It sounds like they want to shrink the size of a brigade and say they've replaced the soldiers by robot but actually they'll just be shrinking (Edit: It's not like I'd contest the decision to shrink brigade size. The main thing is the claim this will be replacing soldiers with robots, seems like just overly bold PR.).
Unless there were a whole lot of articles on robots working outside of rather specialized situations like defusing bombs (where I think a lot of the operation involve remote control activity, not autonomous activity).
After a decade at war, you need to wind things down and consolidate to get rid of the waste that's accumulated.
The Army probably has all sorts of problems because they weren't prepared for urban warfare in 2001, and they got prepared by welding armor to everything that they have. Humvees and trucks with an extra ton of armor lose at least that much cargo capacity.
Well the US military has been operating at a large level as though it's actually larger then it is, which came to the fore after Iraq when it was obvious you can't occupy the country with the standing forces.
Shrinking brigade sizes lets you have 12 divisions in a 10 division army (to paraphrase former Gen. Shinseki - the guy who called what would happen in Iraq perfectly and got forced out for it) - the real question is whether robotics actually let you act that way.
The only way I can really see it working would be if we're talking about Boston Dynamics types things that are armed in some way. You could certainly pair every soldier with an armed ammo-mule bot and achieve some gains in firepower (a lot of small unit tactics is less about precise shooting then simply blanketing a given area with rounds).
The part that piqued my interest most is that weight is a huge factor in efficiency for the military (kind of surprised I didn't think of that before).
By replacing 25% of a brigade with robots, the army could substantially reduce weight without a commensurate decrease in battlefield effectiveness. This would lower fuel costs, increase combat readiness (fewer people to drill) and make time-to-battlefield far shorter.
I would think that in the tooth-to-tail equation, robots have a substantial place at both sides. As the saying goes, “Amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics.” (General Robert H. Barrow, USMC) and making the logistics chain more effective could translate into an overwhelming advantage.
Because robot do not need fuel, maintenance, or spare parts.
If you replace 25% of brigade with robots, you will need to add 2-3% of personnel minimum for maintenance of those robots. And that is before spare parts and supplies. And you definitely need to train people to work together with robots, so I think drilling time will actually go up.
So while, there will be reduction and weight and potentially highly increased performance, I do not think it will be pronounced in first few generations.
Now there is an interesting possible future: the american empire is brought low by a massive investment in robotic soldiers from the same contractors that brought you healthcare.gov and the veterans disability payments system.
Sounds like they are talking about automating supply chain convoys. Robotization of the military is kind of a mixed bag. One one hand it is great if it makes for a more cost efficient and effective military. On the other hand if it sanitizes the costs of war in the eyes of the public (does anyone care when a drone gets shot down?) or just funnels more money to beltway bandits then we'd be better off w/o it.
It could be argued that advances in the technology of warfare have sanitized war to a degree, as well as made combat more survivable, than in the past. Surely the more machines and fewer humans the better?
What's the upside of being "on the side" of an entity of even less hesitation of engaging in aggressive warfare? That's like saying making it easier to beat up kids and take their lunch money is a plus, as long as you're the one doing it - and that's the mildest example I could think of, to keep this as nice and friendly as possible.
How long will it take until other major and minor powers have them, too? Then that advantage shrinks or even disappears, yet the robots remain. How long until they get turned on citizens? What leg would you have to stand on, morally, if you justify wars of aggression by (thinking you're) profiting from them? If it was profitable to crush dissent with robots, none.
This idea of "sides" is very flawed, too. Are US citizens on the side of those who lead them into wars, or do these wars more and more mean profit to a very small subset to them, and huge costs to the rest? Here's a thought, if you post on HN, you're by definition not part of the group who would stand to gain by such things. HN may represent a elite in comparison with other groups, but in comparison with actual elites it still represents peons.
Last, but not least: what if you're "on the side of humans", and don't buy into the whole nationality stuff in the first place?
I was being sarcastic. However your points are worth stirring the pot over.
>What's the upside of being "on the side" of an entity of even less hesitation of engaging in aggressive warfare?
It would be preferable not to engage in aggressive warfare. But it's also preferable not to be the one who ends up dead from it.
>That's like saying making it easier to beat up kids and take their lunch money is a plus, as long as you're the one doing it - and that's the mildest example I could think of, to keep this as nice and friendly as possible.
You're correct. That's exactly what I think it's like. It's not fair and it's not just.
>This idea of "sides" is very flawed, too. Are US citizens on the side of those who lead them into wars, or do these wars more and more mean profit to a very small subset to them, and huge costs to the rest?
Americans are by no means the only militaristic nationalists around. And this is a complex question. But it's worth pointing out that those two things are not mutually exclusive.
>what if you're "on the side of humans", and don't buy into the whole nationality stuff in the first place?
If you're born into a nation, and into the systems which brought it into being, and you derive benefits from it - food, education, language, culture - then I believe you are to a degree a paricipant in or benefactor of the crimes which made those benefits possible. They were done on your behalf whether you like it or not. "Gain" from warfare can be a subtle thing, and can be doled out across generations, even millennia.
I think you can put yourself beyond nationalism if you wish, and doing so is understandable in a post-Internet age. But I don't believe that puts you above it. You are a product of the industries of slavery, barbarism, greed and genocide, as am I, as is every human being. Before nations, people slaughtered one another in the name of their tribe, or their clan, or their family, or gods. We are all of us standing atop a pile of bones simply by virtue of birth... it's just that some piles are bigger than others.
I feel a bit silly now, I really thought you might have meant it seriously and with a straight face. But I guess there are those who would say it with a straight face, so I'm glad we can have this discussion anyway.
> It would be preferable not to engage in aggressive warfare. But it's also preferable not to be the one who ends up dead from it.
So far, since the end of the cold war, the US is waging war on much weaker enemies, not any who pose an actual threat to its existence. And I think even conquering any and all potential threats will inevitably mean turning onto its own citizens, too, I believe. I mean, even more so than that is already the case.
And China for example will rise either way, a military defense against aggression might be unrealistic; however, there is also culture, and being worth more as an ally than a conquered territory. More importantly, there is democracy; not yet in China, heck, not yet hardly anywhere, but in theory. And people in general don't like war, it's the elites that use them as cannonfodders and bill payers in them who do. Not being hateworthy seems less risky than trying to win all the time and constantly increasing the stakes. But sadly I think the US is very used to being aggressive, and assumes everybody else is, too, that only American power keeps them in check. I don't think this is true.
> Americans are by no means the only militaristic nationalists around
Of course they're not, but we're talking about the US military on an american website. And the US, at least for the time being, is the top dog. The path the US takes is very important to me because of that, I do think it trickles down to everybody else to a degree, or at least makes it harder to achieve some progress and sanity in other countries.
> it's worth pointing out that those two things are not mutually exclusive.
I disagree, though I guess it's hard to know for sure, because how would we measure it? Still, I think when a nation wages war, the citizens get to shoulder all the costs (or debt, in the case of the US), but they don't get a comparable share in the profits. And I don't think that share outweighs the costs to them, either.
> If you're born into a nation, and into the systems which brought it into being, and you derive benefits from it - food, education, language, culture - then I believe you are to a degree a paricipant in or benefactor of the crimes which made those benefits possible. They were done on your behalf whether you like it or not.
Of course. But I also derive a lot of benefit of things people in general are doing. By "not buying into nations" I meant I don't feel pride in "my" country, just like I don't feel pride in what another right-hander, or male, or member of any other group I could be said to "belong to", is doing. War does live off this spectator sports mentality, and I just don't feel it. It has nothing to do with the internet, at least for me, though I hope it can help that process along. Nations are a way to organize things on a certain scale, but no more. They are not holy or special, they are arbitrary.
> I think you can put yourself beyond nationalism if you wish, and doing so is understandable in a post-Internet age. But I don't believe that puts you above it. You are a product of the industries of slavery, barbarism, greed and genocide, as am I, as is every human being. Before nations, people slaughtered one another in the name of their tribe, or their clan, or their family, or gods. We are all of us standing atop a pile of bones simply by virtue of birth... it's just that some piles are bigger than others.
Sure, but I think we have long since reached a point where the drawbacks of constant warfare and greed are bigger than the benefits of co-operation, though I can not really prove it. One thing is true for sure though, co-operation is also as old as history; if parents and children fought each other over ...
Its not surprising, having a quadcopter type drone with a video link back to the squad for doing down range recon is a huge force multiplier. The challenge of course is batteries.
Soldiers are powered by eating organics, potentially very light weight organics rehydrated with locally available water. They can carry several days worth of rations and be operationally effective for nearly 24/7 of those days.
There is no robot on the planet yet which has a battery that will last on 'standby' for multiple days, allow it to engage in active service for several hours each of those days. The weight kills you. It slows you down.
Two technologies "win" in the military space. Just enough tech and weight to increase down range lethality over the existing system, and tech which doesn't have to be carried so can be called in remotely.
Yeah, but this puts us closer than ever to the brink of a nuclear exchange.
For the purposes of a thought experiment, consider the false dichotomy of "America" and "NotAmerica" as two hypothetical opposing forces, where America has nukes and killer robots and NotAmerica has only nukes.
If you find yourself living in NotAmerica, your motivation to pre-emptively nuke America, simply to avoid the threat of a horrific death dispensed by killer robots, presents itself as an absurdly simple choice. Even if it means suicide.
As I am sure you know John, nuclear policy is a bit more nuanced than that. It is completely valid that by having a nuclear arsenal that can destroy any nation, a nation does not need to have a standing army that can repel an invasion (after all if you invaded, you're home country would get obliterated).
The discussion referenced by Defense News though is policy around the deployment of Squad and Battalion level forces which are typically engaged in situations where either the nation-state isn't the target (say Somali pirates, of Afghan warlords), and/or the goal is incompatible with mass destruction.
Your hypothetical suicide inference leaves out the choice of compliance. One could look at a place like NotAmerica' where no one is at risk of horrific death due to killer robots, versus NotAmerica where death by remote action is a more common occurrence, and look at what is different between the two places. In all the theaters of the world today it's pretty clear what action would completely remove that threat of horrific death. (hint: it isn't going to America and blowing yourself up.)
The funny thing about policy wonks is that they believe policy, diplomacy and international law are the only way things get resolved, even amidst the state of nature that persists between international actors.
The reason stock markets have black swans is because legal transactions can never account for illegal activity. Sure, you can buy replacement insurance against theft, but you cannot actually build theft into an accounting model. Stock markets, as social laboratories of economic exchange, will always have crashes because there are black markets that operate behind them in secrecy. Certain companies might befall "unfortunate accidents" and whoopsie daisy! How did that happen?
Consider the question: How interested are you in being arrested and imprisoned by a robotic civilian police officer?
"Consider the question: How interested are you in being arrested and imprisoned by a robotic civilian police officer?"
Basically exactly the same as I'm interested in being arrested and imprisoned by a meat-cop.
And the robocop might win just based on the fact that he's less likely to have a "respect mah authoritai" chip on his shoulder that results in me being tazed or shot for no good reason.
> And the robocop might win just based on the fact that he's less likely to have a "respect mah authoritai" chip on his shoulder that results in me being tazed or shot for no good reason.
Concerning the film "Robocop", it was interesting that you discover most of his character traits after he has been transformed into a cyborg, and my opinion is that he was a brutal copper.
When your accusers are provided the luxury of never having to face you, how confident are you that "the law" will be carried out fairly, and that the "laws" themselves will not be arbitrary? Just as confident as you are now of the law?
This is about power differential. Imbalances of power contribute to instability. The kinds of power discussed in this equation are vast, and not to be trifled with. Errors made with the toys of modern warfare can be unforgiving to the point that submarine personnel might be the only survivors.
When you scale up conflict beyond the individual concept of arrest and imprisonment, there is a volatility to open warfare that is whithering, when compared to civil society. If you're that eager to thwart some cops in their activities, then vote a draft into law, advocate mandatory military service and then go rob a bank and shoot some tellers while you're at it. I dare you.
A robotic miscarriage of justice, or a human miscarriage of justice?
I think, in both situations, the two are not equivalent, and the robotic version is not only worse, but carries the potential of total devastation. But maybe I'm chicken little.
Don't get caught and you won't be arrested. Further, you can probably spot weaknesses in a machine that can't construct new strategies outside its programming or has to be controlled remotely.
The devil's advocacy response would be that because robots lack the capacity for malice, racism or cruelty, they can be trusted to bring to bear the force of law more so than human cops. Also that robot soldiers, lacking fear or the clouded judgement that comes from fatigue or moral conflict, and having enhanced sensory and physical capabilities, would cause less collateral damage than human troops. This is a similar (though not the same) argument to the one employed by advocates of self-driving cars - humans are less morally capable than machines by virtue of their organic technological and logical inadequacy.
"The devil's advocacy response would be that because robots lack the capacity for malice, racism or cruelty"
What makes you think that a robot couldn't be programmed to show malice, racism or cruelty?
NB I am not implying that the US would actually do this, just questioning whether there are really any fundamental barriers stopping the creation of machines with such malign goals.
I suppose they could be, it depends entirely on their capabilities and AI, but it wouldn't have to be as intrinsic to their nature as it's assumed to be for human beings in that role. Why would you bother creating an immoral robot soldier or a racist robot cop?
Because real-time remote control tech exists today, for drones, and it's highly likely that at least at first it will be racist immoral humans making the decisions, with no immediate risk of loss of life or bodily harm, just like it is now for drones.
The theory of evolution should encompass techniques, politics and non-organic tools as part of more a capable existence that is bigger than anthropocentrism and organicentrism. That the rifle and the soldier are a machine together, just as a rifle on wheels. How the rifle got there doesn't matter but what does matter is the decision process of whether it fires or not. Right now, the ROE for USM legally requires an officer to approve any kill order made remotely (drone strike). That might not always be the case going forward, especially for secret wars as well as adversaries that just want any kind of revenge.
Nukes were a concern. Having an army of terminators controlled by a handful of people gives them the power to hold a lasting monopoly of violence: power. It also removes potential for disobedience and whistleblowers of organic soldiers. It further makes it more palatable to exterminate the troublemakers and keep the rest in line.
This doesn't make any sense. When you two adversaries with global ballistic nuclear weapons, you're not going to have a winner even if one side has "killer robots", unless those robots have the ability to stop what happens when the opposing side pushes the big red button. Right now they don't.
Foreign Policy should be buzzing about how to first defend against quadrocopters strapped with an IED. The moment the first one happens, there will be dozens more. And that's just getting warmed up for emergent "asymmetric" threats. (Banning and licensure won't make it go away.)
I'm sure the military is already concerned about this, but I don't see why foreign policy would be buzzing about a threat that won't come from a nation state.
There's no safe power source that we know about, but there could be unsafe power sources that we don't know about. Obviously the curiosity rover dispensed with solar panelss.
Since when has the military been concerned about safety? They kill for a living and have demonstrated they don't give a shit about the aftermath (depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bomblets, land mines and indiscriminate, lengthy kill lists forging fresh terrorists). Also, previously discarded technologies like thorium are being reconsidered because of advances in nanofabrication. So they claim it won't be like your grandfather's navigation beacon (RTGs) because a much smaller amount of isotope is used to thermally vibrate quartz structures.
I meant unsafe power sources that the military has/is working on that the public does not know about because the military keeps its research secret. I don't think anyone is under the impression that the military forgoes research for safety reasons.
It’s hard to see such a radical change to the makeup of the brigage combat team as anything else than a budget move, borne out of the necessity of cutting the personnel costs that eat up almost half of the service’s total budget.
Cone used the Navy as an example of what the Army is trying to do.
“When you see the success, frankly, that the Navy has had in terms of lowering the numbers of people on ships, are there functions in the brigade that we could automate — robots or manned/unmanned teaming — and lower the number of people that are involved given the fact that people are our major cost,” he said.
If the army goes down this route, it will still have a high cost of personnel. It will require engineers and programmers to build and maintain these systems, and many of these personnel will be required to work on the front line.
Well, a ship has a decent power supply. The Nimitz run on nuclear reactors that keep them going for months. A factor in their success is their sheer size, boasting a displacement of 92,000 tons.
Kind of interesting that there wasn't a head nod to potential attack surfaces opened with using robots in the article or comments here so far. It was the first thing I thought about before reading the article.
Makes you wonder especially in the 21st century urban combat where someone on some rooftop out of view (or across the world) could exploit/take over such machines and that force multiplier will starting to not look like one. But also seeing the trend of armies facing off people of the general populace (regardless of their "enemy combatant" status) and not other standing armies in general, I wouldn't say I'm bothered by the studies/movement in this direction, I might even welcome it.
I do not think that is a real possibility unless there is a deliberate sabotage or engineering control interface left open. I mean tanks, planes, and drones already contain large amount of "hackable" hardware. Has not happened yet.
Well only a casual peruse[0][1][2] tells me that I'm confident that it has happened on multiple occasions, has been reported on by media (at least for drones) to some degree, and that we most likely that haven't had the opportunity to see how far down the rabbit hole this can go.
51 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadUnless there were a whole lot of articles on robots working outside of rather specialized situations like defusing bombs (where I think a lot of the operation involve remote control activity, not autonomous activity).
The Army probably has all sorts of problems because they weren't prepared for urban warfare in 2001, and they got prepared by welding armor to everything that they have. Humvees and trucks with an extra ton of armor lose at least that much cargo capacity.
Shrinking brigade sizes lets you have 12 divisions in a 10 division army (to paraphrase former Gen. Shinseki - the guy who called what would happen in Iraq perfectly and got forced out for it) - the real question is whether robotics actually let you act that way.
The only way I can really see it working would be if we're talking about Boston Dynamics types things that are armed in some way. You could certainly pair every soldier with an armed ammo-mule bot and achieve some gains in firepower (a lot of small unit tactics is less about precise shooting then simply blanketing a given area with rounds).
The part that piqued my interest most is that weight is a huge factor in efficiency for the military (kind of surprised I didn't think of that before).
By replacing 25% of a brigade with robots, the army could substantially reduce weight without a commensurate decrease in battlefield effectiveness. This would lower fuel costs, increase combat readiness (fewer people to drill) and make time-to-battlefield far shorter.
I would think that in the tooth-to-tail equation, robots have a substantial place at both sides. As the saying goes, “Amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics.” (General Robert H. Barrow, USMC) and making the logistics chain more effective could translate into an overwhelming advantage.
If you replace 25% of brigade with robots, you will need to add 2-3% of personnel minimum for maintenance of those robots. And that is before spare parts and supplies. And you definitely need to train people to work together with robots, so I think drilling time will actually go up.
So while, there will be reduction and weight and potentially highly increased performance, I do not think it will be pronounced in first few generations.
Actually, they do need those - but most likely have significantly lower maintenance/upkeep costs than the average soldier. Still a big savings.
Good point about drilling time. Maybe less man-hours in drilling overall, but more per head?
What's the upside of being "on the side" of an entity of even less hesitation of engaging in aggressive warfare? That's like saying making it easier to beat up kids and take their lunch money is a plus, as long as you're the one doing it - and that's the mildest example I could think of, to keep this as nice and friendly as possible.
How long will it take until other major and minor powers have them, too? Then that advantage shrinks or even disappears, yet the robots remain. How long until they get turned on citizens? What leg would you have to stand on, morally, if you justify wars of aggression by (thinking you're) profiting from them? If it was profitable to crush dissent with robots, none.
This idea of "sides" is very flawed, too. Are US citizens on the side of those who lead them into wars, or do these wars more and more mean profit to a very small subset to them, and huge costs to the rest? Here's a thought, if you post on HN, you're by definition not part of the group who would stand to gain by such things. HN may represent a elite in comparison with other groups, but in comparison with actual elites it still represents peons.
Last, but not least: what if you're "on the side of humans", and don't buy into the whole nationality stuff in the first place?
>What's the upside of being "on the side" of an entity of even less hesitation of engaging in aggressive warfare?
It would be preferable not to engage in aggressive warfare. But it's also preferable not to be the one who ends up dead from it.
>That's like saying making it easier to beat up kids and take their lunch money is a plus, as long as you're the one doing it - and that's the mildest example I could think of, to keep this as nice and friendly as possible.
You're correct. That's exactly what I think it's like. It's not fair and it's not just.
>This idea of "sides" is very flawed, too. Are US citizens on the side of those who lead them into wars, or do these wars more and more mean profit to a very small subset to them, and huge costs to the rest?
Americans are by no means the only militaristic nationalists around. And this is a complex question. But it's worth pointing out that those two things are not mutually exclusive.
>what if you're "on the side of humans", and don't buy into the whole nationality stuff in the first place?
If you're born into a nation, and into the systems which brought it into being, and you derive benefits from it - food, education, language, culture - then I believe you are to a degree a paricipant in or benefactor of the crimes which made those benefits possible. They were done on your behalf whether you like it or not. "Gain" from warfare can be a subtle thing, and can be doled out across generations, even millennia.
I think you can put yourself beyond nationalism if you wish, and doing so is understandable in a post-Internet age. But I don't believe that puts you above it. You are a product of the industries of slavery, barbarism, greed and genocide, as am I, as is every human being. Before nations, people slaughtered one another in the name of their tribe, or their clan, or their family, or gods. We are all of us standing atop a pile of bones simply by virtue of birth... it's just that some piles are bigger than others.
> It would be preferable not to engage in aggressive warfare. But it's also preferable not to be the one who ends up dead from it.
So far, since the end of the cold war, the US is waging war on much weaker enemies, not any who pose an actual threat to its existence. And I think even conquering any and all potential threats will inevitably mean turning onto its own citizens, too, I believe. I mean, even more so than that is already the case.
And China for example will rise either way, a military defense against aggression might be unrealistic; however, there is also culture, and being worth more as an ally than a conquered territory. More importantly, there is democracy; not yet in China, heck, not yet hardly anywhere, but in theory. And people in general don't like war, it's the elites that use them as cannonfodders and bill payers in them who do. Not being hateworthy seems less risky than trying to win all the time and constantly increasing the stakes. But sadly I think the US is very used to being aggressive, and assumes everybody else is, too, that only American power keeps them in check. I don't think this is true.
> Americans are by no means the only militaristic nationalists around
Of course they're not, but we're talking about the US military on an american website. And the US, at least for the time being, is the top dog. The path the US takes is very important to me because of that, I do think it trickles down to everybody else to a degree, or at least makes it harder to achieve some progress and sanity in other countries.
> it's worth pointing out that those two things are not mutually exclusive.
I disagree, though I guess it's hard to know for sure, because how would we measure it? Still, I think when a nation wages war, the citizens get to shoulder all the costs (or debt, in the case of the US), but they don't get a comparable share in the profits. And I don't think that share outweighs the costs to them, either.
> If you're born into a nation, and into the systems which brought it into being, and you derive benefits from it - food, education, language, culture - then I believe you are to a degree a paricipant in or benefactor of the crimes which made those benefits possible. They were done on your behalf whether you like it or not.
Of course. But I also derive a lot of benefit of things people in general are doing. By "not buying into nations" I meant I don't feel pride in "my" country, just like I don't feel pride in what another right-hander, or male, or member of any other group I could be said to "belong to", is doing. War does live off this spectator sports mentality, and I just don't feel it. It has nothing to do with the internet, at least for me, though I hope it can help that process along. Nations are a way to organize things on a certain scale, but no more. They are not holy or special, they are arbitrary.
> I think you can put yourself beyond nationalism if you wish, and doing so is understandable in a post-Internet age. But I don't believe that puts you above it. You are a product of the industries of slavery, barbarism, greed and genocide, as am I, as is every human being. Before nations, people slaughtered one another in the name of their tribe, or their clan, or their family, or gods. We are all of us standing atop a pile of bones simply by virtue of birth... it's just that some piles are bigger than others.
Sure, but I think we have long since reached a point where the drawbacks of constant warfare and greed are bigger than the benefits of co-operation, though I can not really prove it. One thing is true for sure though, co-operation is also as old as history; if parents and children fought each other over ...
Soldiers are powered by eating organics, potentially very light weight organics rehydrated with locally available water. They can carry several days worth of rations and be operationally effective for nearly 24/7 of those days.
There is no robot on the planet yet which has a battery that will last on 'standby' for multiple days, allow it to engage in active service for several hours each of those days. The weight kills you. It slows you down.
Two technologies "win" in the military space. Just enough tech and weight to increase down range lethality over the existing system, and tech which doesn't have to be carried so can be called in remotely.
For the purposes of a thought experiment, consider the false dichotomy of "America" and "NotAmerica" as two hypothetical opposing forces, where America has nukes and killer robots and NotAmerica has only nukes.
If you find yourself living in NotAmerica, your motivation to pre-emptively nuke America, simply to avoid the threat of a horrific death dispensed by killer robots, presents itself as an absurdly simple choice. Even if it means suicide.
The discussion referenced by Defense News though is policy around the deployment of Squad and Battalion level forces which are typically engaged in situations where either the nation-state isn't the target (say Somali pirates, of Afghan warlords), and/or the goal is incompatible with mass destruction.
Your hypothetical suicide inference leaves out the choice of compliance. One could look at a place like NotAmerica' where no one is at risk of horrific death due to killer robots, versus NotAmerica where death by remote action is a more common occurrence, and look at what is different between the two places. In all the theaters of the world today it's pretty clear what action would completely remove that threat of horrific death. (hint: it isn't going to America and blowing yourself up.)
The reason stock markets have black swans is because legal transactions can never account for illegal activity. Sure, you can buy replacement insurance against theft, but you cannot actually build theft into an accounting model. Stock markets, as social laboratories of economic exchange, will always have crashes because there are black markets that operate behind them in secrecy. Certain companies might befall "unfortunate accidents" and whoopsie daisy! How did that happen?
Consider the question: How interested are you in being arrested and imprisoned by a robotic civilian police officer?
Basically exactly the same as I'm interested in being arrested and imprisoned by a meat-cop.
And the robocop might win just based on the fact that he's less likely to have a "respect mah authoritai" chip on his shoulder that results in me being tazed or shot for no good reason.
Concerning the film "Robocop", it was interesting that you discover most of his character traits after he has been transformed into a cyborg, and my opinion is that he was a brutal copper.
This is about power differential. Imbalances of power contribute to instability. The kinds of power discussed in this equation are vast, and not to be trifled with. Errors made with the toys of modern warfare can be unforgiving to the point that submarine personnel might be the only survivors.
When you scale up conflict beyond the individual concept of arrest and imprisonment, there is a volatility to open warfare that is whithering, when compared to civil society. If you're that eager to thwart some cops in their activities, then vote a draft into law, advocate mandatory military service and then go rob a bank and shoot some tellers while you're at it. I dare you.
Well, yes. But that's primarily because I am not currently confident in the law.
A robotic crime wave, or a human crime wave?
A robotic miscarriage of justice, or a human miscarriage of justice?
I think, in both situations, the two are not equivalent, and the robotic version is not only worse, but carries the potential of total devastation. But maybe I'm chicken little.
What makes you think that a robot couldn't be programmed to show malice, racism or cruelty?
NB I am not implying that the US would actually do this, just questioning whether there are really any fundamental barriers stopping the creation of machines with such malign goals.
Erm, this is why nuclear deterrents work.
It’s hard to see such a radical change to the makeup of the brigage combat team as anything else than a budget move, borne out of the necessity of cutting the personnel costs that eat up almost half of the service’s total budget.
Cone used the Navy as an example of what the Army is trying to do.
“When you see the success, frankly, that the Navy has had in terms of lowering the numbers of people on ships, are there functions in the brigade that we could automate — robots or manned/unmanned teaming — and lower the number of people that are involved given the fact that people are our major cost,” he said.
If the army goes down this route, it will still have a high cost of personnel. It will require engineers and programmers to build and maintain these systems, and many of these personnel will be required to work on the front line.
Well, a ship has a decent power supply. The Nimitz run on nuclear reactors that keep them going for months. A factor in their success is their sheer size, boasting a displacement of 92,000 tons.
Makes you wonder especially in the 21st century urban combat where someone on some rooftop out of view (or across the world) could exploit/take over such machines and that force multiplier will starting to not look like one. But also seeing the trend of armies facing off people of the general populace (regardless of their "enemy combatant" status) and not other standing armies in general, I wouldn't say I'm bothered by the studies/movement in this direction, I might even welcome it.
[0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=drones+are+hackable
[1]: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/drone-virus-kept-qui...
[2]: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/19/aerial-drones-vulne...