US Army trials augmented reality goggles for dogs | Hacker News Reader

US Army trials augmented reality goggles for dogs

bbc.com

61 pointstomalpha75 comments

> Ng Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 lives in a pleasant black-and-white Metaverse where porterhouse steaks grow on trees, dangling at head level from low branches, and blood-drenched Frisbees fly through the crisp, cool air for no reason at all, until you catch them.

/Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson/

Kudos sir or madam or nonbinary, you beat me to the punch. I saw the headline and Ng industries was the first thing I thought of, followed by remembering Boston Dynamics robotic dog Spot [1].

[1] https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot

Have you seen Spot in Singapore parks yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viuR7N6E2LA

Makes me want to work on miniaturizing HERF guns for commercial distribution.

Doggles are, like so many products, both clearly a good idea and not something I would have expected to ever exist even just five years ago.

I hope there are also civilian models — entertaining dogs doesn’t just need to be about throwing balls, and I can imagine AR hare chasing could be a lot of fun for some.

>and I can imagine AR hare chasing could be a lot of fun for some.

Yes, first he destroys your room, hurts himself by running into walls and after 10 minutes he throw up all over your place.

PleasePlease let a animal be an animal and make other games with it.

https://www.puppyleaks.com/games/

It needs you and not a TV/PC whatever (counts for any children too btw)

I was thinking outdoors use for the hare-chasing idea.

Ok i correct myself:

throw up all over your Park

BTW..if you teach him that, he will chasing other things too, but if you like wearing cat fur than it's a good idea.

Until the non-existent hair runs onto a road or in front of a moving wheelchair. Just throw a ball. For most digs, the fun isn't in the actual game but the joy of playing it with the human.

Entertainment for animals that doesn't require a person involved isn't a bad thing. I have to work, I can't possibly spend as much time keeping my pets occupied as they clearly and loudly would prefer. Having something that will keep them mentally stimulated while I am working doesn't seem like such a horrible solution.

On one hand I agree, but when you apply this logic to a child, it seems bad.

I upvoted you just for "doggles".

Its always interesting to see the demand for goggles for dogs. Dogs needing goggles for missions isnt modern and when you think about it this is a logical expansion. Did you know polaroid started as a company selling polarized sunglasses for dogs?

Eye protection for dogs is one of those product areas that could do with more marketing. I have never seen a dog wearing eye protection in the UK ever. Yet the reasons for eye protection make a lot of sense if you believe the marketing claims.

The market could be manipulated with advertising so that it is perceived to be grossly irresponsible to let your dog off the lead without eye protection. Random strangers could tut-tut as they see your dog bereft of eye protection. Think bicycle helmets all over again where everyone who doesn't ride thinks they know best and demand to be listened to as they have the moral high ground.

So if you are in this climate of mandatory dog eyewear then you might as well have AR dog goggles. You could text your dog when it is food time - not that he or she wouldn't know anyway. With geofencing you could have your dog's goggles flash up no entry signs when they get too close to the road. Of course the goggles could be cheaper than their Oculus Rift equivalents as dogs only 'need' mono.

I look forward to the world where all dogs are wearing cool shades.

> In current combat deployments, soldiers usually direct their animals with hand signals or laser pointers - both of which require the handler to be close by.

Handlers also use radios with earpieces for the dogs and cameras and microphones to provide feedback to the handlers. This AR system may enable the handlers to give more precise instructions to their dogs.

Yeah with this they can in theory lead the dog through a whole building where it'd be really hard with just a radio and camera. They'll have to train the dog for any new signals but they can just replicate the laser pointer plus voice commands they're using now in the AR headset.

A less cool sub-story here is the way brilliant animals like dogs are considered disposable on our behalf in the name of violence created by us.

The goggles are designed to let their handlers direct them, safely out of harm's way.

Even less cool sub-story is the way briliant people serving as soldiers are considered disposable on behalf of their government in the name of violence created by that government.

Good point - but soldiers at least have a choice in enlisting and have some idea of potential consequences.

Sometimes the other choice is unemployment without hope for education.

Not to mention pushy/disingenuous military recruitment tactics.

But I thought Uber and Lyft fixed that problem by allowing people to get predatory leases and then work for below minimum wage?

Sometimes soldiers don’t even have the choice to enlist. Conscription and drafts have not been rare historically.

Military recruitment intentionally targets poor and working class small towns where people don't have a lot of career choices.

And the trade off is often times more upward mobility in their life vs. stagnant wages and trouble.

The military isn't for everyone, but I know plenty of people that came from all walks of life that joined for a myriad of reasons. The military is first and foremost about providing economic means for those that need a step out of their circumstances. You can agree, or disagree. The reality is most people argue college is the answer. Not everyone can get into school, and most won't get scholarships, lest we even look at the issues with post college placement.

The military is an option, one that is good for many. It can provide, shelter, food, generous pay, healthcare, and set you up with fully paid college.

Most of these things are readily available to well off individuals, so it's less targeting poor people as it is giving them an option they otherwise don't have.

In USA - currently yes. In many countries there is still unvoluntary army draft.

"Some idea" of potential consequences - yeah, you can get killed. If I was sure that I could get killed for morally valid reasons (like defending my homeland, your moral validity may differ) and not to defend oil execs exploiting poorer coutries, I would have less objections. I'm rather convinced that we will have some big war soon and I'll try to help defend my country first with my skills and if that's not enough, then at least as cannon fodder. BTW, I'm not from USA, we had forced draft until several years ago.

... we have overdeveloped the material aspects of existence at the expense of the deeper emotional and spiritual aspects, and we are paying the price for that error.

- Mindfulness in Plain English

No one who enlists into the military with eyes wide open or who has even cursory access to the internet or films thinks they aren't making a choice that would potentially make them disposable to the military. It's true some people decide that's worth the risk to get college money or some "life skills" or for another myriad of reasons, but it is literally a contract they sign and must be of sound mind to do so.

If I decide to become an undersea welder, one of the most dangerous jobs, because the money is good, then I am accepting the risk of getting injured or killed, though I hope I would not have harm befall me. Either way I'm making the choice based on my circumstances.

A dog didn't sign up for or agree to any of this.

As a counterpoint to your underwater welder example - the underwater welding industry doesn't have recruiting offices around the country in low income areas or recruiters stationed in high schools, nor do they have an arrangement with movie studios where they can use their underwater welding equipment for free in their movies so long as the movies portray the underwater welding industry in a positive light.

It's disappointing that as a society we seem to be cool with (mostly poor) people with undeveloped prefrontal cortices having to make a choice between incurring significant high interest debt (which they were probably never given the tools to make informed decisions about in the first place) or risking their lives for something that's free or at least attainable in the rest of the developed world.

> people with undeveloped prefrontal cortices

Someone with an “undeveloped prefrontal cortex”, a vague and insulting description, would be a liability on a battlefield. Not every soldier needs to have a genius IQ, but they need to be competent for their role. The military is also not a college financing program and only an fool would treat it like one.

It's actually not vague and wasn't meant to be insulting - the prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing in healthy adult humans until around the age of 25 with females developing a little earlier. This area of the brain, particularly the lateral frontal pole, is responsible for long term planning and decisionmaking, it's also one of the latest developing parts of the brain that's involved in decisionmaking.

What I'm getting at is that it's ridiculous to try to argue that a 17-18 year old's abilities to plan and make decisions around the future are on par with the abilities of a 25+ year old. The average age of enlistment is 20-21 with a lower bounds of 17.

I'm not arguing that the military doesn't provide _lots_ of opportunities to people or that people only enlist for the benefits (the best I could find was a RAND Corp survey predicting likelihood of choosing enlisting of working or going to college), I'm arguing that it's shameful that we aren't able to provide similar opportunities without putting young people, who are at a disadvantage when calculating the risk involved, in shitty situations.

I'm glad you clarified this. Your original statement reads a bit like the undeveloped cortex is due to people being poor and stupid rather than because of being young.

One of my starry-eyed dreams if I ever get a sufficient pile of money and power is to start a research foundation that gives smart people somewhere else to go besides the Pentagon or Wall Street.

> the prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing in healthy adult humans until around the age of 25

Another way to look at this is that if you are young, you only have until the age of 25 until your brain deteriorates to the point that you are incapable of taking real risks.

Even less cool sub-story is the way brilliant people sit behind computers typing code for companies who consider their "users" disposable income objects.

Don’t forget that those writing the code are also disposable when not performing well enough.

You mean they get killed for "higher reasons"? But you are right, there are many companies and whole industries where execs are valuing their money more than their clients. I chose to not work at those companies. In many countries today there still is involuntary army draft, not like in USA today where you at least have a choice if you want to be a soldier.

Dogs are more disposable than people? And I love dogs, but I don't see why they would inherently deserve better treatment than a cow or pig, and honestly if you oppose mistreatment of animals, than the cow or pig is probably suffering a hell of a lot more than the dog in this scenario.

Edit: https://xkcd.com/2368/ Lol, guilty, but if you want to talk about the moral imperative of vegetarianism than I am willing to listen.

Dogs got personality, personality goes a long way.

Pigs do have personalities, you usually just don't spend enough with a pig to get to know him.

Have you spent much time with cows and pigs? They have just as much personality as a dog.

14,000 years of being domesticated to serve as companions for humans is the inherent reason that works for me. Cows or pigs don't have the same history of domestication to be companions. Dogs share a special bond with humans and a special place in our society. Rightly or wrongly, and admittedly cows and pigs suffer to certainly the same extent that any factory farmed animal suffers, dogs serve a different purpose.

Given this history and bond, to eat or put dogs in danger is in my mind almost as morally objectionable as putting a person in grievous danger against their will.

In Western society. In Polynesia dogs and pigs (which are just as intelligent and social, IUUC) where both kept both as pets and as a source of food. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat#Polynesia

People are considered disposable too, if the mission value is crucial enough to save the lives of more people - enough so that there is a term for it 'expendable'. When your unit is declared expendable the mission objective is deemed more valuable than the lives in your unit, a rare thing that is supposed to happen only when the unit giving up their lives can save many more. I learned about expendable units from my dad, a radio operator at the tail end of the Korean War. Airborne leadership expected the North Koreans to attack during the treaty talks. My dad's unit was placed where they'd likely attack and told to give early warning and attempt to slow them down, at all costs - that they were declared expendable.

Thankfully they didn't attack or I wouldn't likely be here. There's a good story linked below about an expendable unit in Burma named Merrill's Maruaders [1].

Other animals have been used in more questionable ways too, such as the Navy Marine Mammal Program's use of dolphins to find and mark mines [2]

[1] https://www.army.mil/article/173880/expendable_wwii_merrills...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Marine_Mamm...

The entire point of war is that collectively one group of people are willing to kill the other group of people over an argument.

The value of a life isn’t universal. Some lives are worth more than others, both to individuals and to collective groups.

Not so disposable that the dogs don't get their own body armour, receive medals, and are loved by their colleagues (i.e. handlers).

Just like soldiers.

Frankly, we just need to stop shooting each other. But that's never going to happen.

Awesomely Dystopian, the comments in this thread all point out a different distinct horror.

Everything applied to these dogs will be applied to a person at some point.

On I haven't seen is that the dogs could be directed by a goal seeking ML agent instead of their normal human handler. The same AI that wins at Starcraft now has dog based actuator in the physical world. No need for robots.

Fighter pilots have been using AR goggles for a while now, and I don't think the world has ended as a result but I could have missed it.

Now we can have standard poodles flying those F35s.

Seems like a win-win to me. Think of the photo ops.

Even dogs get to try out those VR glasses I've been hearing about since the mid 90s before me..

I think augmented noses for humans would be much better.

A human with an augmented nose, would still be a bad choice to fill the role of an attack or bomb dog. Regardless of how good that nose is.

Well agreed but I was thinking in more general terms of who requires augmentation.

Ah I feel you.

Pretty much all dogs that use their nose for work are never more than 5ft away from their handler.

Imagine if you had some technology to make the dogs more efficient on their own, some way to instruct them without their handler being there using visual directives.

Then ai will choose the more efficient actors as its interface with the real world than their slower two legged counterparts.

Just with integrated packet filter...have you ever been in Delhi?

It's all fun and games until someone fields CBIEDs.

Bonus story: https://archive.org/stream/thegameofratandd29614gut/29614.tx...

I see it as a sign of desesparation to find a viable market of augmented reality goggles.

Really? The US Army is a fantastic innovator and business partner to have. If I could choose a single customer based solely on business value of the relationship the US Department of Defense might be it.

I agree. I was mainly reacting to the goggle-dog experiment. I do not see this as a serious market.

Makes sense, you could easily train a dog to react with aggression towards targets outlined in a certain way, even point it in the direction it should go etc. Dogs are not stupid and they are always very eager to learn and decode what you want them to. (Well, most dogs, when they are at a certain age at least)

> Dogs are not stupid and they are always very eager to learn and decode what you want them to.

Yeah, many are so clever that they very convincingly pretend they don't know what you want. My dog sometimes does this when he doesn't want to go back home. Being smart and obedient are two orthogonal things.

> Being smart and obedient are two orthogonal things.

I used to think that, but I think a more accurate picture across all sentient social creatures is the following.

IQ on range 0-10 (0 being the lowest)

- 0-4, too low to understand commands, ignorant disobedience, easily confused

- 5-6, mostly obedient, only disobedient through distraction (food, mates, tired, stressed)

- 6-8, can overcome some of physical and situational issues, occasionally disobedient due to IQ

- 9-10, freewill, obedient only as a peer. Will absolutely not do something it doesn't want to do.

Wow, an actual use for AR.

It takes a humans applied intelligence to give a dog augmented reality.

So to give a human augmented reality, using napkin maths, would take an intelligence well above ours. General AI.

That fits.

So, how long until we mount a suppressed weapon so the dog can sneak up and do sentry elimination?

I have a hard time picturing a situation where that would be better than a similarly armed drone.

I dunno, have you played MGSV?

Unlike in the movies, suppressed weapons are still quite loud.

So great to see our taxpayer dollars being put to good use. My dog Brutus can hardly wait to get his paws on a pair of these AR goggles.

Brutus loves Modern Monetary Theory. Today we have hotels for dogs, shoes for dogs, scuba diving gear for dogs... Jerome Powell sure knows how to keep my mutt satisfied.

Maybe I should start walking around on all fours and the economy will start treating me well.

For some reason this reminded me of the Russians trying to train dogs to take out tanks in WW2.

Universal healthcare is too expensive, how would you ever pay for that?

Makes sense, enhance a dog's vision and he got scent and vision to see through the world into the abyss.

Such a waster of tax payer dollars. I would rather have health care.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com