What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

It's Probably Nothing Military 28 Comments

Drones that “think” for themselves;

Drones that can choose to deviate from a set mission and hunt in ‘swarms’ could be patrolling skies within the next 25 years, according to a new roadmap.
Unmanned aircraft carrying stronger chemical weapons could also be on the horizon, the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) revealed in its Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap.
While the document sets out plans for unmanned maritime, land and air vehicles, there is a lot of focus on the future capability of controversial drones, which, if the plans come to fruition, could deviate from mission commands set by humans if they spot a better target.

h/t peterj

28 Replies to “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

  2. In the real world, what could possibly go wrong?
    Not much.
    These drones will hunt and kill and make decisions based on algorithms. There will of course be the odd ‘friendly fire’ problems but that has been a part of warfare. The robots may select the target, the munitions and line up the sights – but humans will still be required to pull the trigger. Unlike humans – who have a tendency under stressful conditions to shoot first and ask questions later – the machine will ask the questions up front as part of its programming. I will let the squaddies make the call on this one, methinks.
    But I do like watching the peaceniks and pacifists getting their panties in a wad as they have nightmares about artificially intelligent killer robots.

  3. Which means that if you know the algorithms they are using, you could easily fool them. Maybe we could punk those algorithms into rocketing Al Gore?

  5. “…but humans will still be required to pull the trigger. …”
    Unless they aren’t still required to pull the trigger because the drones are programmed to work independently as (the article reports) the DoD document says. In effect the human pulling the trigger part will be done before the drone is launched.

  7. As usual, incompetent reporting from the Mail.
    The “chemical weapons” involved?
    If you look at the site they link to, it says The key here is developing “energetic nanoparticles.” Since these particles have a greater surface area, the chemicals within the ammunition react faster, producing a more powerful explosion.
    In other words, more powerful conventional explosives.
    Someone at the Mail saw “chemical” and decided that meant “chemical weapons”, and stopped reading before he got to “explosion”.
    (Plus what Glenfilthie said about the algorithmic nature of the “deviations from plan”.)

  13. Don’t worry friends! If the drones really do start thinking for themselves, the military has boot camp, team building exercises and performance reviews to make them stop.

  14. @Glenfilthie – catastrophic process failures occur when humans in the system are expected to validate an automated component’s work, rather than the other way around. The automated components put out too great a volume, too fast, in real-time scenarios for a human to reliably validate. Correctly designed systems have automated components checking human’s work, not the other way around, or at the very least other independent automated components checking their counterpart’s output.
    (See – autopilot flies plane into ground while pilot checks outputs and says everything looks OK, crossref “Airbus”)

  15. “And that’s when Skynet became self-aware and initiated a nuclear holocaust of mankind…”

  16. Skynet coming soon.
    Looks like we are on the fast track to destroy ourselves or at least anything that resembles a civil society. it’s been a great ride for those of us who were born around the middle of the 20th century. Best of everything … peace and prosperity. Too bad about you young folks today. The governments and bureaucrats with help from you, the voter/sucker, have managed to destroy the future for most of the last couple of generations and the one or two more coming. After that, its all sci-fi eh?
    Vote out all the bastards and try to elect humans for a change. Ordinary people with flaws, but with a good heart and a great desire to do the right thing for the people. Rob Ford comes to mind. But noooooo most voters would rather have a perfectly slick, phony like Bob McRae or that McSquint freak for example. Wait until that “Hair Balloon”©, Justin Trudeau get power … oh man … could that happen?
    Okay, I’m done.

  17. Skynet=Obama type Leftists, both death oriented anti-human options, so what’s the difference?
    If anyone here gets involved in an argument with a Leftist, pause the Leftist by mentioning that the next person to have Obama’s powers could be a Tea Partier or Republican.

  19. No problem, climate change will kill these drones as they fail to adapt to the onslaught of killer storms.

  20. @lickm
    They are going to shoot them down anyway. Why pay for a license?
    When you trash one, disable the camera/audio, pull the battery…..check it’s memory…

  21. Yeah well, I recall training my lads the old way…..just incase the wiz-bang electronical stuff crapped out.
    My lads had that occur in Gulf II. but they delivered their fires on time and target.
    We still dig holes the same old way!

  23. Every drone has “chemical” weapons, every scary looking gun is an “assault” weapon, and “the sun” affects climate.

  26. Oz said: “If anyone here gets involved in an argument with a Leftist, pause the Leftist by mentioning that the next person to have Obama’s powers could be a Tea Partier or Republican.”
    Good idea, but it doesn’t work. Leftists don’t seem to have enough imagination to envision Conservatives actually -using- the power of government for evil ends. Even Lefties know Conservatives are the Good Guys.

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