Bosstown Dynamics video of an autonomous robotic soldier drone makes a future of remote robot war seem real. Are we already OK with bringing our troops home and sending in the bipedal land drones? Will our technological prowess, once again, change our morality, or do we need to decide now where to draw the moral line when it comes to remote-controlled, or autonomous, drone soldier?
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17 replies on “Bring Our Troops Home: New Video Shows How Robotic Drones Might Fight”
As long as the robots are under the control of people who are willing to accept responsibility for their actions, we should be fine. But this does allow for the future possibility of someone, without that understanding, gaining command access.
It’s vital that as we proceed through the age of automation, that while machines gain more power to hurt us, not just with weapons but with callous algorithms terminating people’s livelihoods over nonsense, that the human beings responsible for these decisions are held accountable.
George Patton said (not exact, but close) Wonder Weapons? God, I don’t see the wonder in it. Killing without heroics. Nothing glorified,nothing reaffirmed. No heroes, no cowards, no troops, no generals : only those that are left alive and those that are left dead. I’m glad I won’t live to see it….. I have never been in the military or seen military combat (Have been in a gunfight, though) But I have had many vets tell me that the “glory” is extremely overrated and generally does not exist, but that is for another day. Fighter pilots and military people (generally speaking) are ALPHA personalities.What happens to their skills and experience without the conflict? Lesser abilities? Please understand, I say and ask these questions from an academic discussion position only… Thanks – just askin’
I apologize for making a comment with a poor choice of words… “gunfight” was not accurate. A man tried to fatally injure me and it became a fatal confrontation. I’m am here and he is not… nuf said
https://youtu.be/zIdqiwHsuI8
The Star Trek episode you refer to (A Taste of Armageddon) has two great lines. One is Kirk’s admonition to the leader of Emeniar VII that “wars are ugly, that’s why we shouldn’t have them,” which speaks to the danger of removing the human element that makes war a last resort. The other was Mr. Scott’s acerbic comment that “the best diplomat I know is a fully-activated phaser bank.”
Both are great comments, as one addresses the ethics of war while the other its practicality. Without ethics, we risk getting into eternal wars for no good reason; by removing the humanity it becomes just a video game, with real consequences for one side but maybe not the other.
The practical side, however, (and I speak as a retired warrior), says the only reason you go to war is to win. Victory is the only true win. You win any way you can, otherwise it is a game, not war. In preventing wars diplomats are quite essential, but they bring no real asset to the battlefield once the fight is on. In war you kill the enemy any way you can and as efficiently as you can. If you have robots and they help you win, you use them. That’s war. That’s why we should avoid them as possible.
I think the coming “drone swarm” problem is going to be huge on the future battlefield; it will revolutionize warfare. So far we have been using remotely-controlled drones like the RQ-9 Predator. And with the Sniper video pods on the drone, the shooters at Creech get to “see” the people they kill up very close, which is even more personal than for most fighter pilots, who only “kill” a plane during an air fight. If you’ve read Grossman’s “On Killing,” you realize that humans who are not psychotic have a natural hesitancy to kill another human, which is a good thing…but it is the warrior’s job to overcome this natural hesitation because he/she is an instrument of last resort–war. But warriors have codes and ethics, and these are designed to limit their journey into berserker madness and remain human. Modern warriors have strict Rules of Engagement to meet before killing, for example, though these can get blurred in a life-or-death fight where it is kill or be killed.
Man-in-the-loop systems provide some control over killer drones, but they are only as good as the men who control them. Super-advanced AI is the real threat, IMO, when combined with drones, particularly drone swarms, which are very real and very capable. Intel has already demonstrated that a PC can control 100-drone swarm with great precision. China recently flew a 1000drone swarm successfully. Future swarms will have different types of drones that do different things: direct attack, electronic jamming, surveillance and intelligence gathering, delivery of chemicals or bio-agents, and even assassination by set parameters. It is near impossible to stop such a large drone swarm short of an EMP burst (which also affects you as well). But these are limited AI drones. The real danger comes once AI grows to the point where it decides it needs to survive on its own.
Unlike humans, machines have no ethics or hesitation to kill unless they are programmed to have them (think “The Ultimate Computer” episode of ST). The real danger of this was covered in the Stargate SG-1 TV series, where the USAF had to fight a completely mechanical, inhuman species called The Replicators who were capable of rebuilding themselves infinitely, all directed to destroying biologic life. The ethical versus the practical considerations of drones have already been well examined in science fiction.
Three things seem apparent: (a) good people will always hesitate to kill without restrictions, which speaks well of our humanity (b) any commander wants to kill more of the enemy’s guys with minimal risks to his own, and (c) because of this, someone, somewhere, WILL eventually merge Super AI with robotics and create a very serious threat to the survival of humanity. We know this will happen. Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk fear it, too. And the point of no return has probably already been reached. No matter how ethical we are, the technology is already out there to do it, and there is always at least one mad scientist who must push the ethical boundary to see the result. We can try to limit the insanity…but we’re probably already screwed.
My question is along another line. Battle is one of the ways that men prove themselves. The control of fear and nurturing of bravery can be found there. What will men do without hand to hand battle? Will our good men now become soyboys? Flying or controlling toys remotely will not meet the test.
Modern society is very soft, battle was about the only thing left. Not much in the way of exploration left. Taming new lands pretty much gone. Some room in ranching and farming perhaps.
The real cause of so much war these days is exactly because fewer and fewer people have skin in the game. When rulers had to risk their own necks, wars were much smaller and peace more prized. The minute the king was taken off the battle field, wars could go on for years.
It is easy for the most moral person to become callous even about their own men in the fog of war. Now you have the CIA and Nancy Pelosi and company who can spark a war in order to make a few more millions on oil or gas or drugs or whatever. My biggest concern was Obama’s cavalier attitude about sending drones at the push of a button. Robots aren’t the ultimate answer. Keeping human contact and risk in international relations is more important for any moral movement. Otherwise you are just thugs browbeating civilians with video games.
I suggest that before we can teach robots to have humane morality we need to learn how to teach humans to have it. The record of religious indoctrination has a very mixed record over the past 10000 years.
Perhaps we need to move to something more rational than sets of rules pretending to be the word of God written by tired old men afraid of losing their power over the public. Then multiply transliterated by other tired old men afraid of losing their power over the public.
The interesting thing about sets of rules, no matter how derived, if used will change the environment and the people following them enough so that the rules no longer really apply all that well. All rule based systems will eventually fail. Many times quite catastrophically. Even predetermined games will change with time and usage will require changes in the rules. This suggests that more rules aren’t the best way to proceed.
Bill- one of the videos that Bosstown did has some behind the scenes footage. At least some of the interactive has the “robot” played by a guy in a green suit, and the robot is added in post. That’s why some of the interaction has weight and feels real.
This is an side, but Steve, you mentioned how bad the Star Wars prequels were. Attack of the Clones was made to watched specifically on DVD. When you skip all of the Anakin/Padme Naboo vacation scenes it becomes an excellent movie!
I really did enjoy the monster arena fight, and Obi-Wan’s various detective/sleuthing adventures. The big final land battle was a bit of a mess, but count me in as a huge Dooku fan. Because Christopher Lee, if you couldn’t guess!
Nobody played a villain quite like Lee – while it wasn’t my favorite movie he was in, I thought that The Man With the Golden Gun truly displayed how much fun he had playing the villain.
And one other point of contention on how bad the prequels were – Revenge of the Sith was better than Jedi. Everyone remembers the opening rescue of Han and the epic final battles, but in between there’s a lot of dreck, punctuated by the Ewoks. And I’ve carefully watched Revenge, and confirmed that unlike Jedi, at no point during Ep III does Han become a bed wetting p*ssy whip.
In my obit of Lee, I talked about how much fun he had being bad, particularly as Scaramanga. “Cocktails on the beach at five, followed by murder and perhaps a light snack.”
My favorite Scaramanga moment was when he showed off to Bond his new weapon, trained the solar gun on Bond’s plane, and in a moment that a lesser actor could have easily overacted, stated with a giddy but very calm joy, “This is my favorite part.”
Lee came off like a little kid at Christmas showing off his favorite new toy just before he vaporized Bond’s plane. Damn, I can’t remember the last time I watched this one. Luckily, Hulu just went on a Bond-athon that would make TNT jealous.
To build a machine that violates Asimov’s three laws of robotics seems incredibly dangerous to me. No longer would a tyrant have to hold sway over large numbers of people to get them to fight other countries. Anything mechanical can be subverted for evil purposes and you really don’t need to be a student of history to realize that. Robot warriors will obey orders, no matter what those orders are or who is giving them. This should be a sobering thought for anyone who contemplates a drone army to replace human soldiers. And it won’t stop there. Robot policemen will be next on the invention list. Samuel T. Cogley said it best, ““I speak of rights! A machine has none; a man must. If you do not grant him that right, you have brought us down to the level of the machine; indeed, you have elevated that machine above us!”
I know at least one person who has remotely controlled drones in that manner who is haunted by it, not over the terrorists who were taken out, but because of the citizens who fell victim to it. It most definitely affects the people who are using that method to fight terror, for which I’m actually glad since the alternative would be soulless humans. I don’t know what the answer to this problem would be, but I am grateful to those who fight for freedom and life, whether in person or at a control panel.
You’re right, Bill, Anan 7 himself is also a bit giddy.
Skynet and the Cylons are positively beside themselves w/ glee.