Poll: Armed Military Robotics

[Sam Warrior]

Autonomous robots should not be employed by the military for two very good reasons. The first, is that you should never ever create a weapon that can think, I don't care what programming you put in it. I don't fear a terminator type thing, but it can't be that hard to hack an automaton, look at the Geth in ME.

Reason 2, war should never ever ever become a game. War needs to be brutal and horrible to keep us from constantly being in a state of war. Any time when you make an automated military machine you are getting closer to the day when war is just the political version of chess, and I personally think that any attempt to make such an automaton should be punishable by death.

If I remember rightly the world has had 27 years of peace in recorded history, humans have no trouble killing each other for silly shit. War sucks but the human race seems to enjoy them.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Reason 2, war should never ever ever become a game. War needs to be brutal and horrible to keep us from constantly being in a state of war. Any time when you make an automated military machine you are getting closer to the day when war is just the political version of chess, and I personally think that any attempt to make such an automaton should be punishable by death.

That only really works if the people moving the pieces get to see the brutality.

If you are sitting in your office/palace/castle giving orders, you might as well be sending out robots for all the effect it has upon you personally.

My guess is that some of the commands can't even be issued wirelessly, such as a command to turn on friendly fire, you probably won't be able to make it do that unless you're right next to it.

Turn on friendly fire? I don't think that's going to be a toggle setting, you give it orders to fire at this area instead of at that area.

Nothing is impossible to hack. Mostly this is due to people doing really stupid things, they are always going to be the weak part of security.

You are right that hacking one won't be a big deal in teh grand scheme of things, but it could be a political disaster.

 

[Spy_Guy]

I strongly suspect there will be a human operator to grant the drone consent to fire, much like one does with bombing in fighter jets, these days.

The A-10C is capable of calculating a release point in order to drop a bomb on the target as well as automatically releasing the weapon when said point is reached. However, despite this capability, it still falls on the pilot to hold the Weapons Release button in order to grant the computer consent to release.

The Ka-50 has the capability of automatically targeting enemies and notify the pilot of a valid firing solution, but it's always up to the pilot to grant consent to release a weapon.

Is there any indication that the Crusher system would lack this requirement?
(autonomous weapons control != hands-off control)

Haven't we had this sort of thing with CIWS for quite a while now, anyway, or am I misinformed?

[sub]CAPTCHA: "Stool pigeon"... what the he...[/sub]

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

And now we are up-grading to the more well armed MQ-9 Reaper Drone:

However, both of these are under human control at all times, which I am ok with, so long as they have good anti-hacking systems. What I have a problem with is autonomus drones with guns.

Good old reaper! We have been flying it armed for a few years already though! Superb peice of kit, keeps the troop safe beetern than most jets can! I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am with it... awesome stuff!

OT: I can't find anything saying about autonomated shooting from that Crusher beast... It is controlled by a dude with a gaming controller... and that is pretty much all I can find...

Shooting without human interjection would be completely against rules of engagement for most militaries... I cannot see an automated targeting function actually becoming legal in militries anywhere in the near future... there would be no way for it to discern between enemies and unexpected civilians... Also they would be easily fooled!

So I don't think they will be autonomous for targetting for years to come...! Not even the Preds or Reapers are autonomous in that aspect... they require a huge ammount of work, and some very experienced high level calls every time they think of dropping!

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

You play that mission with Legion in Mass Effect 3, where you go into the Geth server?

Let's not have a over bearing human pride attack on the robots that can destroy us.
So no, no robots, NONE I SAY! Let's just find a way to end war itself!

 

[Heronblade]

So, I want to know escapist, what is your view of Armed military robotics?


Mine, its pretty iffy. I have no problem with unarmed drones taking over some roles in the army. Bomb-disposel robots and recon drones are fine, but mostly because they wont be able to hurt people. Other than that, I think we should think VERY carefully before giving robots guns and missiles, ESPECIALLY if they are autonomus. I even have problems with Predator drones taking over air-strike roles usually held by strike fighters. Reasons:

1) People will care if a human dies: I know I am pro-intervention, but it is my belief that if robots did all the fighting, we would go into battle without even thinking about it. Because no one will care if a drone gets destroyed. It is just steel and money to most people.

2) A drone can be hacked: No matter how many firewalls you put around it, a drone is still a computer. That means ANYONE with enough skill can hack it...and then use it against us.

1.) Even if no one dies, it would be far too expensive to just duke it out via drones every time you get ticked at someone. No, people will still go to war for the same reasons and at least approximately at the same rate.

2.) Done, right, no they can't. Let me put it this way, your typical computer is vulnerable on the internet because in order to work properly it must not only be able to transfer data back and forth, but follow the instructions embedded in that data, and be able to reconfigure its programming on the fly. A war drone however can easily be configured so that only certain commands are EVER accepted by remote, most likely by baking a specific set of hard-coded non-rewritable data drives for its main OS. FOF targeting, basic objectives, etc. would all be locked down to physical access only. A skilled hacker could shut it down by remote, or could tell it to change its course, but both actions will bring immediate attention from the machine's handlers and any forces in the region (with the machine squawking its position the whole time). In order to do anything more, the hacker would have to do the work while clinging to the back of the thing while on the battlefield.