The Army Wants to Slap a Next Generation Squad Weapon on a Robot Dog | Hacker News Reader

The Army Wants to Slap a Next Generation Squad Weapon on a Robot Dog

military.com

28 pointsrntn48 comments

I just don't see any world in which we don't end up with at least largely autonomous, armed robots in the relatively near future. Look at the soldiers with the big gun in the picture in the article - they look like teenagers. It's just so much easier to make the case that arming robots will mean people's kids don't get shot than it is to make the case that maybe these robots will turn on us and kill us, sci-fi style.

Add to that the fact that if China has autonomous fighting robots, we're more or less forced into it - I think at this point it's probably more useful to be resigned to the fact that this is the future of war, as that'll at least let us focus on how to make sure we've got the best autonomous robots with guns and the best possible control over them.

>Look at the soldiers with the big gun in the picture in the article - they look like teenagers.

Eh, yeah, they always look young. The issue with that "big gun" is that it's a larger round, so it's about 2 lbs heavier than the M4, which it is replacing[1]. With all things like this, the answer is to get in the gym.

Anyway, I've been around an early version of these "dog" robots and have friends that have been around them more recently. They are loud. There's no noise discipline with these things, so until that's addressed somehow their use case is going to be limited to instances where that does not matter. Interestingly, I think it starts to matter not, the more these robots are used. The future (maybe present, in Ukraine) battlefield is trenches with a constant "neeeeeee" and vreeeeeee" in the air as these dogs and drones move in and out of earshot.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM7_rifle

I wonder if it's more intended to be used for additional perimeter security. I doubt they're going to be making as much noise if they're just hunkered down in a fox hole with only a small periscope peeking out, and then just have it make noise when it pops up to engage.

The noise was from the various systems that operate the legs and gyros to maintain balance, so it's only generated when it's in a mode for actively traversing terrain. If it's in "peek" mode, it would probably be pretty quiet. Regardless, I don't think one cares too much about noise in the trench. Maybe they do, never fought in one.

> Look at the soldiers with the big gun in the picture in the article - they look like teenagers.

I think 17 is the youngest the US military will accept.

the only case for robots having legs instead of wheel os for them to fire guns

Rushed to comment?

The specific reason for Boston Dynamics to develop four legged robot dogs is agility over broken terrain.

If wheeled robots become the norm it'll just be Dr Who and the Daleks all over again; Quick, run upstairs (or other wheel defeating tactics).

“The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.”

It’s immediately obvious that legitimate targets would also include the robot factories. Of course, you’d have robots to interdict those robots. But some will get through to hit production. Largely similar to how it is today.

Everything about the last decade has been about undermining agreements or giving them the finger altogether, and disrupting conventional approaches to just about everything.

Robots are expensive and require a lot of technical expertise. Engineers can be poached or killed. We have doctor shortages and supply chain issues. Once we've tooled everything to make lithium batteries and war robots, blown them all up overseas, and an adversary leverages cyberattacks to cripple production of any more, someone's going to shell cities with mustard gas or deploy a bioweapon or something.

We won't be able to produce gas masks in time or treat victims; COVID response should be considered a failed test run on both fronts (where we couldn't even produce masks and latex gloves during peacetime). The Geneva Convention is due for disruption.

> someone's going to shell cities with mustard gas or deploy a bioweapon or something

Everyone is already plenty capable of doing this. And it isn't treaties that hold them back. It's utility; absent a significant technological change, chemical and biological weapons are less effective than high explosives [1].

> won't be able to produce gas masks in time or treat victims

We certainly have and will for a retaliatory strike force. As well as for key sections of government and industry. Your hypothetical attack is the analogue of America's air strategy for the past fifty years: bombing civilians has never broken a country's fighting resolve alone.

> Geneva Convention is due for disruption

It's always been a loose agreement. And it's constantly being violated. Robotic arms don't significantly change the incentives for certain standards of behavior; if Russia and Ukraine were fighting with robots, instead of flesh-and-blood men, their strategic imperatives wouldn't drastically shift.

[1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

How long until your local SWAT team gets this ?

Not soon enough! SWAT teams could use robot dogs with tear gas, beanbag rounds, etc.

It might not be a bad thing.

Most of the justification for police shootings is self defense (of the officers). A robot doesn’t have a right to self defense. It’s well established that you can’t use lethal force to protect property, and robots are property.

A mentally ill person can wave a gun in the robot’s face for as long as they like. They can even shoot and destroy the robots. (Robots are property)

I think a police robot could only shoot a suspect if the suspect posed a risk to a human.

Sending in a bunch of robots with pepper spray + tasers to subdue the armed suspect is probably much safer for everyone, including the suspect.

Found the CEO of TetraVaal.

> It’s well established that you can’t use lethal force to protect property

Except in Texas.

I checked and surprisingly this is true.

It's a bad thing. Most of the world is oppressive. This is just going to make it worse.

I want to agree with you, but look at how Tasers played out. They were marketed as a weapon officers could draw in situations where they'd otherwise be using deadly force. In practice they're used as shock therapy to enforce compliance-- cattle prods for humans.

So although in theory a robot dog could just stand there all day taking fire while negotiating surrender, it won't. The suspect will just be leaving in a body bag in 3 minutes or less, to minimize risk to officer safety and maximize number of calls responded to.

When it comes to all new tech, always assume the worst possible outcome will become standard operating procedure. Be very afraid of bean-counters deputizing Metal Gear and unleashing it in your neighborhood.

I fully expect a robot with a badge to get classified as a police officer rather than property, allowing the SWAT guy behind the joystick to gleefully blast away with impunity whenever the perp acts squirrely.

We can look at precedent to see how things might turn out in this situation.

A police K9 is property in the same sense. i.e. the dog is not a person, and lethal force can't be used to defend it.

In practice, it doesn't work out that way. Cops are taught to defend K9 units as if they were human officers. Courts and juries side with the arguments of the police on this.

I'm curious.

Way into the future, once all armies are equipped with such killer robots: who are they going to kill? Other robots in a fight?

I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about this, except that it makes war even more pointless than it is today.

Thoughts?

We can’t survive AI infused robot wars in my opinion.

> it makes war even more pointless than it is today

What do you mean war is pointless? When you are at the receiving end of Putin's imperial ambitions, how is it pointless to defend yourself? Is Ukraine just supposed to roll over and die? And if Ukraine fights back and could manufacture and use this type of weapon robots, should they just say no, because it's pointless?

That is not what I said.

Of course Ukraine should defend itself and not just roll over.

What I meant is: Starting a war is pointless.

Now please don't reply with a comment saying "Ukraine didn't start the war". I know, and that's not what I said.

But then, what exactly did you mean by “war is pointless”? If a robber robs a bank, you can say his act is criminal, or immoral, but not pointless. The point of his robbery is to get the money. The same for Putin. The point of his war was to conquer another country.

Let me rephrase then.

War doesn't bring anything of value to humanity.

Yes, other robots in a fight. And once the robots/factories are out of the way, any human resistance. Armies work to destroy/incapacitate the opposing army, after which they use the threat of destruction to impose their will on the noncombatant populace, same as today.

Interesting.

Robot runs on an ARM microcontroller ... The robot can operate up to 10.5 km (6.5 miles) on a single charge with full 360º sensors activated."

... and an integrated NVIDIA® Xavier,"

https://omegadevgroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ODG-...

Of course they do. Wasn't this always the plan?

The SAW (squad automatic weapon) is a huge burden to a four-man team. Not just carrying the damn thing; carrying the ammo. Which is lead.

A robot dog to just carry the ammo boxes would be a huge mobility benefit in some environments, particularly urban.

Not sure how kids are supposed to sleep at night with this future looming.

The government wonders why people are deciding not to have kids, if you’re confused about it then I feel for you .

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. 20ish years ago I was jealous of the kids being born, because I thought of all the cool science and technology they'd live to see that I wouldn't. Now I feel very much the opposite.

I feel like it was to be expected sadly.

The military is a business and this is what they always wanted. Anyone working in robotics and AI and didn’t see a future like this coming was dreaming.

But yes. Not quite how parents are supposed to be preparing l kids for the weird future on the horizon.

This seems better to me than sending an entire generation of young men to die miles away from home. I imagine if a nations automated robot army gets decimated by another robot army they will surrender immediately rather than send their citizens in to get massacred.

Any nation with the capacity to build a robot army will also be socially mature enough to not want to commit robotic genocide against their surrendering foe. Although the current economic/resource subjugation that is done militarily might become more pronounced.

>Any nation with the capacity to build a robot army will also be socially mature enough to not want to commit robotic genocide against their surrendering foe

Prediction: this will age badly.

The far more likely future in my mind is countries using robots to automatically defend their borders from illegal immigrants/climate migrants.

When we have Texas already employing floating buzzsaws on their border it seems like if the technology is created it will inevitably be used.

It's not all that different from the Cold War, tbh. Robot dogs with guns seem much less scary to me than the possibility of small stars dropping out of the sky, wiping out millions of people in an instant and slowly poisoning the survivors.

Anyway, my kids worry more about climate change; correctly, I think.

Agreed. As a kid I vividly remember waking up in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm thinking that it had finally happened, the Soviets must have launched and the world was ending. I can’t really feel that scared about killer robots when an entire generation lived under the constant fear of nuclear extinction.

The nukes are still there and a war with Russia is still in progress.

That's what they said about atomic bombs and World War 3. People learned to sleep just fine. And don't forget that there was a baby boom after the war. Guess the Greatest Generation was made of sterner stuff than the zoomers.

Interesting, it looks like the US Army is switching from 5.56mm NATO ammo to 6.8mm ammo at the squad level, which seems like a big change.

Awesome stuff. Robots don't get scared or tired and make bad decisions, this is good for civilian populations. Rather than leveling a whole compound your weapons can get inside and be more precise.

> Rather than leveling a whole compound your weapons can get inside and be more precise.

House, preschool, hospital...

The enemy shouldn't feel safe anywhere.

>Robots don't get scared True

> or tired Depends on the fuel source

>and make bad decisions, As such no. But it depends on the operator/ programmer to provide decisions.

Robots do what humans tell them. Humans make bad decisions.

I don't feel like kicking the door down and risking the lives of my squad. I'd rather have a pilot drop a JDAM from 30,000 feet and I don't care who else is in the building. How's that for a bad decision?

Or I can send in a robot. What you say is technically true but I think we can both agree that a robot is preferable to a JDAM.

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