

Robots With Automatic Rifles Could Be on the Battlefield in 5 Years - robabbott
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/10/weaponized-military-robots/

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protomyth
Other than keeping our casualties down, this actually might stop some civilian
casualties. Since the operator of the gun is not in mortal danger, s/he can
pause that briefest of moments to decide if the person s/he is shooting at
should be shot.

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dmishe
Or, since he is not there he could be even more trigger happy.

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wyager
Psychological removal is a serious concern. It could be a lot easier to kill
someone when you're removed by a few layers of abstraction.

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gngeal
On the plus side, doesn't it also lower the psychological harm that happens to
many a soldier in sustained war?

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ef4
Actually the experience so far with drone pilots shows that they get PTSD at
the same rate as combat pilots who were physically there.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-
to-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-
stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html?_r=0)

~~~
gngeal
We're still in the beginning. Removing the "witnessing the carnage" part could
still be accomplished one day. As I mentioned, using our brains just to
simulate humans on-site controlling stuff at the battlefield may not be the
best use we could come up with. Compared to what I had in mind, current drones
are just glorified RC models. Thanks for the interesting link, though. This
risk is always there, I guess.

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terabytest
The prospect of an entirely robotic war is interesting to me. No more
bloodshed, the winner is determined by the amount of technological progress
they manage to achieve and put into use. Wars could actually become somewhat
useful for humanity as means to improve technologies (they already do, but the
death toll that comes with them is kind of a shitty side-effect).

~~~
JulianMorrison
It won't any time soon be robots vs. robots, because that (with our current
tech level) would imply superpowers fighting, and they'd just skip the
battlefield and go straight to ICBMs. Or not fight.

What it will be, is robots vs. guys with AK 47s, robots vs. third-world
armies. It would look a whole lot like "Terminator", and the bloodshed would
be apocalyptic.

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bcoates
I'm not even that optimistic, it will almost certainly be robots vs. civilians
simultaneous with guys with AK-47s and car bombs vs the other side's
civilians.

Nobody's going to intentionally get in a stand-up shooting match with robot,
unless the robots are so expensive and impractical that you can win a war of
attrition against them by bankrupting the country building them.

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nostromo
I'm surprised they didn't mention ATLAS.
[http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/aboutrobots.aspx](http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/aboutrobots.aspx)

It looks so much like the terminator I wonder if it's a coincidence.

~~~
icambron
I'm not surprised.

Robots like QinetiQ's Talon and competing iRobot products have been deployed
in the field for a decade doing things like recon and ordinance disposal. I'm
not sure they're awesome pieces of engineering, but they're mature products
that see real military use. There were even mounted weapon experiments with
them around 2002. So seeing them armed on the battlefield is not a huge step.

Atlas, on the other hand, looks like a pie-in-the-sky research project. It
even has a cord attached to it. It's definitely not going to be on the
battlefield shooting things in the next five years.

Disclosure: I worked on the Talon robot (the one in the article's main
picture) in college.

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kiddz
Fantasy talk for a second. . . ok, so if robots have far greater accuracy and
of course options for self-exposure within a battlefield, why can't their
primary directive be to shoot (literally) the guns of the enemy. It would be
great if the technology was directed in a way for the robots not be "killer"
but rather to shoot at the actual weapon someone is holding and not their
person.

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BoppreH
Imagine an enemy soldier facing you. The weapon they are holding has a small
profile compared to the person holding it, and they are directly behind the
gun. I can see a few challenges on this:

1) Hitting the gun and not the person. (duh)

2) Avoiding the bullet from glancing on the weapon and hitting the person.

3) Differentiating between the weapon and some equipment strapped to the
armor, or even a pattern on their clothes.

4) Determining if the person is about to move and get hit by the bullet you'll
fired at the weapon.

Depending on the damage dealt to the weapon, the enemy can just get behind
cover and pickup the weapon again. You are also losing the surprise element,
revealing your position, etc.

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melling
I'd settle for a really good vacuum cleaner. I've been holding out for years
now. Shouldn't that problem be easier to solve? Killer robots always garner
headlines but there are a still a few practical robots away from the real
revolution. The real revolution happens once consumers enter the picture.

~~~
danmaz74
How much are you willing to pay for a robot vacuum cleaner? Because the armies
are going to pay a lot...

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jotm
I think the major concerns with "infantry drones" are signal hijacking/jamming
and physical tampering - the latter could be remedied with a well designed
body, as well as a fast self-defense system (a gun or at least a high power
laser to quickly disable any approaching enemies)...

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gnarbarian
signal hacking could be mitigated by having them be truly autonomous. So they
will still attempt to complete their mission without communication to the
base.

Broadcasting a message also may compromise their location.

Maybe we'll start to see more weaponized EMPs.

~~~
jotm
Now there's a scary thought - truly autonomous... Soon the NSA facility in
Utah will be fully automated _and_ impenetrable :-)

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scotty79
Shouln't military throw a tanker of money at computer vision researchers right
about now?

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robabbott
Yes.
[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=5...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=5596241)

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qwerta
I hope this will finally make farad (or even kilofarad) capacitors cheap and
available. There is no better engine for innovation than arms race.

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oscargrouch
\- General, Im proud to announce that after decades of research of our
brightest scientists our country can make robots!

\- Great, now its just put a gun in their hands and teach them how to kill!

Total failure of the human kind: Technologically advanced morally corrupt

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busterarm
DISASSEMBLE? NO DISASSEMBLE!!!

YOUR MOTHER WAS A SNOW-BLOWER!

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wyager
Because a robot with an automatic rifle is way scarier than a robot with a
semi-automatic rifle.

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pinaceae
doesn't matter if the robot is pulling the trigger - just like modern
automatic gears are actually manual ones where a "robot" is the shifting.

streams of bullets are no longer necessary as accuracy goes up. why waste ammo
on suppressive fire if you can simply headshot with high precision? spotting
targets through visible and invisible spectrum plus audio? using large caliber
rounds that penetrate brick walls, car doors, etc (7.62, 50cal, etc.).
basically mount 2 barretts on a turret and wreak havoc.

~~~
robabbott
Only good reason I can think of is where multiple shots are required to weaken
/ overcome some kind of hardened defense. Of course, these things will be
firing some kind of armor piercing / explosive / incendiary round, so that may
not be a requirement. Or unless the psychological effect of a spray of highly-
accurate bullets warrants the barrage.

~~~
gngeal
"Only good reason I can think of is where multiple shots are required to
weaken / overcome some kind of hardened defense."

If there's a simple window, you can kill everyone along the wall by a simple
application of a high-precision-timed grenade. "Explode 50 cm behind the
window" is simple to achieve these days:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE)
,
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgh4uy5A-lI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgh4uy5A-lI)

