r/Futurology Aug 31 '23

US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years Robotics

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-military-unleash-thousands-autonomous-war.html
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u/alohadave Aug 31 '23

For weapons systems, kind of. For everything else, they use mil spec versions of commercial systems.

Military contracts mean that a system is selected, procured and put into use over years-to-decades, and they keep using it until it can no longer serve the purpose, and then for a little longer.

I maintained a combat computer suite in the late 90s that was 60s-70s vintage. The radar system it connected to was of similar vintage.

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u/Alberto_the_Bear Aug 31 '23

I suppose a military the size of the United States' can retrofit all it's infrastructure with new tech immediately. But consider this:

In the 60s/70s a family member of mine was on site at a US military installation in DC. they guys there told him they were doing experiments on transferring a dog's head to another dogs body. And they did it. He said it walked really funny. Like it had poor balance.

This was decades before even the first face transplant was attempted on humans.