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The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

armytimes.com

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Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#11

Post by rhcom2 »

ardit33 wrote: post #6

Future of warfare is going to something more like Command And Conquer game, where operators will direct autonomous machine with a click of a mouse and warfare will be mostly done at a distance.... Probably with less casualties overall...

The ethics of asymmetrical warfare with one side nearly completely autonomous seem like very murky water.

Imagine Iraq occupied with pretty much only machines and Iraqis never actually see an American. And if this removes the threat of death from one side, what does that do to the cost of war? Could it actually make it more common because it is less politically risky? It feels inevitable, but it also scares me.

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#12

Post by dforrestwilson »

ardit33 wrote: post #6

Future of warfare is going to something more like Command And Conquer game, where operators will direct autonomous machine with a click of a mouse and warfare will be mostly done at a distance.... Probably with less casualties overall...

less military casualties

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#13

Post by joe_the_user »

ardit33 wrote: post #6

Future of warfare is going to something more like Command And Conquer game, where operators will direct autonomous machine with a click of a mouse and warfare will be mostly done at a distance.... Probably with less casualties overall...

Probably with less casualties overall...

Civilian casualties have been a big part of war. It seems too soon to say an automated army won't have the potential to massively increase civilian casualties given that it lowers the cost to the attacker and robot don't care if they engage in atrocities, etc.

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#14

Post by StanislavPetrov »

One step closer to the utopia dictators and despots have dreamed about for millennia. No longer will they have to depend on the loyalty of Praetorians or armies to protect them and put down the unruly peasant and proles. Soon they will have legions of obedient killer robots to ensure their rule.

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#15

Post by usaphp »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #14

One step closer to the utopia dictators and despots have dreamed about for millennia. No longer will they have to depend on the loyalty of Praetorians or armies to protect them and put down the unruly peasant and proles. Soon they will have legions of obedient killer robots to ensure their rule.

Someone will still have to control and maintain these robots.

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#16

Post by redthrowaway »

throwawayjava wrote: post #10
redthrowaway wrote: post #5

What's the point in the Army developing its own, parallel autonomous vehicle technology? Why not just have DARPA funnel funds to Google or someone and piggyback off their research?

Well, Google already piggybacked off of DARPA ;-) Also, combat zones != California suburbs.

> Also, combat zones != California suburbs.

We're just going to leave that one tee'd up, aren't we?

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#19

Post by bad_alloc »

djrogers wrote: post #7

This seems like an obvious step - why put a soldier or soldiers at risk to scout around the corner or breech a building when you can send in an armored quad? Or have I been reading too much SciFi?

Not only that. Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile". That policy isn't any good for human soldiers but robots operating on that principle could avoid a lot of collateral damage.

Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles

#20

Post by mandevil »

redthrowaway wrote: post #5

What's the point in the Army developing its own, parallel autonomous vehicle technology? Why not just have DARPA funnel funds to Google or someone and piggyback off their research?

Because the Google car works with pre-registered and mapped out terrain, and the enemy rarely will let you pause for a few months and run a bunch of ladars through their area of control? Because the google car is trying to solve the problem for roads and not figure out whether this stream is fordable? Because the google car's autonomy has never once had to worry about silhouetting on the top of a ridge line?

I'm 95% certain that each one of the vehicles there was produced by contractors for a government agency (and if these particular vehicles weren't, certainly such contracts do exist- I used to work on one). If Google wanted to compete for a contract it certainly could, but its experience isn't particularly helpful in attacking the problem set that the Army is interested in.

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