That hard question about unmanned equiptment

Yossarian

Forum Resistance Leader
So I have been pondering this idea that is the quagmire of unmanned equipment serving along side the armed forces.

In the 90's we were stunned by self driving cars, soon to be revealed was a self driving HUMVEE in the early 2000's.

Now the question I have for the forums here is a question not just the military, but civil authorities and perhaps all of the general population would be facing one day in one form or another.

But as an armed services member how would you feel working in close conditions with an %100 autonomous robot working alongside you?

From supporting roles to combat missions. The idea was again demonstrated in last years Pacific RIMPACT exercise, interest of exploring unmanned equipment operating at a personal level with servicemen and women is being discussed for the future and explored. It's only logical to to suggest that eventually these will include man sized platforms capable of supporting or even combat roles right along side their human counter parts.
My real point of focus is for members who obviously have military experience , how would you feel having a robot doing your job along side you?

How you feel if that man sized robot carried a weapon?

Honestly like it or not, as long as the Congressional Defense committee is around, it's more of an eventuality at this point, but the questions will still need to be answered, whether now or 20 or 30 years for now.

And once the military picks up the idea, make no mistake, the private industry will not be very far behind.

Thoughts?

-Yo.
 
When I served in Vietnam I sometimes felt that I was serving with robots or dinosaurs in some of the Officers and NCO's we had dumped on us , I kid you not we had a Platoon Sgt. that I saw once and that was when he was rotating home , he was known as the invisible man .
 
So I have been pondering this idea that is the quagmire of unmanned equipment serving along side the armed forces.

In the 90's we were stunned by self driving cars, soon to be revealed was a self driving HUMVEE in the early 2000's.

Now the question I have for the forums here is a question not just the military, but civil authorities and perhaps all of the general population would be facing one day in one form or another.

But as an armed services member how would you feel working in close conditions with an %100 autonomous robot working alongside you?

From supporting roles to combat missions. The idea was again demonstrated in last years Pacific RIMPACT exercise, interest of exploring unmanned equipment operating at a personal level with servicemen and women is being discussed for the future and explored. It's only logical to to suggest that eventually these will include man sized platforms capable of supporting or even combat roles right along side their human counter parts.
My real point of focus is for members who obviously have military experience , how would you feel having a robot doing your job along side you?

How you feel if that man sized robot carried a weapon?

Honestly like it or not, as long as the Congressional Defense committee is around, it's more of an eventuality at this point, but the questions will still need to be answered, whether now or 20 or 30 years for now.

And once the military picks up the idea, make no mistake, the private industry will not be very far behind.

Thoughts?

-Yo.

I found it scary that RAF pilots based based at Creech near Las Vegas were piloting UAV's in Aghanistan. :shock:

In 1957 Duncan Sandy's, Churchills son in law released a paper stating the days of piloted aircraft were over. Which led to the scrapping of quite a few potentially good aircraft under development.

An ex Royal Artillery army officer he had as much idea about aircraft as my German Shepherd.

It amazes me why those in government don't ask the people who fly them.
 
With all the maintenance we already do on our complicated systems...I just look at is an additional workload on the force, that will require constant tooling, tinkering, and repair...which will take precious training time away from my soldiers. The more complicated the system...the more of a certainty that things will go wrong.
 
With all the maintenance we already do on our complicated systems...I just look at is an additional workload on the force, that will require constant tooling, tinkering, and repair...which will take precious training time away from my soldiers. The more complicated the system...the more of a certainty that things will go wrong.


Still I feel despite obvious draw backs the sheer moment of the industry combined with the old formula of acquiring new equipment. It will all boil down like it has in the past.

A few voices screaming loud enough to get their way in the decision making process. And it seems these days any potential government contractor only has to label something "economically cost efficient." Even when it isn't and the government will sign off on it.

I don't see unmanned equipment being a large portion of our armed services but it's expansion in roles and advancement in efficiency will continue to grow regardless of most people's feeling at this moment.

As with any new development. we would be wise to over rely on it.

Ala F 4 Phantom's without guns in Vietnam.
 
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With all the maintenance we already do on our complicated systems...I just look at is an additional workload on the force, that will require constant tooling, tinkering, and repair...which will take precious training time away from my soldiers. The more complicated the system...the more of a certainty that things will go wrong.

This is true constant software - firmware updates, hardware upgrades, retrofits, etc. it's a non-stop process with nearly all our weapons systems. The B-52 still flies > 40 years later. This is why a plane like the F-15 is still a top notch aircraft and why the Abrams is still a top notch tank. There are splendid success stories like the F-22 Raptor the worlds best fighter (yes it's very costly) which is actually 1/2 way to becoming a robot, however with a human in control ultimately. I realize drones have a limited amount of ability to react to the environment on their own. However I remain leery of a weapons system that doesn't allow for a human to ultimately make the decision.
 
I think the future of robots in the military lies primarily in the collection of intelligence. I doubt that you can abolish such a perfect fighting machine as a human being is.
I would not trust a robot - it´s electronics and therefore vulnerable on many more levels than a human. Furthermore, I don´t think that a machine will ever be able to achieve consciousness like us or what I think is more important as a human being - our so-called sixth sense. It has saved my bum several times
 
unmanned equipment

Replacing men with machines always raises emotional issues. However, the process is probably inevitable. Whatever the cost of a machine, it represents a one-time purchase and except for maintenance costs is far cheaper than having to recruit, train, retain and support a person.
For many years now, the U.S. military pay bill contained more funds for retired personnel than for those on active duty. There are costs related to military dependents such as medical expenses. The U.S. Veterans Administration is a very expensive establishment. An all volunteer force means that you have a guy showing up at the recruiting station with a wife and two kids. You are hiring an entire family! And they will have to be provided for during the entire military career.
In some countries such as Japan, there is great difficulty recruiting personnel because of declining birth rates or competition in the private sector.
Machines do not require any of the previously mentioned outlays. When it breaks and you can't fix it, it is scrapped. Machines do not eat, sleep, drink or shit. They do not get drunk, get arrested, have family issues, go absent without leave, cause a pregnancy by commission or omission.
Best of all, they always do exactly as they are instructed to do.
As autonomous weapons systems become available, even if at first, they have a diminished capability over a human system, they will become an accepted part of the advanced militaries. This is the Rise of the Machines.
 
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Replacing men with machines always raises emotional issues. However, the process is probably inevitable. Whatever the cost of a machine, it represents a one-time purchase and except for maintenance costs is far cheaper than having to recruit, train, retain and support a person.
For many years now, the U.S. military pay bill contained more funds for retired personnel than for those on active duty. There are costs related to military dependents such as medical expenses. The U.S. Veterans Administration is a very expensive establishment. Then there are costs related to dependents.
In some countries, there is great difficulty recruiting personnel because of declining birth rates or competition in the private sector.
Machines do not require any of the previously mentioned outlays. When it breaks and you can't fix it, it is scrapped. Machines do not eat, sleep, drink or shit. They do not get drunk, get arrested, have family issues, go absent without leave, cause a pregnancy by commission or omission.
Best of all, they always do exactly as they are instructed to do.
As autonomous weapons systems become available, even if at first, they have a diminished capability over a human system, they will become an accepted part of the advanced militaries. This is the Rise of the Machines.


My question to current military members is this I feel is an eventuality, these technologies are rapidly advancing to the point where we may not yet have a true grasp of what they one day may do and will do.

My question for our servicemen now, is how would you feel working next to an armed machine everyday that thinks on it's own?
 
Impossible question.
Can't know how I would feel until it happened.
It's a complete unknown and pretty far off for an independently thinking machine being turned loose anywhere. Very far off, the more I think about it.
 
Impossible question.
Can't know how I would feel until it happened.
It's a complete unknown and pretty far off for an independently thinking machine being turned loose anywhere. Very far off, the more I think about it.

In 1900 Flight seemed pretty far off but these things can slip up on us.

I think it may be prudent to watch the private application of artificial intelligence for the time being as we learn more about what can and cannot be done then make our assessments.
 
There are already a number of autonomous military systems that have been deployed, some for several years. Reconnaissance drones can be programmed to fly a pre-planned circuit and return to a recovery point.
There are both sea and land mines with a detector field that detect and analyze inputs, recognize specific threat profiles and react with lethal force.
Most of our cars are built by robots.
For specific go/no go responses, black- and-white situations, robots are already capable. For shades of grey responses we still need human intervention. But, as I'm sure readers will know, humans don't always handle those very well.
In private industry, an employer who can replace employees with an affordable machine will almost always do so. I worked in private industry for many years and saw even highly skilled craftsmen replaced by machine that had only half their capability, but simple economics forced them out.
Humans have built a world so complex that we may be reaching our own obsolescence.
People are no longer cost effective.
 
There are already a number of autonomous military systems that have been deployed, some for several years. Reconnaissance drones can be programmed to fly a pre-planned circuit and return to a recovery point.
There are both sea and land mines with a detector field that detect and analyze inputs, recognize specific threat profiles and react with lethal force.
Most of our cars are built by robots.
For specific go/no go responses, black- and-white situations, robots are already capable. For shades of grey responses we still need human intervention. But, as I'm sure readers will know, humans don't always handle those very well.
In private industry, an employer who can replace employees with an affordable machine will almost always do so. I worked in private industry for many years and saw even highly skilled craftsmen replaced by machine that had only half their capability, but simple economics forced them out.
Humans have built a world so complex that we may be reaching our own obsolescence.
People are no longer cost effective.

I respectable disagree. Having been an engineer in the area's of aerospace and defense electronics both in and outside the military for 20 some odd years The brain storming and conception stages that initially bring an idea from a thought process to a piece of hardware will never be replaced by a robot. Also the robot cannot fine tune and test initial prototypes whose parameters are still in the process of being defined. The initial prototypes will usually have many variants before a final assembly can be decided upon. These task are lead by engineers, technicians and scientist. Then and only then can a device be tested for a certain degree of
autonomy. And still the degree of autonomy (as I mentioned in my earlier post) is fully dependent on the humans who programmed it.

Take the case of the drone. It is programmed to respond to certain stimuli during it's flight course, all within the scope of the software and firmware of the programmers design. So in essence it is only following a set of man made instructions. Their is nothing it can do solely onto itself
 
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I would be quite happy for a robot to lead an attack or cover us while we pulling out of a sticky situation. Still you would have know just what it is capable off before you took these decisions ....
 
I would be quite happy for a robot to lead an attack or cover us while we pulling out of a sticky situation. Still you would have know just what it is capable off before you took these decisions ....


One likely issue is having such an system either disabled by enemy cyber warfare teams/systems. Or it just starts killing your own guys for whatever reason.

A definite issue to think of regardless of how long these systems take to come online. Either 10 years or 60 with any new era in human development comes new unforeseen challenges.
 
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