I’m pretty sure I could sit on top of that ridge and take out that flimsy robot with a rocket launcher. Million dollar robot taken out by a $50 grenade. No wonder we can’t win these insurgent battles.
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Yeah, saying they want to “acquire, identify, and engage targets at least 3X faster than the current manual process” sure sounds like an autonomous system. Which means they aren’t (meaningfully) keeping humans “in the loop” of decision-making.
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These have already existed for decades. If you want mobility, just give 'em wheels/tracks, although that’s somewhat superfluous, considering this mine’s capabilities.
They are exactly as deadly as they sound. The only thing preventing wider adoption is simple cost, vs. “dumb” mines.
Hell, it wouldn’t take much to make an autonomous swarm of highly mobile mines, and it would be far cheaper. And yes, the military is heavily researching the exact, relevant fields this would need to happen (robotics, drones, swarming behavior, threat identification and shared info processing in swarms, etc.). This isn’t a future danger, folks; the products are mid-pipe right now.
Minor trivia: The robotank in the pic has a blank adapter attached to the barrel; otherwise, the gun won’t cycle in tests with blank ammo. It’s a much plainer gun than it looks, at 1st glance; I’d recognize an M2 Browning .50 cal. anywhere ^^'.
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Human monitor: “Well, it looks a bit suspicious. It certainly bears…”
Robot: BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG
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So it has a machine gun.
Does it also have Lotus Notes?
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Yay. It creeps closer, daily.
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We’re not talking positronic brains here.
Does it also have Lotus Notes?
Its the finest available.
When the computer was activated, it immediately started aiming the guns at the review stands
Maybe they forgot to switch off its ethical target acquisition algorithm?
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Thanks for not using that FU quote. 
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Prisoner’s Dilemma futures markets are bullish on “betray” this week
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Robot only costs a million dollars if you factor in R&D. Making one more robot is unlikely to cost more than a car. If you are cheaper than a car, the job’s yours buddy. Meanwhile another robot you haven’t seen is coming at you from the other side. Clever girl!
I am not in favour of this sort of thing. But it offends my sensibilities as an engineer to botch the job because of a misguided respect for the ‘human touch’.
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Those standards, in short form: whatever happens, get the propaganda right.
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I thought it was PKD.
I thought it was Harlan Ellison.
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R 2 Kill U
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Pentagon Advantage 1: If this AI killbot kills innocent non-combatants, it can’t, to incident investigators, say “actually, I was ordered to do it.”
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Met a very nice guy due to a delayed flight. Ended up sharing a 7 hour taxi ride (was going white water rafting). The driver was a former Iranian paratrooper officer. He told some of his war stories such as being under gas attacks from Iraqis, tank battles in towns (humans strapped with explosives are effective antitank weapons), and having to traverse minefields.
The minefield story is the one I remember most (and relevant to your minefield clearing comment). They were trying to get away from the Iraqis, but stuck up against a minefield. So one at a time, his troops would volunteer to lay down and roll until they cleared a mine. Next. Next. His sergeant cleared two! They got away.
His last words to me as he dropped me off: “Be careful. That [whitewater rafting] is dangerous!”
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I totally thought that when I saw the headline. If one prefers a video format to describe the m247:
I generally prefer text and find myself in the odd position of having the video resource at hand. (Internet predictive model of my behaviour is working. The video was recommended to me this morning)
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I mean, best case scenario, for a human to actually be “in the loop,” the robot points a gun at something and a remote operator has a fraction of a second to decide if it should shoot or not. But I suspect they’re just re-defining what “in the loop” means to, well, your scenario.
An infantryman costs something in the area of $100K to recruit, train, equip and deploy, and they can be taken out with a 20 cent bullet… at which point recovering and providing medical care (or death benefits) for that soldier will cost even more. Even a million dollars doesn’t look so bad in comparison, especially when you don’t have the bad PR of a coffin or limbless soldier being shipped back home.
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Does “operator” still have pulse, shoot target. We have a human in the loop…
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