Will the U.S. Have a Droid Army?

Will the U.S. Have a Droid Army?

www.livescience.com

The U.S. military may be 30 percent robotic by the year 2020, according to Doug Few and Bill Smart of Washington University in St. Louis.

"When the military says 'robot' they mean everything from self-driving trucks up to what you would conventionally think of as a robot. You would more accurately call them autonomous systems rather than robots," says Smart, assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This sounds a lot like star wars.
But hey I am sure that someone will still find away to protest that and call the droids all sorts of bad names.


www.livescience.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It would be totally amazing if they took the star wars design!!. Yes, but agreed, if we give robots weapons+intelligence, it can't amount to anything too good.

My main concern is what war is the American government going to start to test them...:shk:

They will probably invade Canada!
Lots of oil up there you know!

Originally posted by ice1300
Lots of oil up there you know!

Screw the oil! We want the beer and bacon and it WILL BE OURS!!

We could be about 90% mechanized infantry by the end of it all. An old acquaintance of mine worked with companies building robots such as that and told me a story about how they flipped the switch and the turret turned 180 degrees and started firing on the friendlies right off the bat.

There is plenty of work to do but yes, we will have a mechanized infantry.
*mechanized infantry is a broad term to me I didn't mean it as walking robots*

[edit on 4-9-2008 by beaverg]

[edit on 4-9-2008 by beaverg]

Nothing like a Canadian Bacon and Pineapple pizza with a nice cold Molson!

Except maybe a whole lot of cold Molson!!!!!

reply to post by beaverg


I thought the one in that incident was supposed to have been remote operated like the majority of others?

reply to post by ice1300


by 2020 will the US even have the money to
keep the state of the art weapons systems up and running let alone build new ones.

you guys spend enough on maintaining them already.

Originally posted by spec_ops_wannabe
reply to post by beaverg

 

I thought the one in that incident was supposed to have been remote operated like the majority of others?

Yes, you are right. I meant flip the switch as it turn it on and this one was remote operated.

The problem isn’t spending on upkeep it’s spending on bad and bogus contracts.

The, military spend more money on corrupt contracts than anything else; if we could get that under control we would have the money for R&D. Then who knows what we could have.

reply to post by ice1300


There is already plenty of money in research and development. There are products the army developed years ago that haven't been put to good use. So some, but certainly not all, of the bogus contracts are research and development contracts that fizzle out, funding cut to a million dollar project before there is a finished product.

*I should mention 90% is quite a bit too high. 50% would be more likely. Leave less up to computer error.

[edit on 4-9-2008 by beaverg]

whats scarier?

losing so many soliders no one wants to fight?
or losing so many robots, your economy cannot build another?

I dont think we'll see robots in our life time.

( IE next 80yrs )

proper robots, ones that walk, conduct missions, shoot at bad guys and assist the good guys.

the robots in use today, ones on treds with a mounted gun thats controlled by remote control are nothing more than fancy, steel enforced remote controlled cars, with guns bolted on.

The US military has been training missions and combat on simulators for over two decades. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Predator drones patrol the landscape, the pilot is at one of many AF bases around the world sitting in a flight simulator. Hopefully, to some extent, this will minimize the loss of life. I pray they are accurate and hit the mark.

It is already happening to some extent, but infantry is still just in R&D stage. This would be an awesome field to enter.

We are almost to that point now. Recruiting missions in the US have suffered greatly since about mid 2004. People in the United States as a whole don’t want to support a war that they don’t understand.
I would gladly give up my current profession in a heart beat if world peace or a better option of defense were to break out tomorrow.

Originally posted by ice1300
We are almost to that point now. Recruiting missions in the US have suffered greatly since about mid 2004. People in the United States as a whole don’t want to support a war that they don’t understand.
I would gladly give up my current profession in a heart beat if world peace or a better option of defense were to break out tomorrow.

Thats what the media has been telling you.

July '08

Army: Recruited 10,141 out of a goal of 10,000 (101 percent)

Navy: Recruited 4,200 out of a goal of 4,200 (100 percent)

Marine Corps: Recruited 4,783 out of a goal of 4,094 (117 percent)

Air Force: Recruited 2,555 out of a goal of 2,541 (101 percent)

Helps when they change the rules for who's allowed in, hey?

WASHINGTON — More recruits with criminal records, including felony convictions, are being allowed to join the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, as the armed services cope with a dwindling pool of volunteers during wartime.

The military routinely grants waivers to take in recruits who have criminal records, medical problems or low aptitude scores that would otherwise disqualify them from service. Most are moral waivers, which include some felonies, misdemeanors, and traffic and drug offenses.

Defense Department statistics show that the number of Army and Marine recruits needing waivers for felonies and serious misdemeanors, including minor drug offenses, has grown since 2003. Some recruits may get more than one waiver.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
Helps when they change the rules for who's allowed in, hey?

WASHINGTON — More recruits with criminal records, including felony convictions, are being allowed to join the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, as the armed services cope with a dwindling pool of volunteers during wartime.

The military routinely grants waivers to take in recruits who have criminal records, medical problems or low aptitude scores that would otherwise disqualify them from service. Most are moral waivers, which include some felonies, misdemeanors, and traffic and drug offenses.

Defense Department statistics show that the number of Army and Marine recruits needing waivers for felonies and serious misdemeanors, including minor drug offenses, has grown since 2003. Some recruits may get more than one waiver.

I got no problem with that, might do 'em some good.

The problem with this is, it opens the doors to some rather disgusting violations of human rights.

Imagine, the military doesn't have to care anymore about civilian casualties.
X amount of thousands of civilians dead? Wasn't us... it was the machines.


Human soldiers have independent consciences. They usually won't kill mass amounts of civilians, because their conscience tells them not to. And if they are in fact ordered to do so, they are direct witnesses, and upon arrival back home, they would often see to it that those who gave the orders answer for them.

If it's machines following the orders, you won't know about the civilian losses... because there wasn't anyone there on your side to witness it.

Quite frankly, entire communities could be exterminated at the order of a few superiors... and nobody will be morally bound to disagree with those orders.


It opens a Pandora's box of disgusting acts...

One of the reasons I refuse to work on weapons tech, is because when you take the human factor out of it, you often take the moral factor out as well.