As UK Military Begins Mass Coronavirus Testing, Head of Armed Forces Ponders Robot Soldiers (sky.com) 47
Remembrance Sunday is the day of commemoration for British and Commonwealth servicemen, and the head of the British Armed Forces marked the occasion with a special interview on Sky News.
And he shared a thoughtful answer when asked whether the army might try to recruit fewer soldiers. "[W]hat I'm hinting at is that we need to be thinking about how we measure effects in a different way. I mean I suspect we can have an army of 120,000 of which 30,000 might be robots, who knows. But the answer is we need to open our minds to perhaps numbers not determining what we should be doing but rather the effect that we can achieve, is really what we should be looking for."
The armed forces are playing a key role in the government's response to the pandemic, with some 2,000 personnel deployed to Liverpool to help with a mass coronavirus testing programme for the city. "I suspect if that works successfully we might find there are other areas where we need to help in a similar sort of fashion," General Carter said. He said using the military to take over the entire coronavirus testing programme was an option but added that he had confidence in the current set-up at the moment.
The Guardian focused on the robots: Thirty thousand "robot soldiers" could form an integral part of the British army in the 2030s, working alongside humans in and around the frontline, the head of the armed forces said in a television interview on Sunday...
All Britain's armed forces have been engaged in a string of research projects involving small drones or remotely powered land or underwater vehicles, some of which are armed and others for reconnaissance. The Ministry of Defence says its policy is that only humans will be able to fire weapons, although there is growing concern about the potential danger of unrestricted robot warfare, led by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
Technology under development includes the i9 drone, which is powered by six rotors and carries two shotguns. Remotely operated, it is intended to be used to storm buildings, typically an urban warfare situation that generates some of the highest casualties.
And he shared a thoughtful answer when asked whether the army might try to recruit fewer soldiers. "[W]hat I'm hinting at is that we need to be thinking about how we measure effects in a different way. I mean I suspect we can have an army of 120,000 of which 30,000 might be robots, who knows. But the answer is we need to open our minds to perhaps numbers not determining what we should be doing but rather the effect that we can achieve, is really what we should be looking for."
The armed forces are playing a key role in the government's response to the pandemic, with some 2,000 personnel deployed to Liverpool to help with a mass coronavirus testing programme for the city. "I suspect if that works successfully we might find there are other areas where we need to help in a similar sort of fashion," General Carter said. He said using the military to take over the entire coronavirus testing programme was an option but added that he had confidence in the current set-up at the moment.
The Guardian focused on the robots: Thirty thousand "robot soldiers" could form an integral part of the British army in the 2030s, working alongside humans in and around the frontline, the head of the armed forces said in a television interview on Sunday...
All Britain's armed forces have been engaged in a string of research projects involving small drones or remotely powered land or underwater vehicles, some of which are armed and others for reconnaissance. The Ministry of Defence says its policy is that only humans will be able to fire weapons, although there is growing concern about the potential danger of unrestricted robot warfare, led by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
Technology under development includes the i9 drone, which is powered by six rotors and carries two shotguns. Remotely operated, it is intended to be used to storm buildings, typically an urban warfare situation that generates some of the highest casualties.
I Doubt It (Score:4, Insightful)
"Remotely operated, it is intended to be used to storm buildings, typically an urban warfare situation that generates some of the highest casualties."
Usually that is only done if it's one of your own buildings, if not, a robot-drone will just transform it into rubble.
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Obligatory. (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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and it is not like the automated tools do not exist.
Re:I Doubt It (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite the fact that military people hate the idea of political bullshit affecting rules of engagement, most the time the military is in the field it is to clean up after politicians' mistakes, or to buy politicians leverage.
This is nothing new. Carl von Clauswitz famously wrote, "War is merely the continuation of politics with other means." This is often misquoted as "by". In context he raised this as a proposition that isn't entirely true, to contrast with another not-quite-true proposition: "War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale. It is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."
His point was that political and military considerations can't be completely separated.
Consider your example: either a building with bad guys is ours, in which case we go in and fight, or it belongs to the bad guys, in which case we blow it up from far away. There are, however, other possibilities. War doesn't always take place on territory that belongs to either us or the enemy; sometimes it takes place on territory that is held by a neutral party whose support could be tipped either way. Even when war takes place on enemy territory, no society is truly monolithic; every regime has internal enemies and many people who are just going along to get by. Actions in an enemy country can strengthen one faction over another, and sometimes the benefits the enemy regime.
This makes scorched Earth tactics a double edged sword. They can work, or they can backfire depending on local political circumstances. You see that in the Battle of Britain, where a German shift in focus from undermining the RAF to breaking public support for the war backfired badly.
The political dimension of war makes robot soldiers a potentially tricky weapon. We've already seen that with drone strikes. Their use is arguably a net positive for US interests, but their are also political drawbacks to them that "the bad guys" can and do exploit.
If urban warfare was that easy (Score:2)
it would have been solved by B-52 strikes in Hue long ago.
The enemy gets a vote and Chechens etc proved one must often winkle opposing troops out of rubble, basements etc where drones won't see them and in close proximity to opposing forces.
GroundBots can employ line-of-sight weapons like cannon too heavy for drones to manage and are less expensive when destroyed. That's why a mix of systems is desired.
LOAC matters to the UN (however absurd that may be from the POV of victory) so there's that. Russia or Chi
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it would have been solved by B-52 strikes in Hue long ago.
Eh, not very likely. Westmoreland would have never even considered Hue worth the B-52 tasking. He was too focused on the feint at Khe Sanh.
Re: Asimov's Law of Robotics (Score:2)
The while point of Asimov's laws was to prevent robots from being used for roles when moral decisions must be made such as law enforcement and medical decision making. Robotic mechanisms can assist with but not replace human actions.
Re: Asimov's Law of Robotics (Score:5, Interesting)
It's very interesting that we encounter very similar effects in unrelated decisionmaking systems where we can make the system _appear_ to be very smart by having some basic heuristics feeding an (opaque!) stochastic decisionmaking engine. The smarts break down in numerous edge cases, of course.
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Part of my long-ago introduction to the Internet was encountering people who were convinced robot soldiers were impossible because Asimov's Laws were actual physical laws, as real as F=ma. Their last line of defense was usually "You calling Isaac Asimov a liar?"...
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Those people you were talking to were either idiots or trolling you. The internet was all kids who thought they were smart back then.
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Well, yeah...not unlike today.
Military robots are already common place (Score:2)
Missiles, mines, self actuating guns.
The first widely deployed robot was probably the torpedo, using a gyroscope for its mechanical intelligence.
"Robots" don't have arms and legs and go around saying "Exterminate!" like they do on TV. They are machines, with an ever growing intelligence.
Modern missiles can be fire and forget -- aim in the general direction of an enemy tank and the missile will find its way. Ship borne anti missile missiles generally fire themselves without human intervention -- there jus
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These "laws" are just suggestions, not fundamental restrictions like the laws of physics. You design a robot to do it's job and programme it accordingly - if that is to cut people while performing surgery, then that is what it will do. If you want to imagine these laws in some kind of genuinely thinking robot (I'm avoiding the term AI, which now just seems to mean pattern matching in data) and see how it might deal with the consequences (like in your second question), then stick to sci-fi - I think I, Robot
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A robot would need to perfectly model the world in order to obey those rules. They are sci-fi fantasy rules.
Asymetrical warfare (Score:3)
Is a very, very bad idea. As it turns out, it becomes impossible to "win", because winning is typically a situation where you and the other side agrees to stop the conflict. Total destruction of the other side is rare and hard to achieve. In the case at hand, if one side starts to use drones, the other side will also resort to equally underhanded tactics.
Re:Asymetrical warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a very, very bad idea. As it turns out, it becomes impossible to "win", because winning is typically a situation where you and the other side agrees to stop the conflict. Total destruction of the other side is rare and hard to achieve. In the case at hand, if one side starts to use drones, the other side will also resort to equally underhanded tactics.
If they can't kill your people on the battlefield they will just find a way to kill your people off the battlefield.
As you say, asymmetrical warfare is bad. The smaller side gets pushed into having to go after softer and softer targets, which inevitably means civilians. What is harder for a undermanned, underfunded armed group to accomplish: destroy an army of 30k robot soldiers, or send a couple of guys to pop off some suicide bombs at sporting events/go on shooting rampages in malls? And before you answer remember, this armed group probably already has an ethnically identical diaspora or ideologically supportive base within your own country.
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Exactly.
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The main downside of asymmetrical warfare is the full freedom of the stronger side to destroy countries. A 'skin in the game' requirement means that it should hurt to send people into war. A draft is an example of that. Robot soldiers are an example of the opposite. If some of the robot soldiers are destroyed it just means more business for the robot soldier manufacturers.
Your criticism about asymmetrical warfare is that it is not asymmetrical enough.
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The main downside of asymmetrical warfare is the full freedom of the stronger side to destroy countries. A 'skin in the game' requirement means that it should hurt to send people into war. A draft is an example of that. Robot soldiers are an example of the opposite. If some of the robot soldiers are destroyed it just means more business for the robot soldier manufacturers.
I agree. People can ignore money: they don't really realize how much money the military goes through on a daily basis so a jump in that wouldn't be noticeable anyway. What they can't ignore are other people: if people are coming home missing arms and legs, coming home in bodybags, or simply not coming home at all, they notice, and they start speaking up. So politically, war becomes a lot more expensive and risky when your own lives are on the line.
Your criticism about asymmetrical warfare is that it is not asymmetrical enough.
Not really sure where you are getting that. My argument
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People can ignore money for more than one reason. It's impact is diffuse and the cost is difficult to trace back to the wars. Also the US has long had a financial policy where other countries fund the wars by lending money to the US (treasury bonds and other) which the US never intends to repay ( https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org] ) . Last year The US had 25 trillion in debt.
I agree with how you describe asymmetrical warfare but differ about how asymmetrical warfare is reacted to.
Asymmetrical warfare leads t
Re: Asymetrical warfare (Score:2)
A tomahawk missile is a drone. It has image recognition and aspect tracking. The drones are already out of their respective bags.
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A tomahawk missile is a drone. It has image recognition and aspect tracking. The drones are already out of their respective bags.
Yes, but a Tomahawk is pretty expensive and requires free area around the target or a willingness to kill bystanders. But yes, this is a gradual process.
Where is the Apple anouncement . . . ? (Score:1)
Technology under development includes the i9 drone, which is powered by six rotors and carries two shotguns.
This drone must be an Apple product, because Apple has copyrighted, trademarked and patented everything that begins with a lowercase "i".
Also, I'm wondering about legal restrictions. In the US anyone over 18 can just pick up a flying shotgun. But in some countries where weapons law are tighter, this would be a problem. So maybe Apple is planning an Airsoft version for the rest of the world . . . ?
Well, if I can't have a flying shotgun, I will just have to build my own Flying Guillotine [wikipedia.org] instead.
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Hmm..... (Score:3)
I say! Roger, Roger old bean...
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They'll be exactly like the Star Wars ones except that they'll have a kettle for making tea.
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More likely they will say
"Exterminate! Exterminate!"
Take THAT, Robot! (Score:2)
Ah tis but a...metal scratch?
When you're sending robots onto the battlefield to do your bloody work for you, you really have to wonder just how bad you're "hurting" the enemy, human.
Might as well fill a battlefield full of smart-ass Bender battle-bots and put it on UFCbot PPV. BattleBot Galactic Commander Dana White has a nice metallic ring to it. Would at least be entertaining for the actual drone army sitting at home binging it. PPV feeding battlefield budgets? Sure, why not. Get the kids fighting t
what happens when (Score:5, Interesting)
the government decides to scrap the old fleet of robots for the newer fleet. common sense says they will get sold to local police departments. now not only are police officers out of a job, but now you are governed by a computer and you have no way to fight back. this fight will take 50-75 years to play out but it will become reality for a future generation.
save these words and pass them on your grandkids
Re:what happens when (Score:5, Insightful)
the government decides to scrap the old fleet of robots for the newer fleet. common sense says they will get sold to local police departments.
Nah. They'll go the same way as any other "obsolete" military equipment: sold off to Second-world allies only to have them there sold off/stolen by corrupt local government officials, or fall into the wrong hands when there is a coup against the dictatorial Second-World leader that we backed because it was geopolitically useful. Either way they end up on the battlefield against us or, more likely, being used to terrorize an innocent civilian population, causing further regional instability requiring a heavier US military presence which means even more spending on military hardware including increasingly upgraded and sophisticated robotic combat units.
Meanwhile, the defense contractors are sitting in a corner looking like ($.$)
Re: what happens when (Score:3)
Obviously you build in kill switches so you can shut them off if they are used against you. Equally obviously this can be gotten around by replacing the control system, but that part is expensive.
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Equally obviously this can be gotten around by replacing the control system, but that part is expensive.
Many of the 9/11 hijackers were college educated engineers. ISIS had actual workshops where they were able to repair tanks and manufacture parts/ammunition. Maybe one of the armed group's member's cousin is neighbors with a guy on the team out in Bangladesh that was contracted to write that piece of code. Hell, you have rebels in Syria making improvised armored vehicles with remote controlled mounted weapon systems using Playstation controllers [wp.com]. If it can be hacked or counteracted, it will be.
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It's probably not hard to interface with the hardware yourself, but it is expensive as I said before, and it's hard to do gracefully, especially if the robots are complicated.
Sadly, the "best" (read: most effective) use for robots in warfare is as suicide bombers. The earliest drones-as-we-think-of-them-today used by the military were cruise missiles, which remain highly popular today. I predict ever-smaller (and cheaper) cruise missiles, until they get small enough to be useful against human targets with s
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Are you kidding? This is the UK we're talking about. We'll keep those out of date battle-bots around for about 20 years longer than they were designed for. After that, even the black market won't be interested in them. We don't have the military budget to throw out anything that could vaguely still be useful. Even if our battle bots are hopelessly out-classed by the enemy with a raspberry pi and a motor shield, we'll still use them as cannon fodder and as mobile barricades.
Sharks With Frickin Lasers (Score:2)
The MoD really needs to modernize. They're so far behind.
Drone better (Score:1)
Drone better. [youtube.com]
I will not stand for this (Score:1)
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Those aren't robots. The Cybermen didn't say that. The Daleks did. They're just organic critters in vehicles.
Robocop (Score:1)
I hope not (Score:2)
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Where exactly do you think these robots would be battling each other? It would possibly be in your front yard.
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Don't worry, the robot army will be mowing down civilians just like land mines have been doing automated killing for over six hundred years.