Here's the link to the ALV research summary: apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA167472 Wild to think that this is what was being researched almost 40 years ago. If you find any more cool research leave it in this thread so I can check it out and maybe make a video on it.
Yeah bro most tech has been researched under black ink for about half a century( a lot more by now ) but I swear bro nothing is being hidden bro I swear bro
Lol spot the vet Civvies know NOTHING about the military online courses. Online colleges exist sure, but that's the library of Alexandria compared to MCC's.
I'd prefer to pilot a 20 meters tall humanoid robot armed with a particle beam rifle capable of one-shotting a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. P.S: the only downside is sitting right next to a fusion reactor .
During the worst days of the coal mining operations under the Second Russian Empire, they would use kids from Asian & middle Eastern nations to dig air ducts, because they were tiny, during the Vietnam War, war orphans from the north were used as suicide bombers,
The best depiction of robot soldiers I’ve seen is Chappie where each fireteam is assigned one that breaches doors and pushes hard angles before the humans. Additionally when they’re pushing towards an objective without concealment they stack up on it as cover. Obviously not practical for warfare but for urban environments and domestic police it makes sense to me (disregarding the ethical concerns)
@@clintbustwood4800 if you saw the clip of the first ground drone I showed they were basically doing exactly what you just described! Urban setting with no cover or concealment around and were basically forcing an opening with one deploying smoke to conceal and the other opening up with a machine gun to get a base of fire so troops could establish a foothold in one of the buildings.
Loved those robots. My head-canon is that they only had a few hours of battery life. This meant they were brilliant at intense assault work, but didn't have the endurance for 99% of infantry duties. Thus the ideal squad would be a mixture of humans and robots.
@@marcusmoonstein242 Honestly you would be lucky if a lithium ion battery small enough to cram in a person (or even a backpack) could power all that tech for a single hour.
Hah, pretty sure you don't know Swedish, but in Swedish military terminology all guided missiles are called Robots. Like the AMRAAMs official designation is Robot 99, Hellfire is Robobt 17
Javelin’s are target designated by a human operator who use the optical camera that is also the designator, so it does not automatically lock on or designate the target. And good thing too as it uses a form of infra-red so it cannot distinguish between a tank or a mule deer. So no, not a robot, unless you’d also deem a TOW-missile to also be a robot.
Unguided after launch = rocket. Guided, regardless of how, after launch = missile. Yeah, a missile is a kind of robot, but they are actually very simple. They use different methods to get from A to B, but most of them are kinda like a fly following a white dot on a black background or similar. They are not "Ai" level of tech.
I forget where I saw the article, but I think the conclusion they ended with the mule robot was that actual pack animals worked just as well, if not better than the robots for carrying stuff!
The downside of pack animals, is that they can only be used by Special forces. If donkeys are introduced to the rank and file. Then they have to increase the numbers of 68T's. And whenever you have to exponentially boost the numbers of an MOS, you have to ask if the juice is worth the squeeze.
always felt that the ethical question of autonomous weapons attacking people with no human input is overplayed since landmines, attack dogs, and booby traps exist.
True, the differentiating factor to a landmine might be area of operation. A landmine wont walk away from where it's planted, even if it malfunctions (or at least not verry far).
@@clockworkvanhellsing372 yeah but that becomes an issue of scale rather than an ethical problem. For a scale problem a mine field has a much greater threat range than any planned autonomous weapons and arguably more dangerous. The ethical question being, should we allow weapons to kill or injure humans? The answer being, we have been doing that since we started putting spikes in pits.
@@justarandomcommenter570 Okay i think for point 1 Smart weapon and dumb weapon, are not real classifications but alright using them what makes a smart weapon smart exactly? as for the decision process a land mine does have a decision tree. if not stepped on no boom, if stepped on boom. Sure I can see that the decision tree for an autonomous weapons like a autonomous gun turret would have a more complicated decision tree but ultimatley its still working on the same decision logic a landmine would use. if target is avaliable activate. For point 2 I dont seem to understandthis point. All current designs for an autonomous weapon or vehicle can be shut down. We arnt talking about skynet and terminators where we have no control. Just order weapons to stand down or shutdown.
@@justarandomcommenter570 The same metric could be set on autononous killer drones. Ultimately, a human has to design, build, program and deploy said automous vehicle before it can "make decisions". In actuality it is simply following the coded program that the humans gave it. So technically it's still ultimately a human give it the directive or capacity to make decisions that result in human casualties. You get me? How is it any different from an AA system or CIWS? It's really not that much different imo. They're autonomous yes but ultimately still need a human to activate or deactivate their auto pilot systems. Otherwise AA and CIWS systems would just light up every aircraft they detected or came within their range. Ygm?
Most of the aircraft and drones can fly themselves, some f35 s or euro fighters can't even fly manually. Aircraft are already basically robots we just don't think about it like that
Its easy to automate a plane since its surrounded by air. Stuff that has to walk and deal with plants, trees, rocks, rubble, streams and whatnot is much harder.
@@Flash_Kick Now I know this is gonna sound pretty weird to you, but imagine robot soldiers... with the facade of anime girls. Doesn't it sound... weird? Unfamiliar? Peculiar? Outlandish?
I agree, the sex bot and terminator industries will no-doubt converge by then. It's inevitable that at least some pmc's will commission a force of hot anime soldiers with multiple "functions".
11:40 According to news reports, AI is already making kill decisions in the Ukraine war. Jamming equipment has become extremely common due to the prevalence of drone attacks. One way armies on both sides are getting around jamming is to add a simple image processing AI to the drone so, when the signal is lost, it can still pick out a target and hit it. To be fair, these are mostly being used in situations where the instruction is “find something that looks like a tank and blow it up.” But it is possible that AI will be given more kill/no kill authority out of simple signaling practicality, rather than out of any humanistic calculation.
I serve on a 35 year old submarine and am not worried about being replaced by robots. I will be long retired by the time there is an automous version of me.
We do have flying cars but considering they require both a drivers license and a pilots license to operate, make them nigh impossible to implement to the scale that your average American could afford.
Not to mention the sheer amount of infastructure changes that would be required to take full advantage of land-air vehicles. One of the snags electric cars are facing right now is how expensive and difficult it would be to rebuild our street plans to better accomodate their energy needs. If cities can't even set up more charging posts for teslas, how are they going to even begin to prepare for flying commuter vehicles?
Some recent developments in directed energy weapons (particularly lasers) are really impressive and you should do a video on it. I've become convinced we'll end up seeing some sort of handheld laser weapon withing the next few decades as laser efficiency and battery capacity has improved significantly.
@@Justin_Taylor Instead of saying "thank you for your service." "Thank you for your anti-skynet money saving!" "Thank you for being cheaper then the death robots"
I was thinking much the same. Why not just use actual mules/horses? Sure, some added logistics involved, but hardly more than for the robot and they're certainly cheaper.
@@DarkVeghettaWell for one if the grunts forget to water a flesh and blood mule it dies and needs to be replaced. If you forget to charge or fuel up a robotic mule it can be recovered and put back into use. Horse cavalry haven't come back despite being lower profile than a Bradley (or a Panzer I for that matter). Dealing with animals is just easier to do without in a warzone (barring niche uses for dogs which cannot be taken over by technology yet)
@@shamasmacshamas7135 Eh i find that to be one of the weakest motives since soldiers tend to empathize with their mates which includes animals, a grunt in charge of a mule would never forgive himself for killing a mule due to negligence.
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 During the Anglo-Boer War the British rode two thirds of all of the horses they acquired for the conflict to death. Many more horses died than people. People who aren't properly trained in animal care and who must work animals hard will kill them without really meaning to, and Marines are already being trained (very well!) on their crucial tactical tasks. That doesn't need to be diluted by a week of "heres how you care for the company mules". Then there's the logistical considerations, like re-adding a group of veterinarians to each battalion, who are specialists and require much more training. A mechanical mule could to some extent be handled by existing support personnel. The US military is already facing a severe manpower crunch, no need to make it worse with new, bespoke specialists and the creation of new training pipelines.
There's a very simple reason WHY robots aren't being used in the military: It's because most infantry-sized robots could easily be taken out by WWI/WWII anti-tank rifles. In fact, it would finally give them a use since modern tanks and armored vehicles have been too tough to disable with anti-tank rifles for a long time now. They just need to stop trying to replace people, and relearn diplomacy.
Something being vulnerable to enemy fire is no argument at all, otherwise infantry have been obsolete and without use since the invention of the arrow. Being immune to the prolific small-arms of the world (and by extension artillery fragments/shrapnel) would be of immense value.
@shamasmacshamas7135 Exactly. The valuble aspect of robots wouldn't be that they're 'invincible,' it's the fact that they can be deployed without putting humans at risk. Sure, you can kill a robot, but that robot doesn't have a family that will be devastated to learn it won't be coming home.
Say what you want The second someone rolls out piloting a mecha with a heavy rifle in one hand and the other retracting to reveal an oversized drill will be the moment the universe collapses under the sheer density of the awesomeness it will radiate😂
Here in Germany our specialized Mountain Troops still do. Actually all the Armies surrunding the Alps still do. I know it for sure for the Austrian Army & the Italian Army.
You should check out the Robotics Research Center at USMA. If they’re willing to have you, I think it would give a tremendous amount of clarity and insight into the current state of autonomous and remotely operated systems in the US. Certainly did for me.
There are 5 areas where we need to improve before we can make things like this. 1 - Design; we need a design that weather or not it is using treads, wheels or legs, must be able to move over the same terrain as a person just as efficiently. It must also be the same size and capable of carrying the same load or more. This would be hard to fix, and is dependent on the other factors below. 2 - Robotics; The limitations on all the moving pieces. This is what limits Design. Motors, barrings, hydraulics, and so-on. Everything can only be made so small and bear a certain load. We need to research better means of creating and using these things in order to make smaller, cheaper, more efficient components that work better and for longer. Such as how we now use steel rims with rubber tires on a spring and/or piston assisted suspension for vehicles instead of wooden spoke wheels. 3 - Repair; damage, strain and wear are one of the biggest hurtles. With people and animals, it's generally fine as we can just eat some food, rest, and our bodies self-repair. Machines can't do that, so we must be constantly doing it for them, and we need the knowledge, tools and supplies to do so. It's not enough to create components that resist wear, or even to make them easy to fix. They need to also self-repair or the machine needs to do the maintenance itself, from gathering the supplies to the repair. 4 - Power; As seen with the pack mule thing, a gasoline engine is not only loud, but inefficient in the long-term. Something like that would need to be powered by some kind of more advanced power source to be practical. This is also a huge reason why we do not posses things like Laser weapons, Rail/Gauss guns, Power Armor, Mechs (giant mechanized war machines, usually person-shaped or similar) among other things. Everything that exists now is limited by how much energy they take to run, which increases size of Engines, gasoline tanks etc. 5 - Cost; Not only are the materials needed for some of the more intricate components expensive, but we must fuel the minds behind their invention with steady cash-flow. If some guy is figuring out a Cold-Fusion Micro-Reactor, you'll want to pay him to do it for you, or another country will. And if you try to do it by force, he may sabotage it, or deliberately sandbag the process out of spite. So, you need to offer intensive. To fix this, we would need to make the field of study more competitive, by fostering stronger minds. If this guy won't do the science for a reasonable price, another person could. Or, we use AI to think it over for us. In the end, a machine would need to be equivalent or better than a person in all categories to be viable. And at that point, we may have a bigger issue on our hands.
Also have you seen those videos where someone stabs a phone battery with a knife and it explodes? Imagine that but with a bullet and the Boston Dynamics robot’s battery backpack.
Robots are easier to replace than human beings. All you have to do is manufacture a new one when it gets destroyed. What happens when a human gets destroyed? How long does it take to replace that human? About 18 years?
To have bipedal cyborgs we need all Earth make totally flat, pave whole worlds in asphalt. Failure of Afghanistan that it has not higher ground but Tora Bora thousand kilometers of cave passages.
I just want to throw it out there that I fucking love your videos, there’s something so comforting about them that I can’t explain and can’t wait for the next one.
@@shamasmacshamas7135 are you going to have a smaller robot horse to carry the charger for the 1st robot horse? Could have just put a water container on a real horse
Clankers shouldn't be allowed to own or operate firearms. I'd say more about what robots shouldn't be allowed to do, but my last comment on the matter mysteriously got deleted. Probably by an offended clanker.
having 2-3 story tall walkers would be nice. but without reactive armor I feel like they'd be picked off in seconds. ;( I think you'd have to protect them like a carrier, where it'd have to have little reactive armor satellites, or some such. then it'd be an absolute juggernaut.
I know it was a throwaway line but I would actually like to see a video about the ethical ramifications of drone warfare with interviews or information gathered from drone operators either Ukrainian or American
Love your channel! Keep up the great work. You could probably do the history of rifle programs that were trying to replace the M16 & M4. Maybe even get into the Sig XM7.
ChatGPT agrees with you. When I asked "should the military have humanoid robots or go for tracked systems" it went into a long analysis of envio and energy usage, transportation utility and repair problems. It also dissed the human body for being to costly for to little gain or some such. Basically the computer power to make a humanoid move around would be the main usage of the AI, instead of focusing on the actual mission parameters. It seemed to have given this a lot of thought.
I think we will definitely see humanoid robots appear. Not as a replacement for tracked systems, but as a decoy for valuable human operators. The first step will be the military giving their best operators better armor. Then the military will use motors so their best operators will stay mobile while wearing better armor. Then the enemy will prioritize hitting any one with that armor, using expensive weapon systems like high quality drones to target those high value operators. Then our military will create robot shaped soldiers that wear that armor, so the enemy will waste their expensive weapon systems on the decoys. And the enemy will falsely believe that they have killed our operators, who can then suprise the enemy at a later date. Building robots as a replacement for standard infantry isn't worth it. Using Robots as a decoy for special forces. To decieve the enemy and make them waste division level assets. That could be worth it.
The only reason humans are bipedal and have that distinct shape from quadrupeds is for long distance running with less energy usage tho, maybe balance and stability are much more of a priority but idk I think there’s something in that design for machines as well
I still think if a working, non-elon branded neural linkage type thing ever gets made, humanoid robots will become far more practical than they are right now.
When you were talking about not letting automated robot's do the killing, a flashback of all the times I’ve been killed by a turret sentry in helldivers flashed through my mind.
Mine clearing, indirect fire and surveillance is what robots and drones should focus on. Just imagine you are clearing a trench, I am a exMil shock trooper btw, and you have a mini drone ala the Hornet Nano you can deploy. You just click a button to lase something and you instantly see what indirect fire options there are on that point and the ETA to hit. Then you already have these tracked robots further back that went into position just before the attack and are carrying heavy mortars (tube and ammo at a weight level too high for a human mortar patrol) or worse, howitzer size, that you can order to fire on a shock trooper squad or mortar squad level. Have similar communication ability on the ACOGs or similar and you would create allot more easier indirect fire ability. That said, not sure USA would focus on such because they rather go with larger scale attacks, get air superiority and then just B52 the trenches before an assault if they needed to go through a given point.
I feel like the best use for a bipedal combat robot is unironically just as shock troops, which honestly considering how deep the forestry-war interface is the same technology would get used to replace handfallers for most situations since just like the military, most of new logging technologies point is make it safer. They could also mind wipe death row inmates and use their brains as the computer for a bipedal combat robot thats basically just a bigger person, less need for fancy walking software and such. Robot could deal with recoil easier and carry more ammo while not being affected by the environment as much. Just a bunch of terminators with M240s being fired from the hip. I would not trust a robot driver unless for long distance where nothing is going on. Using AI for spotting, with a second commander optic on a telescoping periscope would be incredibly useful and I'm sure the technology for that is the most advanced. The robot mules are eh since you could just use actual mules which have pros, mules donkeys and horses might notice stuff before you since they are prey animals, plus with some of the switch of the army to more "we need to practice living off the land and yada yada" a mule or a donkey or horse doesn't need lube and batteries, it needs fodder and some grooming. Plus they are quieter.
Make deployable defense systems. Point them at an area you want to defend and they would target everyone moving in that area. Like mines covering an area but it's an autonomus machinegun emplacement instead. Best at night if they also have thermals. Alternatively they can be controlled from the trench by a soldier (by wire). Practicly they can't be supressed.
I feel like the remote controller tanks could be viable. Yes, you need people to repair them.. But you probably wouldn't jump out in the middle of a fire fight to repair it. So let's say that you have 400 people on 100 tanks. Instead you have 100 people controlling them and 40 people in maintenance duty close enough to be there in a few minutes, but far enough away from the fight. So rather than having people train on being good at tanking and repairing, now you can train dedicated crews for each task, which is also a bonus. I get that a tank crew might be far away from a good repair crew, but they'd at least have to know the basics to keep their tank running. Learning that takes time from learning battle.
From what you have said here, it seems that we should use robots to support fighting troops. Like robot supply trucks, and robot mechanics that can actually fix the tanks and trucks and robot supply trucks that are going to be on the battlefield.
Terrain on the frontline is tough to cross for trained humans. Ground robots are far from having mobility to cross that frontline. Aside from assaults on infantry positions land robots are extensively used for logistics and demining. Land robots is the only thing that might bring the cost of demining farmland down to being economically feasible. With regards to flying drones - drones that do fully autonomous kill missions are a thing for over a year and their numbers are on the rise.
Conspiracy Theory Time - there are most definitely fully functional and highly developed fully-sentient AI robot armies, as We The Public tends to think of them, thanks to sci-fi media (mini-tanks, robo-dogs, humanoid droids), but it's just that they are not being produced or used in view or in region of the public / in or at known places on the earth. (or even on the earth at all ?) (also, being similar to robots, this also means that sci-fi style highly developed Power Armors and Mecha of all sorts are also being used - again, just, not where The Public can find out about it.)
Personally I'm especially worried about the potential of autonomous tankettes - y'know something like the german Wiesel, but completely machine-driven. Small enough to maneuver effectively in urban environments and with a 20mm autocannon they can be powerful enough to be devastating to pretty much anything that isn't a tank. Also, don't have a source on hand, but I read reports of a turkish Kargu 2 drone actually doing the first fully autonomous kill in 2019 already, tho back then the available information was somewhat ambiguous.
You probably mention this in the video, but a combat drone you need to have a fairly high level of autonomy, but most people don't want drones to be able to have the ability to give the final say on whether someone dies or not. To be fair you can have a fairly high level of autonomy without that ability, but it's being able to execute that autonomy efficently while not smashing into teas or running over babies on the ground and thanks just for tracked / wheeled vehicles, for a robot that can use weapons like a human that will be expensive which kinda defeats the propose of drone of reducing risk if each drone costs 300k or so you can train a new recruit for that much, for planes like you spend millions and many years training them so attack, fighter or bomber also flying is a lot less complected for a computer to figure out so flying drones makes a bunch of sense.
If you replace the drivers of tanks with autonomous pilots (auto loaders are an easier way to cut down on personell if you ask me), you don't receive more tanks. You still have to scale matinence, produce more tanks, and implement the matenince personell who can fix the autonomous pilot. Tldr, basically, you're not getting more tanks, just more matenince personell and less combat arms.
“I see more and more things co-opted for military use” me and my auxetic metamaterial biomedical engineering research 😅 (it’s being tested for exosuits when I’m more looking at implants to save people lmao)
We already have plenty of automated kill weapons. Even the smart weapon definition is present with blind fire missiles that have the ability to find themselves a target if they have to.
Hello, OPFOR perspective, just thoughts. Well, we do use some warfare. Let's get our definition - two, actually: first is robot as autonomous machine built to perform specific tasks automatically. Second - walking or flying or rolling thing from battletech but with AI inside instead of crazed maniac. Firstly, wanna mention infamous Moscow bot farms, you know the thing. They are autonomous, I don't know shit about them, you guys probably have one too. China definitely does. Dead internet theory and all that jazz. Second, assisting algorithms. The amount of electronics and computer brain power that each of your vehicles gets are insane, if someone drop EW bomb in american military base half of your shit won't work(Modern Russian stuff also won't but our stuff is mostly not modern). So, if you stretch your definition, they are also robots;) Anyway, on the future - I don't think we will see rise in popularity of autonomous machinegun wielding tracked drones or god forbid, humanoid shaped ones. Shit's too unreliable and also - as you say, why sent expensive technology when you can send a college dropout with an AK and a dream. We'll start using robots only if it'd be cheaper than training soldiers, and cost the state more than their potential lives, and that's not gonna happen soon. But we'll probably integrate them more - as before, information gathering with drones and rpg-slapped "controlled" projectiles, like Ukraine, fire control missions automatization and precise shells for artillery, flight assistance and programmable bombs for air force, advanced targeting and observation for tanks and other ground vechiles. Also, I think we'll get some cheap analogue to COWS but for vechiles to counteract drones, like an active protection, but with Saiga 12 slapped on top instead of multibillion dollar rotary gun. Infantry, as usual, wont get anything new. Best we can hope for will be some goofy ahh AI assisted binoculars and Tesla intellect in trucks that still won't prevent your privates to somehow flip 70-ton machine in 3-inch ditch. Or exosceletons, but they are faaar from perfect until we get cheap artificial muscle technology and learn to read neural system signals without connecting copper wires to legs. Also, overall, I'm interested, what's your guys perspective on BIG STOMPY ROBOTS? I know they are impractical, but discussion on them is almost non-existent thanks to tank guys("muh le lecrec(insert any tank) is 900000% more viable and can do all the same things!!!!), and I wanna hear what people think.
Honestly, Militarize Robots should be moderated as a military asset, so that Mechanized Armies should be prevented from being hack or digitally compromised with a less detrimental way.
I mean when I was about 14 I was in America working backstage at a gunstore and I overhead someone talking about a RC tank they were making. A small 4ft by 2ft by 1ft tracked electric vehicle that they planned to put a turret on and I was working on an M60e3 and had the lighbulb idea of hmmmm. Why not mount the lmg, to the tank? So we did, took about 2 hours to build a vice to hold the weapon and get the servos to actuate the pistons holding the vice so it would move up and down and a motor so it can rotate and a large metal box holding 250 rounds of 308. But we did it and it was hilarious to drive it around and fire it off, although not very accurate or stable and if it jammed you'd have to either drive it back or go out and charge the lmg which was awkward now there's a vice in the way. But it did manage to do a 100 round dump with I'd say 60 65% accuracy at 35m about 40 yards so not too bad but? A human operator can do a better job a much better job. The trigger was actived via a solenoid an electrical switch a magnet that when energised pulled the bar around the trigger.
Your thoughts on other countries less inhibited by ethical backlash on using bots making kill choices? And won’t that make it more viable for America to follow suit?
i think what's really keeping automation from completing a circuit between the dirty work and the ruling class is the way it would directly implicate those in power. nobody thinks about having a sitting president tried of a capital crime when a bomb lands on the wrong building right now; nobody thought on hearing news of a baby crib recall associated with a few deaths or a contaminated packaged frozen food incident , surely someone at the top will face the music. if the guy who declares war on another country presses a button and then a bunch of people die, all those deaths are demonstrably on his hands. same story if the only human who made your pink slime had no one else to blame if you got sick. not just new computer driven automation but all the layers of most past societies are just a way for the rich and powerful to diffuse negative consequences away from themselves without relinquishing any of the benefits of control
"Should we let AI to take "kill-no-kill" decisions?" is a question of cost efficiency, EW-risks and power, not the ethics. Military hates the risks, yes, but they also willing to take some, if the tradeoff seems good enough. Poor kids are, arguably, riskier than non-sentient AI, because they, well, sentient. They have same-ish, if not bigger, risk of shooting civilians by accident, they have risk to do this for the sake of plunder or out of bigotry, they barely less fucked when enemy EW cuts their comms, they can get drunk, they can go AWOL or disobey the order because they changed their mind and do not want to serve anymore (or didn't wanted to serve in the first place, hello conscription-based armies), they can bully each other into mass shooting and so on. Non-sentient AI robot do not have this risks (except civilian kills out of misinterpretation), but they are much more expensive. The moment they will get cheap and EW-resistant enough - whoosh the soldier bois, hello T-800's, because T-800's do not ask questions, they project the power of those, who have the remote. The other side is the command. IRC, right now US have drone operators with 1:1 ratio to drones. But what if we'll make AI supercomputer, that can control 20 drones at the same time? 200 is the moment we kiss human drone operators goodbye. Same can be applied to the T-800's, which have a drawback of "Central Core is nuked, army is dysfunctional", but it's when you fight ICBM-capable major power(s), not some ISIS blackbeards. Ofc, this is when we ignore the fact of civil resistance to the government getting too strong for the people to control. Yes, it is faulty, tend to get misleaded, not owerwhelmingly strong and not as coordinated, as we all wish it was, but it does exist even in North Korea. Perhaps it is the force, that will make at least some armies to go the route of Smart Proxies: drones that have some basic brains for walking and shooting, controlled by humans with Brain-Computer Interface implanted. We can even integrate non-sentient AI into this network, as a co-pilot for intel processing, target identification and/or logistic planning (military Cybersyn, lol). Arguably, it is a more expensive army then T-800's with or without Central Core, but it maybe more reliable in terms of civil control and not shooting civilians because of integer overflow.
Here's the link to the ALV research summary: apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA167472
Wild to think that this is what was being researched almost 40 years ago.
If you find any more cool research leave it in this thread so I can check it out and maybe make a video on it.
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Yeah bro most tech has been researched under black ink for about half a century( a lot more by now ) but I swear bro nothing is being hidden bro I swear bro
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Another fantastic video
Would you mind doing one on a period of military history you found interesting or revolutionary?
Why you always have blown out exposure
Can't wait for my exosuit to shut off mid firefight because I forgot to do my cyber awareness training.
Fr 💀
Jeff
Lol spot the vet
Civvies know NOTHING about the military online courses. Online colleges exist sure, but that's the library of Alexandria compared to MCC's.
I'd prefer to pilot a 20 meters tall humanoid robot armed with a particle beam rifle capable of one-shotting a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.
P.S: the only downside is sitting right next to a fusion reactor .
“JEFF!!! YOU MOTHERF-“ - what i say milliseconds before being vaporized by a Sino-Russo-Iranian cruise missile
The technology isn't there and poor kids are still cheaper.
During the worst days of the coal mining operations under the Second Russian Empire, they would use kids from Asian & middle Eastern nations to dig air ducts, because they were tiny, during the Vietnam War, war orphans from the north were used as suicide bombers,
YeaH but can a robot see what a deal this Charger is at 34% APR?
The real Turing Test
Hell yeah.
but I need the charger so I can get back to base MRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Discount Dan, are you getting all this?
The best depiction of robot soldiers I’ve seen is Chappie where each fireteam is assigned one that breaches doors and pushes hard angles before the humans. Additionally when they’re pushing towards an objective without concealment they stack up on it as cover. Obviously not practical for warfare but for urban environments and domestic police it makes sense to me (disregarding the ethical concerns)
@@clintbustwood4800 if you saw the clip of the first ground drone I showed they were basically doing exactly what you just described! Urban setting with no cover or concealment around and were basically forcing an opening with one deploying smoke to conceal and the other opening up with a machine gun to get a base of fire so troops could establish a foothold in one of the buildings.
Loved those robots. My head-canon is that they only had a few hours of battery life. This meant they were brilliant at intense assault work, but didn't have the endurance for 99% of infantry duties. Thus the ideal squad would be a mixture of humans and robots.
@@marcusmoonstein242 Honestly you would be lucky if a lithium ion battery small enough to cram in a person (or even a backpack) could power all that tech for a single hour.
So um, isn't a Javelin just a tiny robot strapped to a rocket?
Hah, pretty sure you don't know Swedish, but in Swedish military terminology all guided missiles are called Robots. Like the AMRAAMs official designation is Robot 99, Hellfire is Robobt 17
@@meanmanturbo That's hilarious!
@@hunted4blood This usage goes back to like the 50s before there were any other kinds of robots, so it makes more sense then.
Javelin’s are target designated by a human operator who use the optical camera that is also the designator, so it does not automatically lock on or designate the target. And good thing too as it uses a form of infra-red so it cannot distinguish between a tank or a mule deer. So no, not a robot, unless you’d also deem a TOW-missile to also be a robot.
Unguided after launch = rocket.
Guided, regardless of how, after launch = missile.
Yeah, a missile is a kind of robot, but they are actually very simple. They use different methods to get from A to B, but most of them are kinda like a fly following a white dot on a black background or similar. They are not "Ai" level of tech.
"and nothing came from it", sounds exactly like something a program where things came from would say
If the military says nothing came from it either nothing came from it or a LOT came from it.
I forget where I saw the article, but I think the conclusion they ended with the mule robot was that actual pack animals worked just as well, if not better than the robots for carrying stuff!
I thought it was more about how the robots don't get/carry diseases or shit all over everything lol
@floydbaker2240 true but consider that pack animals are emergency rations that carry themselves, I guess for an urban situations they may be better?
The downside of pack animals, is that they can only be used by Special forces.
If donkeys are introduced to the rank and file. Then they have to increase the numbers of 68T's.
And whenever you have to exponentially boost the numbers of an MOS, you have to ask if the juice is worth the squeeze.
and cheaper, same as human, as long it cheaper, robot never happen. thats why cheap drone work
And they're cheaper too!
Drone warfare has replaced the idea of robotic soldiers with the reality of robotic munitions
Luckily the Mauser BK27 exists...
@@MagnumLoadedTractor Ah yes, the middle child....
May it live long and prosper 😎
always felt that the ethical question of autonomous weapons attacking people with no human input is overplayed since landmines, attack dogs, and booby traps exist.
True, the differentiating factor to a landmine might be area of operation. A landmine wont walk away from where it's planted, even if it malfunctions (or at least not verry far).
@@clockworkvanhellsing372 yeah but that becomes an issue of scale rather than an ethical problem. For a scale problem a mine field has a much greater threat range than any planned autonomous weapons and arguably more dangerous. The ethical question being, should we allow weapons to kill or injure humans? The answer being, we have been doing that since we started putting spikes in pits.
@@justarandomcommenter570 Okay i think for point 1 Smart weapon and dumb weapon, are not real classifications but alright using them what makes a smart weapon smart exactly?
as for the decision process a land mine does have a decision tree. if not stepped on no boom, if stepped on boom.
Sure I can see that the decision tree for an autonomous weapons like a autonomous gun turret would have a more complicated decision tree but ultimatley its still working on the same decision logic a landmine would use. if target is avaliable activate.
For point 2 I dont seem to understandthis point. All current designs for an autonomous weapon or vehicle can be shut down. We arnt talking about skynet and terminators where we have no control. Just order weapons to stand down or shutdown.
@@justarandomcommenter570 The same metric could be set on autononous killer drones. Ultimately, a human has to design, build, program and deploy said automous vehicle before it can "make decisions". In actuality it is simply following the coded program that the humans gave it. So technically it's still ultimately a human give it the directive or capacity to make decisions that result in human casualties. You get me?
How is it any different from an AA system or CIWS? It's really not that much different imo. They're autonomous yes but ultimately still need a human to activate or deactivate their auto pilot systems. Otherwise AA and CIWS systems would just light up every aircraft they detected or came within their range. Ygm?
War in the first place isnt ethical so why do people need to question ethicality in warfare in the first place, id say let them go nuts with it
I'm not worried about losing my job as a soldier to an AI. I'd like to see AM go to gentleman's clubs, get DUIs, and sham out of pt to get tornados.
I have no Weekend pass, and I must screeam.
"Humans evolved to...."
Shows Ricky Berwick, Berwicking around Rickily.
Most of the aircraft and drones can fly themselves, some f35 s or euro fighters can't even fly manually.
Aircraft are already basically robots we just don't think about it like that
Its easy to automate a plane since its surrounded by air. Stuff that has to walk and deal with plants, trees, rocks, rubble, streams and whatnot is much harder.
The future is Macross
Another main problem of humanoid robots is batteries. A robo-soldier is useless if the battery is empty after 10 minutes of fighting.
Girls Frontline will be real in 2060
Wym?
@@Flash_Kick Now I know this is gonna sound pretty weird to you, but imagine robot soldiers... with the facade of anime girls.
Doesn't it sound... weird? Unfamiliar? Peculiar? Outlandish?
@@TRD6932 Sounds terrifying. Lilith manifest
I agree, the sex bot and terminator industries will no-doubt converge by then.
It's inevitable that at least some pmc's will commission a force of hot anime soldiers with multiple "functions".
^ sigma, that is EXACTLY what's happening in the mentioned game. PMC employing civilian AI anime girl robots as Frontline soldiers
11:40 According to news reports, AI is already making kill decisions in the Ukraine war. Jamming equipment has become extremely common due to the prevalence of drone attacks. One way armies on both sides are getting around jamming is to add a simple image processing AI to the drone so, when the signal is lost, it can still pick out a target and hit it. To be fair, these are mostly being used in situations where the instruction is “find something that looks like a tank and blow it up.” But it is possible that AI will be given more kill/no kill authority out of simple signaling practicality, rather than out of any humanistic calculation.
This has the same energy as truckers afraid of their inevitable replacement by autonomous trucks
I serve on a 35 year old submarine and am not worried about being replaced by robots. I will be long retired by the time there is an automous version of me.
This is the actual reason why Raytheon put me in the mech suit. Battle bots just aren't there yet.
Just like flying cars....
"Its just a decade away and we will be in the future"
and this has been going one for decades now....
We do have flying cars but considering they require both a drivers license and a pilots license to operate, make them nigh impossible to implement to the scale that your average American could afford.
Tldr flying cars are never going to happen in any major way.
Not to mention the sheer amount of infastructure changes that would be required to take full advantage of land-air vehicles. One of the snags electric cars are facing right now is how expensive and difficult it would be to rebuild our street plans to better accomodate their energy needs. If cities can't even set up more charging posts for teslas, how are they going to even begin to prepare for flying commuter vehicles?
i mean helicopters exist
@@gorganfredman5363 Not every parking lot has a helipad though.
Some recent developments in directed energy weapons (particularly lasers) are really impressive and you should do a video on it.
I've become convinced we'll end up seeing some sort of handheld laser weapon withing the next few decades as laser efficiency and battery capacity has improved significantly.
@@2Potates I like this idea a lot. Stay tuned.
So why don't we have robots? Poor kids with a nicotine addiction are cheaper.
It's me I am the poor kid with a nicotine addiction
@@Justin_Taylor Instead of saying "thank you for your service."
"Thank you for your anti-skynet money saving!"
"Thank you for being cheaper then the death robots"
I'm pretty sure an actual flesh and blood mule would be more practical than those four legged load carrying things.
I was thinking much the same. Why not just use actual mules/horses? Sure, some added logistics involved, but hardly more than for the robot and they're certainly cheaper.
this is exactly why they were retired, america actually had a “mule corps” in Afghanistan to do their jobs iirc, though sources are spotty iirc
@@DarkVeghettaWell for one if the grunts forget to water a flesh and blood mule it dies and needs to be replaced. If you forget to charge or fuel up a robotic mule it can be recovered and put back into use. Horse cavalry haven't come back despite being lower profile than a Bradley (or a Panzer I for that matter). Dealing with animals is just easier to do without in a warzone (barring niche uses for dogs which cannot be taken over by technology yet)
@@shamasmacshamas7135 Eh i find that to be one of the weakest motives since soldiers tend to empathize with their mates which includes animals, a grunt in charge of a mule would never forgive himself for killing a mule due to negligence.
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 During the Anglo-Boer War the British rode two thirds of all of the horses they acquired for the conflict to death. Many more horses died than people. People who aren't properly trained in animal care and who must work animals hard will kill them without really meaning to, and Marines are already being trained (very well!) on their crucial tactical tasks. That doesn't need to be diluted by a week of "heres how you care for the company mules". Then there's the logistical considerations, like re-adding a group of veterinarians to each battalion, who are specialists and require much more training. A mechanical mule could to some extent be handled by existing support personnel. The US military is already facing a severe manpower crunch, no need to make it worse with new, bespoke specialists and the creation of new training pipelines.
There's a very simple reason WHY robots aren't being used in the military: It's because most infantry-sized robots could easily be taken out by WWI/WWII anti-tank rifles. In fact, it would finally give them a use since modern tanks and armored vehicles have been too tough to disable with anti-tank rifles for a long time now.
They just need to stop trying to replace people, and relearn diplomacy.
But diplomacy isn't profitable for military contractors.
Something being vulnerable to enemy fire is no argument at all, otherwise infantry have been obsolete and without use since the invention of the arrow. Being immune to the prolific small-arms of the world (and by extension artillery fragments/shrapnel) would be of immense value.
@shamasmacshamas7135 Exactly. The valuble aspect of robots wouldn't be that they're 'invincible,' it's the fact that they can be deployed without putting humans at risk. Sure, you can kill a robot, but that robot doesn't have a family that will be devastated to learn it won't be coming home.
Say what you want
The second someone rolls out piloting a mecha with a heavy rifle in one hand and the other retracting to reveal an oversized drill will be the moment the universe collapses under the sheer density of the awesomeness it will radiate😂
Brazilian here. An Orwellian future we already have.
7:13 bring back actual mules
My Uncle was a Mule once, haven't seen him in a hot minute.
Here in Germany our specialized Mountain Troops still do.
Actually all the Armies surrunding the Alps still do.
I know it for sure for the Austrian Army & the Italian Army.
Teenagers are cheaper
@@floydbaker2240lmao
the marines still use actual mules im pretty sure
Every time I see one of these mules, my first thought is, "but what if we just used mules?"
18 year olds getting paid $22,000 will always be cheaper than a multi-million dollar robot
You should check out the Robotics Research Center at USMA. If they’re willing to have you, I think it would give a tremendous amount of clarity and insight into the current state of autonomous and remotely operated systems in the US. Certainly did for me.
Any insights you could share?
Walking human shaped military robots are fun and games until you play generation zero
"Drone bietter" - Vanko, Ivan
Damn I just want there to be a tank with 4 or more big armored legs
There are 5 areas where we need to improve before we can make things like this.
1 - Design; we need a design that weather or not it is using treads, wheels or legs, must be able to move over the same terrain as a person just as efficiently. It must also be the same size and capable of carrying the same load or more. This would be hard to fix, and is dependent on the other factors below.
2 - Robotics; The limitations on all the moving pieces. This is what limits Design. Motors, barrings, hydraulics, and so-on. Everything can only be made so small and bear a certain load. We need to research better means of creating and using these things in order to make smaller, cheaper, more efficient components that work better and for longer. Such as how we now use steel rims with rubber tires on a spring and/or piston assisted suspension for vehicles instead of wooden spoke wheels.
3 - Repair; damage, strain and wear are one of the biggest hurtles. With people and animals, it's generally fine as we can just eat some food, rest, and our bodies self-repair. Machines can't do that, so we must be constantly doing it for them, and we need the knowledge, tools and supplies to do so. It's not enough to create components that resist wear, or even to make them easy to fix. They need to also self-repair or the machine needs to do the maintenance itself, from gathering the supplies to the repair.
4 - Power; As seen with the pack mule thing, a gasoline engine is not only loud, but inefficient in the long-term. Something like that would need to be powered by some kind of more advanced power source to be practical. This is also a huge reason why we do not posses things like Laser weapons, Rail/Gauss guns, Power Armor, Mechs (giant mechanized war machines, usually person-shaped or similar) among other things. Everything that exists now is limited by how much energy they take to run, which increases size of Engines, gasoline tanks etc.
5 - Cost; Not only are the materials needed for some of the more intricate components expensive, but we must fuel the minds behind their invention with steady cash-flow. If some guy is figuring out a Cold-Fusion Micro-Reactor, you'll want to pay him to do it for you, or another country will. And if you try to do it by force, he may sabotage it, or deliberately sandbag the process out of spite. So, you need to offer intensive. To fix this, we would need to make the field of study more competitive, by fostering stronger minds. If this guy won't do the science for a reasonable price, another person could. Or, we use AI to think it over for us.
In the end, a machine would need to be equivalent or better than a person in all categories to be viable. And at that point, we may have a bigger issue on our hands.
Also have you seen those videos where someone stabs a phone battery with a knife and it explodes? Imagine that but with a bullet and the Boston Dynamics robot’s battery backpack.
LMAO! I was not expecting the mule to actually sound like that! I’m glad you included the actual clip with audio 😂
Robots are easier to replace than human beings. All you have to do is manufacture a new one when it gets destroyed. What happens when a human gets destroyed? How long does it take to replace that human? About 18 years?
Finally, someone's asking the real questions.
To have bipedal cyborgs we need all Earth make totally flat, pave whole worlds in asphalt. Failure of Afghanistan that it has not higher ground but Tora Bora thousand kilometers of cave passages.
America will have truly won when the entire world is a parking lot
If we did get tanks like that, world of tanks players would be drafted asap
Horse cyborgs are the future.
Just make T-Dolls already bro
I just want to throw it out there that I fucking love your videos, there’s something so comforting about them that I can’t explain and can’t wait for the next one.
@@northern_patriot0691
I think its odd we made robot horses when we probably could have just used horses
When a horse goes without water it dies. When a robotic horse goes without recharging it stops and can be easily put back into service.
@@shamasmacshamas7135 are you going to have a smaller robot horse to carry the charger for the 1st robot horse? Could have just put a water container on a real horse
Clankers shouldn't be allowed to own or operate firearms.
I'd say more about what robots shouldn't be allowed to do, but my last comment on the matter mysteriously got deleted. Probably by an offended clanker.
Can't believe the UA-cam intelligence would allow hateful comments like yours😡
Bro it's 2024, you can't say the C word! The proper term is Artificial-Americans!
When is the military gonna start using AT-ATs, AT-TEs or some other sort of walking vehicles?
having 2-3 story tall walkers would be nice. but without reactive armor I feel like they'd be picked off in seconds. ;(
I think you'd have to protect them like a carrier, where it'd have to have little reactive armor satellites, or some such. then it'd be an absolute juggernaut.
@@chancepaladin It would still get absolutely destroyed and would be largely useless. Better to be small and mobile than big and slow.
I know it was a throwaway line but I would actually like to see a video about the ethical ramifications of drone warfare with interviews or information gathered from drone operators either Ukrainian or American
when ya want skynet , but have to settle for rewatching sarah connor chronicles again, cuz there just aint nothin better.
Love your channel! Keep up the great work. You could probably do the history of rifle programs that were trying to replace the M16 & M4. Maybe even get into the Sig XM7.
Crazy concept, I do not, in fact want robot soldiers
Not what you think had a hilarious video on how donkeys outperform robots dogs in transport capability
I just found this channel last video. I'm one video away from subscribing - info is solid and the humor is on point.
ChatGPT agrees with you. When I asked "should the military have humanoid robots or go for tracked systems" it went into a long analysis of envio and energy usage, transportation utility and repair problems. It also dissed the human body for being to costly for to little gain or some such. Basically the computer power to make a humanoid move around would be the main usage of the AI, instead of focusing on the actual mission parameters. It seemed to have given this a lot of thought.
I think we will definitely see humanoid robots appear. Not as a replacement for tracked systems, but as a decoy for valuable human operators.
The first step will be the military giving their best operators better armor.
Then the military will use motors so their best operators will stay mobile while wearing better armor.
Then the enemy will prioritize hitting any one with that armor, using expensive weapon systems like high quality drones to target those high value operators.
Then our military will create robot shaped soldiers that wear that armor, so the enemy will waste their expensive weapon systems on the decoys.
And the enemy will falsely believe that they have killed our operators, who can then suprise the enemy at a later date.
Building robots as a replacement for standard infantry isn't worth it. Using Robots as a decoy for special forces. To decieve the enemy and make them waste division level assets.
That could be worth it.
The only reason humans are bipedal and have that distinct shape from quadrupeds is for long distance running with less energy usage tho, maybe balance and stability are much more of a priority but idk I think there’s something in that design for machines as well
@@ambi_cc8464 tracks and wheels are way more energy efficient than legs
@@ambi_cc8464 machines dont have the same limitations on endurance as biologicals. It is pretty useless to be bipedal in that regard
@@riddell26they are limited by power and power supplies.
No they fucking don’t
I still think if a working, non-elon branded neural linkage type thing ever gets made, humanoid robots will become far more practical than they are right now.
Will you do one for flying drones or naval drones?
I plan on making a company specialized in killer robots, and yes, you will receive your personal T1000 platoon
Bro looks like a thin Pablo Escobar.
Ooh boy I love a good categorical imperative reference.
Subbed because I only found out you're involved with Task and Purpose as well as NotWhatYouThink.
Great info and better delivery. I, too, have been waiting for a robot to take my job. Just as soon as Ai can manage GCSS-Army and DTMS, I'm set.
When you were talking about not letting automated robot's do the killing, a flashback of all the times I’ve been killed by a turret sentry in helldivers flashed through my mind.
I remember that robo mule in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 - it was very useful as mobile cover.
Even when robot technology gets through development, it still takes time to mass manufacture and integrate
Mine clearing, indirect fire and surveillance is what robots and drones should focus on.
Just imagine you are clearing a trench, I am a exMil shock trooper btw, and you have a mini drone ala the Hornet Nano you can deploy. You just click a button to lase something and you instantly see what indirect fire options there are on that point and the ETA to hit. Then you already have these tracked robots further back that went into position just before the attack and are carrying heavy mortars (tube and ammo at a weight level too high for a human mortar patrol) or worse, howitzer size, that you can order to fire on a shock trooper squad or mortar squad level. Have similar communication ability on the ACOGs or similar and you would create allot more easier indirect fire ability.
That said, not sure USA would focus on such because they rather go with larger scale attacks, get air superiority and then just B52 the trenches before an assault if they needed to go through a given point.
I feel like the best use for a bipedal combat robot is unironically just as shock troops, which honestly considering how deep the forestry-war interface is the same technology would get used to replace handfallers for most situations since just like the military, most of new logging technologies point is make it safer.
They could also mind wipe death row inmates and use their brains as the computer for a bipedal combat robot thats basically just a bigger person, less need for fancy walking software and such. Robot could deal with recoil easier and carry more ammo while not being affected by the environment as much. Just a bunch of terminators with M240s being fired from the hip. I would not trust a robot driver unless for long distance where nothing is going on. Using AI for spotting, with a second commander optic on a telescoping periscope would be incredibly useful and I'm sure the technology for that is the most advanced.
The robot mules are eh since you could just use actual mules which have pros, mules donkeys and horses might notice stuff before you since they are prey animals, plus with some of the switch of the army to more "we need to practice living off the land and yada yada" a mule or a donkey or horse doesn't need lube and batteries, it needs fodder and some grooming. Plus they are quieter.
Make deployable defense systems. Point them at an area you want to defend and they would target everyone moving in that area. Like mines covering an area but it's an autonomus machinegun emplacement instead. Best at night if they also have thermals. Alternatively they can be controlled from the trench by a soldier (by wire). Practicly they can't be supressed.
I feel like the remote controller tanks could be viable. Yes, you need people to repair them.. But you probably wouldn't jump out in the middle of a fire fight to repair it. So let's say that you have 400 people on 100 tanks. Instead you have 100 people controlling them and 40 people in maintenance duty close enough to be there in a few minutes, but far enough away from the fight. So rather than having people train on being good at tanking and repairing, now you can train dedicated crews for each task, which is also a bonus.
I get that a tank crew might be far away from a good repair crew, but they'd at least have to know the basics to keep their tank running. Learning that takes time from learning battle.
From what you have said here, it seems that we should use robots to support fighting troops. Like robot supply trucks, and robot mechanics that can actually fix the tanks and trucks and robot supply trucks that are going to be on the battlefield.
Terrain on the frontline is tough to cross for trained humans. Ground robots are far from having mobility to cross that frontline.
Aside from assaults on infantry positions land robots are extensively used for logistics and demining. Land robots is the only thing that might bring the cost of demining farmland down to being economically feasible.
With regards to flying drones - drones that do fully autonomous kill missions are a thing for over a year and their numbers are on the rise.
Just subbed man. Great content I cant stop binging. You remind me of task and purpose
How about vr controlled humanoid mechs?
Great work buddy! And thank you for the link!
Conspiracy Theory Time - there are most definitely fully functional and highly developed fully-sentient AI robot armies, as We The Public tends to think of them, thanks to sci-fi media (mini-tanks, robo-dogs, humanoid droids), but it's just that they are not being produced or used in view or in region of the public / in or at known places on the earth. (or even on the earth at all ?)
(also, being similar to robots, this also means that sci-fi style highly developed Power Armors and Mecha of all sorts are also being used - again, just, not where The Public can find out about it.)
I'm really enjoying your post Army content. Informative and funny. Keep up the great work!
Recon and logistics I definitely see robots in higher quantities including other support and assistant roles being the future.
Robots are at war right now, just not in the shape we expected. They are called FPV drones.
Personally I'm especially worried about the potential of autonomous tankettes - y'know something like the german Wiesel, but completely machine-driven. Small enough to maneuver effectively in urban environments and with a 20mm autocannon they can be powerful enough to be devastating to pretty much anything that isn't a tank.
Also, don't have a source on hand, but I read reports of a turkish Kargu 2 drone actually doing the first fully autonomous kill in 2019 already, tho back then the available information was somewhat ambiguous.
You probably mention this in the video, but a combat drone you need to have a fairly high level of autonomy, but most people don't want drones to be able to have the ability to give the final say on whether someone dies or not. To be fair you can have a fairly high level of autonomy without that ability, but it's being able to execute that autonomy efficently while not smashing into teas or running over babies on the ground and thanks just for tracked / wheeled vehicles, for a robot that can use weapons like a human that will be expensive which kinda defeats the propose of drone of reducing risk if each drone costs 300k or so you can train a new recruit for that much, for planes like you spend millions and many years training them so attack, fighter or bomber also flying is a lot less complected for a computer to figure out so flying drones makes a bunch of sense.
Long story short we're trying to create supreme commander
I don't know maybe I am defective myself , but all the while I was watching this vid , I kept thinking of EDI from Mass Effect .
If you replace the drivers of tanks with autonomous pilots (auto loaders are an easier way to cut down on personell if you ask me), you don't receive more tanks. You still have to scale matinence, produce more tanks, and implement the matenince personell who can fix the autonomous pilot. Tldr, basically, you're not getting more tanks, just more matenince personell and less combat arms.
Drones are robots, and they are very firmly here.
Long before the 80’s Westmoreland wanted an automated battlefield in Vietnam
“I see more and more things co-opted for military use”
me and my auxetic metamaterial biomedical engineering research 😅 (it’s being tested for exosuits when I’m more looking at implants to save people lmao)
I love that this channel is basically Internet Shaquille for guns lol it's so good!
I really like the German mountain infantry mule system, which is just an actual mule, and probably didn't cost 32 million
8:48 "UTILTIY"
MINOR SPELLING MISTAKE
MINOR SPELLING MISTAKE
We already have plenty of automated kill weapons. Even the smart weapon definition is present with blind fire missiles that have the ability to find themselves a target if they have to.
All these robots named "mule" makes you wonder , why not just use a mule?
Hello, OPFOR perspective, just thoughts.
Well, we do use some warfare. Let's get our definition - two, actually: first is robot as autonomous machine built to perform specific tasks automatically. Second - walking or flying or rolling thing from battletech but with AI inside instead of crazed maniac.
Firstly, wanna mention infamous Moscow bot farms, you know the thing. They are autonomous, I don't know shit about them, you guys probably have one too. China definitely does. Dead internet theory and all that jazz.
Second, assisting algorithms. The amount of electronics and computer brain power that each of your vehicles gets are insane, if someone drop EW bomb in american military base half of your shit won't work(Modern Russian stuff also won't but our stuff is mostly not modern). So, if you stretch your definition, they are also robots;)
Anyway, on the future - I don't think we will see rise in popularity of autonomous machinegun wielding tracked drones or god forbid, humanoid shaped ones. Shit's too unreliable and also - as you say, why sent expensive technology when you can send a college dropout with an AK and a dream. We'll start using robots only if it'd be cheaper than training soldiers, and cost the state more than their potential lives, and that's not gonna happen soon. But we'll probably integrate them more - as before, information gathering with drones and rpg-slapped "controlled" projectiles, like Ukraine, fire control missions automatization and precise shells for artillery, flight assistance and programmable bombs for air force, advanced targeting and observation for tanks and other ground vechiles. Also, I think we'll get some cheap analogue to COWS but for vechiles to counteract drones, like an active protection, but with Saiga 12 slapped on top instead of multibillion dollar rotary gun.
Infantry, as usual, wont get anything new. Best we can hope for will be some goofy ahh AI assisted binoculars and Tesla intellect in trucks that still won't prevent your privates to somehow flip 70-ton machine in 3-inch ditch. Or exosceletons, but they are faaar from perfect until we get cheap artificial muscle technology and learn to read neural system signals without connecting copper wires to legs.
Also, overall, I'm interested, what's your guys perspective on BIG STOMPY ROBOTS? I know they are impractical, but discussion on them is almost non-existent thanks to tank guys("muh le lecrec(insert any tank) is 900000% more viable and can do all the same things!!!!), and I wanna hear what people think.
the automatons heartless killing machines
Honestly, Militarize Robots should be moderated as a military asset, so that Mechanized Armies should be prevented from being hack or digitally compromised with a less detrimental way.
The simplest answer for why we don't have robot soldiers is that people are still cheaper to train, equip and replace, exactly as you said...
I mean when I was about 14 I was in America working backstage at a gunstore and I overhead someone talking about a RC tank they were making. A small 4ft by 2ft by 1ft tracked electric vehicle that they planned to put a turret on and I was working on an M60e3 and had the lighbulb idea of hmmmm. Why not mount the lmg, to the tank? So we did, took about 2 hours to build a vice to hold the weapon and get the servos to actuate the pistons holding the vice so it would move up and down and a motor so it can rotate and a large metal box holding 250 rounds of 308. But we did it and it was hilarious to drive it around and fire it off, although not very accurate or stable and if it jammed you'd have to either drive it back or go out and charge the lmg which was awkward now there's a vice in the way.
But it did manage to do a 100 round dump with I'd say 60 65% accuracy at 35m about 40 yards so not too bad but? A human operator can do a better job a much better job. The trigger was actived via a solenoid an electrical switch a magnet that when energised pulled the bar around the trigger.
Your thoughts on other countries less inhibited by ethical backlash on using bots making kill choices?
And won’t that make it more viable for America to follow suit?
i think what's really keeping automation from completing a circuit between the dirty work and the ruling class is the way it would directly implicate those in power.
nobody thinks about having a sitting president tried of a capital crime when a bomb lands on the wrong building right now; nobody thought on hearing news of a baby crib recall associated with a few deaths or a contaminated packaged frozen food incident , surely someone at the top will face the music.
if the guy who declares war on another country presses a button and then a bunch of people die, all those deaths are demonstrably on his hands.
same story if the only human who made your pink slime had no one else to blame if you got sick.
not just new computer driven automation but all the layers of most past societies are just a way for the rich and powerful to diffuse negative consequences away from themselves without relinquishing any of the benefits of control
as a soldier, F ethics, I wanna live. replace me with a robot asap!!
"Should we let AI to take "kill-no-kill" decisions?" is a question of cost efficiency, EW-risks and power, not the ethics. Military hates the risks, yes, but they also willing to take some, if the tradeoff seems good enough. Poor kids are, arguably, riskier than non-sentient AI, because they, well, sentient. They have same-ish, if not bigger, risk of shooting civilians by accident, they have risk to do this for the sake of plunder or out of bigotry, they barely less fucked when enemy EW cuts their comms, they can get drunk, they can go AWOL or disobey the order because they changed their mind and do not want to serve anymore (or didn't wanted to serve in the first place, hello conscription-based armies), they can bully each other into mass shooting and so on. Non-sentient AI robot do not have this risks (except civilian kills out of misinterpretation), but they are much more expensive. The moment they will get cheap and EW-resistant enough - whoosh the soldier bois, hello T-800's, because T-800's do not ask questions, they project the power of those, who have the remote.
The other side is the command. IRC, right now US have drone operators with 1:1 ratio to drones. But what if we'll make AI supercomputer, that can control 20 drones at the same time? 200 is the moment we kiss human drone operators goodbye. Same can be applied to the T-800's, which have a drawback of "Central Core is nuked, army is dysfunctional", but it's when you fight ICBM-capable major power(s), not some ISIS blackbeards.
Ofc, this is when we ignore the fact of civil resistance to the government getting too strong for the people to control. Yes, it is faulty, tend to get misleaded, not owerwhelmingly strong and not as coordinated, as we all wish it was, but it does exist even in North Korea. Perhaps it is the force, that will make at least some armies to go the route of Smart Proxies: drones that have some basic brains for walking and shooting, controlled by humans with Brain-Computer Interface implanted. We can even integrate non-sentient AI into this network, as a co-pilot for intel processing, target identification and/or logistic planning (military Cybersyn, lol). Arguably, it is a more expensive army then T-800's with or without Central Core, but it maybe more reliable in terms of civil control and not shooting civilians because of integer overflow.
And get shown commercials during combat.