what amounts to an autonomous weapon of mass destruction?<\/p>\n\n<p>Russell laughs, a little too knowingly. \u201cI feel like we don't want to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n","laws autonomous weapons drones warfare Aviation swarms Military Technology Features editor&#039;s picks","Erik Sofge","\n  <div class=\"field-body\">\n    When they appear on the horizon, the robots coming to kill you won't necessarily look like warplanes. That's limited, human-centric thinking, says Stuart Russell, a computer&hellip;  <\/div>\n","\n  <div class=\"field-multi-blog-blog-reference\">\n    <a href=\"\/blog-network\/zero-moment\">FROM OUR BLOGS: Zero Moment<\/a>  <\/div>\n"],"bm_field_feed_builder_exclusion":[false],"im_field_author":[126],"bm_field_display_social":[true],"sm_field_sponsor_label":[""],"sm_field_subtitle":["The coming swarm\n"],"bm_field_display_author_bio":[true],"im_field_tags":[206477,214150,200279,211954,212685,210843,212414,63,204260,212918],"im_vid_2":[126],"sm_vid_Authors":["Erik Sofge"],"im_vid_1":[206477,214150,200279,211954,212685,210843,212414,63,204260,212918],"sm_field_video_display":["video_none"],"sm_multi_blog_blog_reference":["multi_blog:37"],"sm_vid_Tags":["laws","autonomous weapons","drones","warfare","Aviation","swarms","Military","Technology","Features","editor&#039;s picks"]}]]