U.s. Senate Armed Services Committee

Singer describes Iraq operations as they were being performed in 2008 with the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs. “The Explosive Ordnance Disposal, EOD, teams were tasked with defeating this threat, roving about the battlefield to find and defuse the IEDs before they could explode and kill.” 3 Robots such as Packbot and Talon were used to disarm IEDs which save lives of Soldiers and civilians. The proliferation of technology in the battlefield can be seen in today’s combat environment on the ground, sea and air and will continue to grow. He states that “man’s monopoly of warfare is being broken” because digital weapons such as Packbot, Talon, SWORDS, Predator, Global Hawk and many others are a “sign” that “we are entering the era of robots of war.” 4 He supports his theory of the proliferation of technology in weapons by looking at industry growth by providing quantifiable data of rapid growth in industry to meet demands. As he states “in 1999, there were nine companies with federal contracts in homeland security. By 2003, there were 3,512. In 2006, there were 33,890.” 5 Mr. Singer then provides a history of robots, trends, and what we can expect in the future. The book also provides a glimpse of what the author believes can be expected on future battlefields and changes that he thinks U.S. policy makers and military leaders need to address. Some of the changes that can be affected concern law of war, robots role in war, level of robot authority to fight wars and robot

The idea of artificial intelligence has been around for thousands of years. Ancient Greek myths talk about how machines were made to perform tasks for their creators. The most basic forms of artificial intelligence arose from people creating machinery to do tasks for them, such as using windmills to mill grain or retrieve water from the ground, deriving formulas of math to reach answers quicker, or to print books that would have to be hand written before. Just recently, artificial intelligence has started being implemented into the military. The expansion and development of artificial intelligence in the military is safe. It will ultimately remove humans from the battlefield and/or equip them with technologically advanced gear that will help prevent injuries during war that would otherwise be fatal. At this point in time it seems rather outlandish to have machines or supersoldiers (people aided by technology in war) to be sent off to war to fight for our safety. However, these forms of A.I. are not completely polished but, they are on the horizon and will help greatly reduce the toll that tragedies of war have on the United States. War would be exponentially safer for our country and soldiers if artificial intelligence is used properly.

Militaries around the world have been using technological weapons for hundreds of years and research indicates that in recent years, the usage of artificial intelligence in warfare has significantly increased with the advent of unmanned vehicles such as drones (Kanwar, 2011, p.616). Robotic science offers today’s world many unconventional weapons like autonomous weapons that can make lethal decisions without even involving human in the loop. Krishnan (2009) defines an autonomous weapon to be a computer-based system that can accomplish a mission by ascertaining and engaging targets without needing human intervention. These Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems are in short called LAWS and

Within Seth Baum and Trevor White’s article “When robots kill,” Baum and White discuss the potential consequences of artificial intelligence and automated robots following an incident where a factory worker at a Volkswagen plant in Germany was grabbed by a robot worker and crushed to death. The growing number of vital tasks being assigned to autonomous robots increases the chances for a catastrophic incident to occur as a result of a system malfunctioning or being hacked. In the Volkswagen case involving the worker who was grabbed by a robot and crushed to death, questions of liability are being raised relating to the malfunctioning of autonomous robots and machines. Baum and White mention that it is hard to assign blame when there are so

Conceding that in most situations, a lethal autonomous system can make a more ethical judgment than a human soldier, it would be inevitable that even the most sophisticated technology can make mistakes. A mistake in this case would usually result in the death of a civilian. Such mistakes leads to a key objection that the lethal autonomous system would be unable to shoulder any responsibility from its mistakes. While the inevitable killings of non-combatants are common in the modern insurgency warfare due to their close proximity, the proportionality of collateral damage is often accounted for under the JWT. However, the ultimate responsibility of the mistake falls upon the human soldier who pulls the trigger. Despite the advancement of technology,

In order to understand autonomous weapons, one must understand the basis of artificial intelligence (A.I.). At their very core, A.I.s are algorithms (a step by step procedure based off of mathematical data) that can handle tasks which human intelligence requires. This means they are able to do reasoning tasks like problem solving, prediction, diagnosis, and so forth. On the contrary, the A.I.s portrayed in films and fantasy novels often involves machines that demonstrate human-level intelligence. To put this into perspective, there is a scenario where an A.I. is assigned to drive a car from point A to point B with a separate car accident between the points. A realistic A.I. would still try to drive the car from point A to point B because its

The United States military is comprised of many sectors of workforce like the Marines, Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. Each position has a different area of expertise needed in order to be successful at the job the person will be doing. Multiple years of bootcamp and training are required in order to get on the battlefield and fight for the people of the United States of America. Once admitted, soldiers will begin to learn how to use different types of weaponry and tools in order to be dominant on the battlefield against the enemy. Technology is integrated in this stage of a soldier's learning. This is a vital learning stage for a soldier because military technology not only gives troops an edge over enemies, but also provides a tremendous

Imagine sitting in a self-driving car. Time to kick back and relax, take your eyes off the road and have a meaningful conversation with your passengers. There’s just one problem. The car in front of yours stopped abruptly. You were not paying attention, so you cannot react in time. The computer has a choice. To crash into the car, killing you, or to swerve and hit the motorcyclist beside you, killing him. What choice should the car make? As a human, you could probably avoid killing anyone by quickly analysing the situation and do some maneuver that would avoid anyone dying, but so far, no computer can do that with enough speed. This is why Self-driving cars should be avoided. They do not give you more of an advantage, the

Overall DARPA is an important company, with such creations as the internet and siri, and other advancements for the military to keep our soldiers safe . We may take these and many more technologies for granted, but the world wouldn’t be the same without

In regards to Autonomous vehicles, individual controllers contain very little information in regards to how the operation is successive or else how the vehicle is executing (Riza, 2014). Whereas autonomous vehicles could be employed to offer bomb damage appraisal more like similar manner as arms that are directed with electro-optical feelers, the latest status of technology does not allow the current age bracket of autonomous vehicles to offer this information. Another risk is that the drones might be vulnerable to ambiguities or else uncomplicated programming errors that create it to assault friendly forces as well as source collateral damage in places that enclose civilian noncombatants (Kirkpatrick, 2015). A wider disadvantage with merely autonomous vehicles is that computers cannot make decisions without the supervision of human beings.

Technology has become a huge part of the lives of people everywhere. The military is no different. While technology plays a vital role in most things the military has to offer, the main job of the government is to keep its soldiers safe, be efficient in their maneuvers, and use materials prudently. Military agencies around the world are striving to make their vehicles safer and more durable. In order to make military vehicles safer, militaries have developed new technologies that protect aircraft, ground vehicles, and naval vessels from incoming threats.

Political support is the primary and foremost key component in developing successful innovation. Furthermore, military innovation cannot deviate from the strategic guidance of the nation, without reconstructing the defense strategy and military vision. Nonetheless, this reconstruction can occur if the current innovation and military development is defined upon outdated technology. Therefore, peacetime innovation is an opportunity to combat deficiencies as well as capability gaps, in order to maintain the competitive edge against potential enemies or threats to a nation. Most importantly, the cost of the innovation, training, and implementation must be feasible through funding and allocation with approval by bureaucrats. Spending outside ones means in this factor will result in both incomplete and inadequate innovation. 1

Our government’s military has designed an artificial intelligence that was tasked with keeping humanity safe, and has

A majority of the developed military robotic technology is used to dwindle the risk of troops being injured or possibly facing death. These robots are used mostly to observe the enemy, defuse or detonate bombs such as IED’S (Improvised Explosive devices), and also hostage situations or high risk situations in general. Author and editor Kevin McCaney supports this claim in his recent article on military robot technology. McCaney discusses the purpose of the robot in the field of battle. “The Army could adapt some of the ground robots it uses to combat improvised explosive devices to retrieve the wounded” (McCanely) The argument against the development of militaristic robots oftenseems one sided, and in many instances refers to manned and unmanned drone strikes or surveillances that went wrong in either Europe or the Middle

From the development of the airplane and computer to advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles the U.S. military has had to adapt its tactics, techniques and procedures in order to leverage new technologies and keep pace with the developing world. Technological developments are constantly taking place but three in particular could drastically change how we train for and fight wars. They are neural-digital connections, portable lethal drones and Enhanced Night Vision Systems.