Russia has a new robot soldier and it's a little troubling | Hacker News Reader

Russia has a new robot soldier and it's a little troubling

businessinsider.com

23 pointsespeed34 comments

Sigh, nobody has a credible power source for a humanoid type robot, we don't even a decent source for a 'dog' robot that can save power by just standing there. You can deploy a gun on a rolling platform, but if you armor it so that it is resistance to small arms fire it gets to heavy to move and can't navigate rubble that you find in every war zone.

Basically, aerial drones are it for now. Maybe some "flying grenades" in the near future but probably just spotters for finding sniper perches etc.

And nobody is letting these things loose yet as fratricide is waaaay too likely.

Someday killer robots will be a thing, but thankfully that day isn't today. I'd be more impressed if the Russians decided to field a sentry gun. They are a reasonable force multiplier.

By no means am I an expert on military hardware, and I don't seek out info on the subject. However I did encounter this bit of news which I think approximates the idea of "killer robots".

At least I found the video at this link to be impressive enough: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/midea...

That is the weaponized version of the iRobot Packbot class robot (although the Packbot has more field time). I couldn't find anyone who had deployed the Gogo, and it does not have an autonomous target/fire capable system, it is, like an aerial drone, a "point and shoot" interface.

Something like this: http://www.paradigmsrp.com/talon-universal-weapons-mount/int... mounted to a mobile robot with openCV type software to automatically acquire and eliminate targets, that is the scary thing and we're still pretty far away from that.

Thanks for the additional info. I see your point about the robot operating autonomously. At the rate things are developing, what is "pretty far away" may not be more than a few years down the road. I guess we'll find out.

Well yes and no, people have built sentry guns with paint ball weapons[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTs7VRFV36c

>>Someday killer robots will be a thing, but thankfully that day isn't today.

Why do you say "thankfully"? Isn't it better to have robot armies face each other than human armies? Wars will probably continue to happen no matter what.

I'll approach this from a different angle: it is more terrifying, because robots don't say "no."

Since Nuremberg, the individual decision to refuse to carry out orders contrary to national or international law has been a vital bulwark against atrocities of all types, including nuclear war.

Stanislov Petrov saved the world by refusing to follow procedure, because he (correctly) believed the data to be in error.

Tiananmen Square didn't repeat itself in Tahrir only because the commander of the theatre operations refused a direct order from President Mubarak to use tanks to retake the square.

After the refusal, the order was relayed directly to the tanks within and among the square. Officers were calling their fathers, brothers, mentors, even one who called his former teacher, an American NDU Professor, all asking what they should do. Eventually, the armed forces defected, and Mubarak fell.

Robotic soldiers (AGVs) have no such fail safe. They have no conscience, no larger sense of purpose, no allegiance to King and country. They can be configured to kill whatever they are told, without even a moment's hesitation.

Having soldiers that can coldly eradicate populations serves as the perfect tool of the autocrat, and is the perfect foil of the volunteer warrior from a democracy.

One risks nothing, benefitting himself, the other risks everything, benefitting others.

That said, robots are merely tools: physical extensions made by humans, tied to mathematical algorithms written by humans, executed on silicon designed by humans. They can have whatever value system we choose to imbue.

The ruse that we shouldn't accommodate is any attempt on the part of the operators to shift the blame for their actions onto the system.

A drone doesn't kill 16 people at a wedding any more than an AKS-74 killed a dozen Ukrainian citizens in Crimea. People control these actions.

It's like we spend all of our time obsessing about the puppets, and never question who's holding the strings.

"Will robot soldiers be good or bad?" isn't the question. The question is, "Are the soldiers controlling the robot good or bad?"

One school of thought has that World War II was much bigger and deadlier because a single human could kill more opposing humans than ever before. On the one hand we sort of took that to infinity with atomics but barring that, in wars like the ones in Syria, it would much bloodier for the side that did not have killer robots. And what is worse, it might be more easily engaged in at a distance.

One huge issue foreign policy people have with drone strikes is how "uneven" they are. War is a horrible thing and when it can be prosecuted with less risk, it seems more likely. And while robot armies fighting each other might seem like a "good" thing, the people dying most often in Syria and Iraq are not soldiers on either side, they are just trying to live out their days.

Arming mechanical devices to kill people is never a good thing.

It would be great if war gets to some point where human lives aren't threatened, but for the forseeable future, robot soldiers are going to be killing humans. Forces who can afford them aren't going to be squaring off anytime soon-- it's going to be military Goliaths like Assad vs. rebels. Like other bombs and advanced weaponry.

yet, as someone mentioned to me many years ago, robots aren't (probably) going to torture and rape.

E.g. in ww2-with-robots people would have been killed but the nanking massacre would not have happened.

You're saying a force with robot soldiers would have robot soldiers alone, with no human soldiers who would follow up, come in, and commit war crimes?

no, I am saying that if we replace some human soldiers with some robots, it's likely that the amount of war crimes goes down. E.g. the number of raped women in Nanking was 20000 per some accounts. If half the army had been robots, there might have been 10000 less rapes.

If you consider that battle frenzy is likely to de-humanize soldiers much more than "setup camp and hold ground" operations, it seems likely that the number of war crimes goes down even more, once you remove humans from active battle.

Of course, I cannot exclude rampaging robots taking revenge on puny humans, but that seems unlikely.

War crimes, for the most part, aren't some battle-frenzy or blood-lust, they are either a deliberate tactic or lack of discipline. Nanking wasn't soldiers gone crazy from war, it was deliberate punishment and demoralization of the Chinese. Also see more recent conflicts in Africa. As far as lack of discipline, see the US Vietnam war.

It just seems to me that we already have "robot" soldiers -- tanks, plans, bombs, artillery. When the purpose is to terrorize and demoralize an enemy's population, they're not going to have robots doing it.

Precisely, and for the governments with the robots, this will make the prospect of going to war even more attractive.

We already have that. Is called videogames. We can have a war between 2 or more parties using them.

Why not do this (or just use only robots). For the same reason when you read "videogames for real wars" and instantly see how stupid is it.

> Isn't it better to have robot armies face each other than human armies?

You should watch the documentary series "Terminator".

"The technology is still not as advanced as its American counterparts, said Singer" ... why isn't the fact that the U.S.A has even more lethal weapons troubling? (actually the real trouble is that attack weapons are starting to be much better than defense weapons, which is a good indicator for having a world war :( )

> why isn't the fact that the U.S.A has even more lethal weapons troubling?

Business Insider is an US publication. In their POV, they aren't threatened by the US armed forces. Armies of an antagonist state do represent a threat, particularly when these arms races are motivated by a specific demand to counter the capabilities of the US armed forces.

The military industrial complex is at it again, trying to scare up support for more funding by waving the russians around.

Meanwhile the koreans already have autonomous gun turrets in field testing and the Us operats something like half of all the carriers in the world.

People in power in today's Russia understand the only kind of arguments - force. Force of different kinds, but still - overwhelmingly force. This approach shouldn't be underestimated.

I have no idea why you were downvoted. Objective view of Russian foreign policy is that they gladly go for quick wins using any means at their disposal if the odds are in their favor. Having lots of credible force on the other side reduces these odds.

Because it's an idiotic simplification, like writing that "people in power in today's USA understand the only kind of arguments - money. Money of different kinds, but still - overwhelmingly money. This approach shouldn't be underestimated".

But it's not an idiotic simplification. Money, diplomatic relationships or international reputation are objectively irrelevant (if one wants predicatble outcomes) when dealing with the lords of Kremlin.

For example, observe the effects of economical sanctions on Russias de-facto war with Ukraine (none).

I'm not saying other large powers would be any better. The difference is, for example with US you can follow a little bit better as an outsider what is going on with their policies while Russias actions are far harder to predict.

Hah, funny considering the current system is mostly based on bribe, lots of bribes. Putin plays cynical power games, but he mostly does it more openly than others, compare it with republicans inviting bibi to he senate in a hope to get the iran deal spolied.

Except when RT (Russia Today) appears on reddit.

> "It's already pretty well acknowledged that if Russia wants to invade the Baltics, they can do it in 24 hours and NATO can't do much about it," Asaro said. "Them having some super sophisticated robot isn't going to change that."

Really? It takes that long for a rocket to fly to Russia? Don't Baltics have some groups of American soldiers, strategically placed right in the harm's way, and wouldn't Pentagon react on harm to them? Won't NATO honor its obligations to defend its members? Does it REALLY take 24 hours for UK arms to reach Russia as well?

Well no, if you want to start nuklear war over the baltics the ballistic missiles can get there in a few minutes. But air power is the only thing that can get there fast, and the russians have actual anti air systems... And anyway, an airforce can't stop a ground invasion, only an army can do that.

The us does have som forces in place, but not enought to matter against a determined invasion, and since russia attacking the baltics pretty much is open war with the us, any plausible scenario involves a determined invasion.

>Won't NATO honor its obligations

sure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

I've looked up russian sources and according to them the robot in question is managed by an operator using special "steering suite". The suite reads operator moves and transmits them to control the robot. AFAIK "Atlas" is a bit more advanced.

I always sigh when the link is to Business Insider. I don't follow the link as I know BI is the grocery store check out line fodder.

this came from nowhere. it is way better then our atlas. russian did it again like before they did unmanned satellite race.

indeed its better than atlas at standing in place wearing uniform, or waving a hand to the camera

Well, if we would just put ethics aside and go down the road of reproductive cloning, we could have a clone army. And by the logic of Star Wars - Clones > Droids.

If you're putting ethics aside, you attack with a droid army, use a third party to sell clones to the opposing army to fight the droids, have the clones prove themselves in battle to get placed in all the strategic locations, then have the clones turn on them.

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