# The Future of Warfare



## Arthur_Vandelay (Apr 28, 2005)

At first I thought of tacking this onto the Artificial Intelligence thread, especially as it seems pertinent to the _2001: A Space Odyssey_ presentation I posted there. But perhaps it's just big enough to demand a space of its own.

Here's the juice. The US military has developed robotic soldiers, and plans to deploy a number of them in Iraq--possibly some time this year. Maybe that doesn't seem _so_ surprising (remember the unmanned Predator aircraft that took out six Al Qaeda suspects in Yemen in 2003?)--but the issue seems to have received surprisingly little coverage since January, when I first became aware of it via a BBC report: US plans 'robot troops' for Iraq. According to that story, "the robot fighter has been named Swords, after the acronym for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems. It is based on the Talon robot, which is widely used by the military to disarm bombs." According to a CBS report filed around the same time, a SWORDS unit runs on lithium batteries, and "can operate for 1 to 4 hours at a time, depending on the mission. Operators work the robot using a 30-pound control unit which has two joysticks, a handful of buttons and a video screen, [that] may eventually be replaced by a 'Gameboy' type of controller hooked up to virtual reality goggles." 

A more recent article in _The Michigan Daily_ gives a more detailed account:




> Packing an M249 machine gun and laced in camouflage treads what may be the next caliber of U.S. soldier. But at roughly three feet tall, with night vision embedded in its mechanical eyes and a battery life of around four hours, the military’s newest recruit comes not from the ordinary military training camp but off the technological assembly line.
> 
> Originally slated for deployment in Iraq this month, but postponed to an unspecified later date, the remote-controlled SWORDS, or Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection, is set to become the first armed mobile robot to see offensive ground combat. The U.S. Army hopes that with the availability of an infantry robot to support ground forces and engage in the high-risk combat tasks, the military will yield fewer human casualties.
> 
> ...



According to CBS News, "There are bound to be many eyes watching SWORDS as it heads to battle. Its tracks will one day be followed by the larger vehicles of the Future Combat System, such as six-wheel-drive MULE under development by Lockheed Martin, a 2.5-ton vehicle with motors in each wheel hub to make it more likely to survive."

What do these developments portend for the future of warfare--and more importantly--for the future of humankind, ethically, politically, etc? Are we developing technologies that, like the fictitious HAL, will grow beyond our ability to control?

Further reading:
SWORDS play -- _Military.com_
Battlefield Robots Leap From Science Fiction to Reality -- _National Geographic_
Future Combat Systems -- _Globalsecurity.org_


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## Arvedui (Apr 28, 2005)

The scenario from the Terminator-movies does spring to mind...


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