Little known fact: one of the first self driving cars was a 'Humvee' (real name HMMWV) which was equipped by DARPA with cameras and could navigate a road with no other vehicles, and go straight through a 4 way intersection after stopping (again, no other vehicles). This was in the mid 1990s. Would love a link to this project if anyone has it.
The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#42Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#43Future 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.
It would certainly make it more common. The cost in American soldiers is the main thing that slows down the US from starting minor wars: the population are not tolerant of losing soldiers.
Other countries are more willing to lose soldiers but refrain from war for other reasons: the economic cost, fear of losing, loss of standing in the international community, or simply having no enemy they particularly want to fight.
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#44Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#45Future 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...
Operators? Machine learning has already come up with the ultimate zerg rush. Who needs operators? We could just flip coins but they would probably argue over the denomination.
There was a fairly impressive display from Russian manufacturers of all kinds of autonomous mobile fighting units and fixed sentry emplacements recently. So it appears not building them is no longer an option. Some of them were even new.
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#46SkyNet alpha v001
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile". And those that shoot at allies. And those that haven't shot yet, but are aiming in the wrong direction. And those that are just reloading their mortar. And those that are setting up an explosive trap for the robot. There are a lot of ways to be hostile that go beyond firing a weapon directly at the robot, and if it can't handle…
Or just any humans in the area. Since our forces are all robots every human remaining must be in support of the enemy. Civilians should have fled as refugees. (Refugees will be denied entry to the US, on the assumption that they're terrorists.)
I'd say that's sarcastic, but I sadly expect such reasoning from much of the US military leadership these days.
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#48This 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.
"Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile"."
That reminds me of a classic scene from the original Robocop:
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#49Future 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.
I found this short film to be an interesting exploration of this: https://youtu.be/gR3lXEH80Nw
Also, why just other countries? Asymmetrical (class) warfare is very popular, here, now. I don't see the kind of people waging it having moral setbacks about other kinds.
Re: The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I found this short film to be an interesting exploration of this: https://youtu.be/gR3lXEH80Nw Also, why just other countries? Asymmetrical (class) warfare is very popular, here, now. I don't see the kind of people waging it having moral setbacks about other kinds.
I don't think you're going to see autonomous class warfare, whatever that would be.