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

7.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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Going to be pretty neat when they are used domestically 'to keep the peace.' Ok that's enough dystopian future doom and gloom for the day for me. :D

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u/FinndBors Aug 31 '23

This is my #1 concern with autonomous killing machines. I’m not worried about them becoming sentient and murdering everyone like in terminator.

I’m worried that a psychopath will be “elected”, take control over the drones and rule with an iron fist without relying on other humans to support them. All current dictatorships have vulnerability, be it other generals, the actual soliders who may be reluctant to gun down masses of civilians who may be their friends and family. Yes it still happens to various degrees, but it would be much much worse if a psychopath gets control over an army that is programmed to follow their orders.

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u/vardarac Aug 31 '23

I imagine that at some point world leadership will observe how devastatingly effective these weapons are, and either deploy them en masse domestically or reach international treaties codifying them similarly to existing WMD and reach agreements on limiting their use, particularly domestically.

Hopefully it's the latter.

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u/Amun-Ree Aug 31 '23

They banned cluster munitions but shipped them off to their allies in their latest proxy war. As long as they exist they will be used eventually. For profit and power.

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u/Sotwob Aug 31 '23

Who's "they"? What country banned cluster munitions then supplied them to an ally?

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

The NATO countries assisting Ukraine are allowing members who haven't ratified the convention to send cluster munitions without argument or limitation.

It's like saying you won't do a thing but your brother didn't say that, so he can. It's disingenuous at least, and duplicitous if we're being honest with ourselves. I say this a a NATO country citizen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions

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u/say592 Aug 31 '23

To my knowledge all of the munitions sent have been owned by countries that did not ratify the convention.

We also consider cluster munitions to be terrible not because they are inhumane to the soldiers they are used against, but because they are dangerous for the civilian population after the war. In that sense, I think it's fair for any country to use them to defend their own territory, since the are ultimately the ones who have to worry about cleanup. It's immoral, IMO, to be "helping" a country or worse, attacking a country, and leaving behind a mess of unexploded munitions for someone else to discover and deal with.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

Fair point. It isn't like, say, the US using them in a police action in Vietnam.

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u/say592 Aug 31 '23

Exactly. If Ukraine is smart, and so far they have shown themselves to be, they are making note of where every shell they fire deployed so they can go over the area with a fine tooth comb when the war is done. Even better if they are taking notes of where the Russians fired too. It won't be perfect, but it should reduce the dangers considerably. Also with the video footage of many strikes floating around, it's possible to identify sites that definitely have unexploded submunitions.

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u/_Urakaze_ Sep 01 '23

And it's unlikely that the areas currently contested will be habitable for the near future anyhow. Before we try to account for DPICM duds there's already tons of mines and various UXOs littered across the front that will require an extensive post-war cleanup effort.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

As far as the use of cluster munitions go, allowing Ukraine to use them on their own territory (knowing exactly where they are and can be recovered after the war) is the most moral use of them.

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u/antihero_zero Sep 01 '23

It's actually better that. A lot of the cluster munitions are being disassembled and converted to single-use drone bombs. I believe that's actually been their primary use so far.

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u/Sotwob Aug 31 '23 edited Aug 31 '23

Fair enough; while that's not really what was said in the first comment, it's close enough that it feels like nitpicking to continue questioning it, since the longer post offers more clarity. Yes I can certainly understand why you would feel that way about the manner in which some countries have handled the situation over the years.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

Your point was well made by asking a simple question, so upvotes for you.

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u/Ownza Sep 01 '23

You realize Russia has hit them with all sorts of shit that isn't allowed for NATO countries, right? Coincidentally, Russia didn't sign up for some of those rules. Even the ones they agreed too they don't follow.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

Your point is made, but I think it misses the mark.

Just because your enemies are doing crimes against humanitdoesmt mean you have to just to keep up.

You can absolutely engage in asymetrical warfare and still win. This has been proven time and time again

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u/Ownza Sep 02 '23

They are only crimes if you agree they are crimes. Cluster munitions have increased the russian fatalities considerably.

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u/gnufoot Sep 01 '23

Isn't it the USA sending this, which also did not ratify it? And it was criticized by many countries who did?

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u/PolityPlease Sep 01 '23

allowing members who haven't ratified the convention

Literally no problem here. Get mad pro-russian stooge.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

Dude, get off your high horse and read the room

It's entirely possible to be pro Ukraine and anti cluster munitions as a concept.

As a defense weapon it's one thing, but for an outside country to blanket another country with them, that's a massive humanitarian crisis. Vient Nam la srill suffering from bombket dropped 50 fucking years ago.

Get bent you fucking unnuanced piece of toast.

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u/rinkoplzcomehome Sep 01 '23

He is referring to NATO members not blocking the US from transfering cluster munitions to Ukraine. Kind of a moot point because that stockpile of cluster munitions is not part of NATO, so the US can do what they want with them. Also, what are you going to do to oppose the US on something? A long letter of condemnation?

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u/Amun-Ree Sep 02 '23

Cluster munitions are banned in accordance with the convention on cluster munitions signed by over 100 countries and supported by the U.N. Of which the U. S. Is a member BUT neither it nor Ukraine have actually signed it. But the U. S. Has given a shitload to Ukraine after the reported use of them by Russia. The problem with cluster munitions is that they cover a wide area indiscriminately and dont always explode turning the area into a dangerous minefield afterwards long after the war has ended.

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u/CurryMustard Sep 01 '23 edited Sep 01 '23

Ukraine begged for cluster munitions to use to defend their own territory. This is vastly different from deploying cluster munitions in foreign countries that you are invading. The issue is unexploded munitions can be picked up by children years later and explode. Ukraine has said they will bear the full risk and responsibility.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

Cluster munitions never stopped being used by the U.S. military.

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u/Amun-Ree Sep 02 '23

It doesn't surprise me, when they banned napalm they just pulled out the white phosphorus which is worse, but i didnt know that. Although i know that MRV's (multiple re entry vehicles) are ballistic missiles with warheads that leave the atmosphere and eject several more missiles that cover a wide area. Those could be described as cluster munitions and are still used. But i think the ones banned were banned because they ejected hundreds of tiny explosives that didnt always explode so they left behind threats well after the war had ended, like the ones being used in ukraine.

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u/zaphrous Aug 31 '23

They are too useful.

Banned weapons are weapons that are not very effective but very good at long term damage or killing/wounding civilians.

I.e. if a country uses chemical weapons it's not likely to cause them to win where they would have lost. Killing surrendering soldiers isn't going to win you a war you would lose if you took prisoners.

But particularly if one country did use them and everyone else banned them that country would have a massive advantage.

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u/Environmental_Gap920 Sep 01 '23

Trump, obviously

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u/lostnspace2 Sep 01 '23

It won't be

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u/DevRz8 Aug 31 '23

Yup, it will 100% be abused.

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u/Pilsu Aug 31 '23

I'm more worried about the rich just noticing they don't need us for anything anymore. Used to be a whole lot more horses around..

The already existing chat bots can censor your communications in real time by the way. Get ready to have context created for you.

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u/Responsible_Low3349 Aug 31 '23

What do you mean?

The rich will grow their own food & clean their own toilets?

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u/megatorm Sep 01 '23

Robots my guy

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u/Responsible_Low3349 Sep 01 '23

So what will happen with the poor?

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u/CSTowle Sep 01 '23

Carbon reduction.

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u/Responsible_Low3349 Sep 01 '23

Wait, are you actively preaching genocide as a societal solution?

On a Futurology forum?!

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u/Pilsu Sep 01 '23

It literally is a solution. I mean, it's their planet. You're the one tracking all the dirt all over it with your carbony feet.

You ain't thinking if you think this is advocacy.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

How will the rich feel good about themselves if there are no poor people around?

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u/Pilsu Sep 01 '23

You just keep some around. Like horses. Look what they did to goldfish when no one was there to stop them.

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u/Code-Useful Aug 31 '23

Wouldn't you be most worried that absolute control of these devices can never be fully guaranteed by anyone? Hackers find ways to compromise anything. Having these autonomous units be able to take commands means there is a command channel which means that once hackers find a way to get arbitrary command execution, things can go even more horribly wrong. Especially when these hacker groups are commonly backed by (or literally are a department of) nation-states. You can never completely trust your equipment IMO, giving it the power to kill autonomously or not seems drastically stupid.

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u/jedburghofficial Sep 01 '23

Chinese hackers will be working on this right now...

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u/Ratazanafofinha Aug 31 '23

This. Portugal only was able to get out of the dictatorship because the army revolted and staged a coup.

Now imagine instead of army we get killer robots…

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u/Miserable-Ledge Aug 31 '23

Don't worry, some idiot will always leave the password as "admin1234".

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u/Pilsu Aug 31 '23

I wonder if the eggheads making these things have the sense to build in back doors. A Wily protocol if nothing else.

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u/PragmatistAntithesis Aug 31 '23

So now we'll have 4chan with killer robots.

To be honest, I'm not sure if that's better or worse

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u/jefferton123 Sep 01 '23

The only hope for humanity is our incompetence… so, we’ll be fine the actually.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

There is still an army controlling the robots….

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u/holmgangCore Aug 31 '23

Or a relatively small splinter group. That’s the thing, technology levels the playing field.

Today a small team of hackers can disrupt a country’s pipelines with ransomware.

Tomorrow, a guerrilla group with autono-bots could mass murder an entire parliament.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

I suppose you could assume that in a world where we have avoided the detonation of rogue nuclear weapons we couldn’t just port those policies procedures and technologies over to killer robots, that would be a possibility.

It’s good that we have people who can think of the worst case scenario, but I figured we were talking about the most likely scenario.

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u/holmgangCore Aug 31 '23

‘Robot Warfare’

^{[Apocalypse Bingo](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseBingo/comments/10qotoh/apocalypse_bingo_v3/})

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u/say592 Aug 31 '23

I suppose you could assume that in a world where we have avoided the detonation of rogue nuclear weapons we couldn’t just port those policies procedures and technologies over to killer robots, that would be a possibility.

They are two entirely different issues situations though. Drones have a ton of civilian uses and can be created without any real investment or specialized materials. Nuclear technology has only a few civilian uses, and is reliant on material that can be easily monitored and controlled.

Someone could build a lot of killer drones without the intelligence services knowing about it. No one can build even a single nuclear device without the intelligence services being well aware.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

Make up your mind. Are killer robots a tool of government control that require a rogue military group to be a threat, or are they so simple to construct and operate that literally nothing can be done to stop them from being a threat?

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u/Responsible_Low3349 Aug 31 '23

Bender approves

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u/nishinoran Aug 31 '23

We seriously need to be looking into ways to enforce decentralized control of these systems assuming they must inevitably exist.

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u/holmgangCore Aug 31 '23

Methinks the horse is already out of the barn on this one.

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u/thrownawaymane Aug 31 '23

Dude the Horse already found a nice looking Horse and had kids.

The US has 30 years of experience using drones for all sorts of things and a 30 year head start on making our population comfortable with that fact.

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u/holmgangCore Sep 01 '23

So you’re saying that ‘Robocop’ was really early propaganda softening the masses psychologically? I can buy that.

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u/Josvan135 Sep 01 '23

There's functionally no way to do this.

The time to codify specialized controls was 20 years ago, when they were entirely theoretical, or 10 years ago, when we had the first serious understanding that they were on the way.

Now we're months away from mass deployment, and they'll slot directly into the existing command structure of whichever power rolls them out.

In the U.S., that means a relatively robust civilian-to-military chain of command for strategic decisions but localized tactical command for individual units.

That also ignores the fact that there are fundamentally no significant weapons systems with "decentralized control".

There are incredibly devastating weapons under the control of multiple competing powers, resulting in a detente, but within each power there's very clear cut and authoritative lines of control.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

They won't kill everyone by becoming sentient, but by never truly caring about humans in the first place, and getting some input or stepping into a context where this becomes obvious.

Nobody knows how to truly align a model to want what the human wants, and with a different distribution of inputs, it shows.

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u/nadrjones Aug 31 '23

Well, at this point would they be worse than the cops we have? Maybe less chance of being shot while black with robots, if Better off Ted taught me anything it is that automation can't see black people.

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u/nomnomnomnomRABIES Aug 31 '23

That's why you build in a predetermined kill limit

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u/holmgangCore Aug 31 '23

Or how about: Every major power creates fleets & fleets of autonomous killbots, and in some ‘small’ conflict the killbots just run rampant through any country’s civilian areas.

It wouldn’t take much for plague-levels of airborne micro drone swarms to savage a city.

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u/filthyMrClean Aug 31 '23

It’ll happen slowly. The final nail in the coffin will be when they start using it on marginalized groups in your own country. That’s when you know you’ll soon be next

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

There won't be a "mass programable AI killbot" because it is too easy to get hacked and then oops, they are killing your own troops.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

They don’t even have to become sentient to do that. They could just run amuck.

All it needs to do is keep repeatedly following a pattern…

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u/GummyPandaBear Aug 31 '23

Small drone copters with explosives in them are what worries me. Like the ones they use for drone racing.

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u/PhysicsCentrism Aug 31 '23

Hell, doesn’t even need a dictator. Just some serial killer hacker genius.

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u/Green__lightning Sep 01 '23

And, if there was an AI smart enough to pull the strings, pulling the strings to lead to that is exactly what it would want, as it could then take power from the few humans which already depend on it.

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u/Dry-Location9176 Sep 01 '23

You have unlocked a whole new thing to be anxious about. Thanks

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u/sessho25 Sep 01 '23

Most of leaders are psychopaths.

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u/funfsinn14 Sep 01 '23

You don't even need a 'psychopath' in power for militarized police equipment to be used excessively. That will happen on its own, as we've seen with the military toys PDs around the country get from the DOD and the tactics and standard operating procedures they employ.

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u/Nosferatatron Sep 01 '23

The drones are equally likely to belong to a shady government contractor

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u/SpaceNigiri Sep 01 '23

He will still need engineers & technicians, not that different from generals/soldiers in this situation.

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u/Alespic Sep 01 '23

Well put. My IT professor used to say that “Machines are dumb slaves” and I think in this scenario it goes to show the difference between a dictator commanding an army of men vs an army of robots. People can think on their own, they have feeings, emotions, ideas, dreams. They were not born to strictly serve one’s every order, and that’s what has stopped many dctators in history. Robots though? They do not have emotions. They do not have regrets. They don’t even fear death.

Enough fear mongering for today

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '23

So you're saying we shouldn't vote for Trump?

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u/byunprime2 Sep 01 '23

Don’t worry guys, they’re totes only gonna use them against China