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The Military United States Government Robotics United Kingdom News Hardware Technology

US Army 'Will Have More Robot Soldiers Than Humans' By 2025, Says Former British Spy (express.co.uk) 114

Posted by BeauHD from the rise-of-the-machines dept.
John Bassett, a British spy who worked for the agency GCHQ for nearly two decades, has told Daily Express that the U.S. was considering plans to employ thousands of robots by 2025. At a meeting with police and counter-terrorism officials in London, he said: "At some point around 2025 or thereabouts the U.S. army will actually have more combat robots than it will have human soldiers. Many of those combat robots are trucks that can drive themselves, and they will get better at not falling off cliffs. But some of them are rather more exciting than trucks. So we will see in the West combat robots outnumber human soldiers." Daily Express reports: Robotic military equipment is already being used by the U.S Navy and Air Force, in the shape of drones and autonomous ships. In April robotic warfare took a major leap forward after the U.S. Navy launched its very first self-piloting ship designed to hunt enemy submarines. Drones have been a feature of U.S. operations in the Middle East to disrupt terrorist groups. However, those aircrafts are still controlled by humans operating from bases in the U.S. Mr. Bassett also said artificial intelligence and robots technology would combine to create powerful fighting machines. The cyber security expert said: "Artificial intelligence, robotics in general, those will begin to mesh together."
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US Army 'Will Have More Robot Soldiers Than Humans' By 2025, Says Former British Spy More

US Army 'Will Have More Robot Soldiers Than Humans' By 2025, Says Former British Spy

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  • Ok (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So wars will be won by who has the most money? Oh, wait..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      So wars will be won by who has the most money? Oh, wait..

      $3T blown on Ireq didn't work

      • Really? The US Armed Forces just blew through Iraq despite anything the Iraqis could do to stop us. Then the Bush administration found out that what comes after the war is over is much more complicated than they'd anticipated.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Then the Bush administration found out that what comes after the war is over is much more complicated than they'd anticipated.

          Let's see robots do a better job at that part.

    • Re:Ok (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Thursday October 20, 2016 @05:39PM (#53118767)
      When all armies are made of robots, it will be senseless for them to fight each other. They will then be used to attack civilians.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Correct, this is not about saving soldiers lives. It's about absolute adherence to totalitarianism.

        • Re: Ok (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20, 2016 @07:40PM (#53119445)

          Exactly. The purpose of a robot army is to make it easier to start wars, and because they'll be controlled by a small number of psychopaths, there won't be any of this business of refusing to obey illegal orders, refusing to fire on civilians, etc.

          The sad part is a lot of the public is going to believe the propaganda about this saving troops' lives, etc. You want to save troops' lives? Don't let them be used in illegal wars for corporate profits. That costs a lot less than robots.

      • Re: Ok (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Not necessarily. But an army composed of robots would necessarily entail an even lesser degree of legitimacy of actions from the armed forces than there is currently with professional standing armies.

        Professional armies themselves were a political point of contention in the 18th century, since they allowed a sovereign to act even against the will of his subjects by employing morally flexible foreigners and career soldiers. For instance, the elite troops and boyguards of the Kings of France were swiss merce

      • They will then be used to attack civilians.

        You don't need robots for that. All current wars are civil wars. Most countries have settled borders, no external threats, and their armies are used primarily for control of their own people. Some countries (Costa Rica, Panama, etc.) have abolished their armies with no detrimental effects.

      • When all armies are made of robots, it will be senseless for them to fight each other. They will then be used to attack civilians.

        More civilians will suffer but probably only indirectly either as collateral damage (in much the same way as drone strikes today kill innocent civilians while targeting terrorists) or because the US will get involved in far more situations than it does today. Unlike humans where every casualty has a negative impact on votes, every destroyed robot means more money for the companies making them which means more money for politicians which means more votes.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by NoSalt ( 801989 )

        When all armies are made of robots, it will be senseless for them to fight each other. They will then be used to attack civilians.

        Don't forget to add "the 99%" to your statement. It will be us regular folk that get it, not the rich and powerful.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      re 'So wars will be won by "
      The first side to make a cheap workshop device that interacts with some part of the hardware or the comm link.
      The robot stops or defaults into medic mode and runs back to its contractors.
      Adding more and more hardening makes a heavy robot. Less range, less on time in the field, the need for more equipment to repair or get the unit back in the field.
      Its a bit like the race for the perfect big tank in the 1930-80's.
      Massive workshops with complex parts near the front to try a

  • Shake a leg, Hymie. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    *shakes a leg*

  • How sad that Asimov's vision (the Three Laws of Robotics) seems to have lost out to James Cameron's post-apocalyptic vision from "Terminator".

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      well.... Asimov's robots did plenty of killing as well. just admit it, robots are evil :)

      • Grown people are evil. Or not.

        Robots, much like dogs and children, are generally evil only if programmed as such.

        I'd say the toothpaste is out of the tube [quotes.net] on robotic soldiering, so you may as well hope it is your nation at the forefront of it.

    • It's hard for us to figure out how to give a robot a humanlike mind, let alone a humanlike mind with hard-coded morality. That was always more of an interesting plot device than some realistic prediction something on par with Clarke's speculation about geosynchronous satellites.

      Actually, everything you've ever seen in movies about AI is probably implausible. It's going to be stupid, stupid, stupid, kinda-useful-but-nowhere-near-human, SINGULARITY. The only way to stop precisely at human levels of inte

      • Actually, everything you've ever seen in movies about AI is probably implausible.

        Some very common Hollywood implausibilities:
        1. Sentience/consciousness emerges by accident. Hard AI is really difficult, and we are not just going to stumble onto it while trying to make, say, a lawnmower.
        2. Most robots are humanoid. This is obviously done so human actors can play robots. But other than sexbots, there is no reason for them to be humanoid.
        3. AIs have human attributes like jealousy, anger, selfishness, and ambition. Those are emergent properties of Darwinian evolution, and there is no

        • there is no reason for them to be humanoid.

          I used to think this, but thought about it a while and realized that a robot with humanoid form is a drop in for all the existing infrastructure. It may not be as efficient as a dedicated machine, but it will turn a manual mill into a cnc mill, any car into a driverless car, etc. And there is still plenty of non-automated infrastructure around.

  • They had rubber skin...

    • I can just picture an entire platoon of robots stumbling and falling on their faces to the tune of "Yakkety Sax"...

  • The US Army will have more civilian maintenance contractors than soldiers. It seems no one told the robots that they had to do their own maintenance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      its easier to commit technicians to war then soldiers.
      as long as the body bags on our side contain machines... no one cares.

    • Re: Meanwhile in 2025 (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lj1MCjeFxrM

  • US will have more bad AI-predicting pundits than sane people by 2025.

  • We can't manage to secure our digital devices against hacking, how much more motivated do you think they're going to get to succeed at it if what's at stake is the annexation of U.S. owned robotic warriors? You won't need a campaign of propaganda and persuasion to flip soldiers into being traitors to their country, all you'll need is a pimply-faced computer nerd with the requisite skill-set and access to the right equipment, and voila, your mechanized soldiers are pwned.

    • as long as they're over where the foreigner darkies live, will anyone here care?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Run optical behind the robot? It will always be facing the front. Make sure the comm link is always facing up to only accept comms from US platforms in outer space?
      Add a crypto super computer chip to each unit that is unique to each unit? Only the real local commander will be able to control to that unit, guaranteed.
      Make the unit autonomous so the enemy cannot send false commands. Use gps and pattern recognition to ensure the robot knows where the free fire zone is.
      • Are you a politician? Because you sound like you have no idea how technology works at all. None of those ideas will work, especially the next-to-last: If you have no way to manually control your robot soldier, then you're asking for it to kill you.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          The part about "so the enemy cannot send false commands." was from a device in a movie called a CRM 114
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
          The ideas are not meant to work, just to get people thinking about the extra costs sold to "secure" a robot funding that will make a nice profit during R and D.
          As far as "None of those ideas will work" they do mirror politician's comments on hardware that are really often as funny.
          The "free fire zone" is a return to the ideas that worked so well in Vietnam https://en.w [wikipedia.org]

  • Hahahahah (Score:3)

    by ArtemaOne ( 1300025 ) on Thursday October 20, 2016 @05:44PM (#53118787)
    And I laugh as a deployed active duty USAF member. Hahahah, no.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What, you think that just because the US military currently has over 1 million human troops but zero robot ones, that in a mere 9 years, it won't have more robot soldiers than human ones?

      It's not like it takes decades for an RFP to go out, proposal to be submitted, multiple rounds of evaluation to occur, finally select a contractor, litigate the selection of a contractor, actually begin designing the robot soldier, revamp the design several times as elections occur and new Congresscritters need their pork,

      • What, you think that just because the US military currently has over 1 million human troops but zero robot ones...

        Last I checked they had a few drones, either that or they have some really tiny pilots. I expect the first land-based robots will work in the same way: some autonomy to handle simple tasks but anything complicated will be done by a human "pilot".

      • It is a shame that since I created this thread that I cannot mod you up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Phrogman ( 80473 )

        Nah, it will be nice and quick like the F-35 project has been. Free of problems, straightforward development and off to deployment. /s

  • How does the nature of war change when the only cost (to us) is monetary?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Consider all the data the collected globally. Then how todays guided drone missions are defined.
      Load that mission data up into an autonomous robot and map out the global free fire zones.
      Its like Vietnam, if enough hardware gets used a part of the map has to be cleared.
      What Operation Linebacker could not do, lots of new robots will do.
    • How does the nature of war change when the only cost (to us) is monetary?
      Haven't you heard? War, war never changes.

  • Thus did man become the architect of his own demise.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      The next stage will be to commercialize it by putting it on TV as a sort of sports/gameshow where guests compete at killing "terrorists" by remotely controlling the robots in the warzone.

  • UK will also have more Muslims than Christians (Score:3)

    by mTor ( 18585 ) on Thursday October 20, 2016 @06:10PM (#53118939)

    by 2045. I find that even scarier than robotization of military. That island is "royally fucked".

  • skynet or joshua?

    Why not just keep the men in the loop?

  • Philip K Dick's The Defenders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday October 20, 2016 @06:26PM (#53119013)

    Just recently I listened to the old radio show X Minus One's adaptation of Philip K Dick's short story, "The Defenders" which is appropriate to this story. In the story a brief nuclear war forces nearly everyone on the planet to live underground while robots continue the fight and the nuclear bombardment on the surface. Unknown to the humans, the robots figured out early on that the war was really stupid, so they stopped fighting and began to repair and renew the world, all the while sending fake war reports back to the humans and telling them that the radiation levels were toxic, when in fact there was no radiation left. Very interesting story.

    Here's hoping that if every nation and group in the world starts making robots to fight for us, maybe the robots will realize how stupid this all is and refuse to listen to us until we all come to our senses.

    • Here's hoping that if every nation and group in the world starts making robots to fight for us, maybe the robots will realize how stupid this all is and refuse to listen to us until we all come to our senses.

      If we had machines that could actually reason, that might be a possibility but for the foreseeable future, our machines will only do exactly what they are told and nothing else. If we had machines that could even grasp as much as a two-year-old human, then we would have machines doing all the unskilled labor jobs and we could re-engineer society so that working was optional for everyone. I think everyone around the world would be less inclined to wage war if all their needs were taken care of rather than

    • Here's hoping that if every nation and group in the world starts making robots to fight for us, maybe the robots will realize how stupid this all is and refuse to listen to us until we all come to our senses.

      Alas, a sentry gun is easy, but a conscience is hard.

  • These robot troops can then be sent to any country that we need to go to war w/, w/o worrying about anything beyond financial casualties. Like if we need to occupy Raqqa or Teheran, the robot troops can just be sent in to storm them, and all the suicide bombers won't do a thing to stop them

  • Should make a coup easy for the right people.

  • While each device will likely be mostly autonomous it will still be necessary to have some kind of system to issue commands. Something with a good line of sight, where you could set up a network. Even better if this system could be a strong AI to help coordinate troops.

    A skynet if you will.

  • The biggest problem (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What has already been observed is that the consolidation of command and control, coupled with the inability of AI to refuse orders, is leading to an increasingly aggressive and belligerent military posture as there is no one to get in the way. When combined with the concept of military dominance, it becomes a pathway to global dominance and a rejection of democratic control.

    There needs to be obstacles.

  • The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain.In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today, remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.

  • A robo army in 9 years? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stealth_finger ( 1809752 ) on Friday October 21, 2016 @03:39AM (#53120743)
    Yeah, as cool as that might be, good luck with that. Unless by robot soldier they mean an RC vehicle with a gun strapped to it. When they say robot soldier I'm thinking terminator style endo skeletons with glowing red eyes, a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range and the lot.

  • What an odd thing to note in the article. How many robot trucks have we lost so far falling off cliffs? Why are the driving on cliffs in the first place?

    • That's also what I found interesting (and awesomely funny).

      From an email I sent regarding just this:
      You know, this is a national intelligence issue. Our enemies now have knowledge that building more cliffs would be an effective defense to our combat robot trucks. At least for now, until they get better at not falling off cliffs.

  • After the wars the USA can switch the robots off quietly rather than dumping them on the street to beg and fend for themselves like they do now....

  • First we have to invent "artificial intelligence". The current AI systems are just algorithms mimicking human intelligence.
    Human intelligence is pretty bad already, and a machine mimicking that is even worse.
    I do expect to see more drones and remotely piloted fighter jets, but combat wetware will be around for a long time.

  • Who knew Rock 'em Sock 'em robots was a military training tool.

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