Prepare for the Robot Wars: Six questions for P.W. Singer, author of Wired for War
By Scott Horton

P. W. Singer of the Brookings Institution labors at the intersection of the military, defense contractors, and the world of high tech. In his latest work, Wired for War, Singer confesses his passion for science fiction as he introduces us to a glimpse of things to come–the new technologies that will shape wars of the future. His new book addresses some ominous and little-discussed questions about the military, technology, and machinery. (Subscribers may also be interested to read “The Coming Robot Army,” by Steve Featherstone from the February 2007 issue.)

1. The received wisdom is that developments in military technology allow the fortunate nations that control them to fight more effectively and with reduced risk to their own career military. Is that putting too rosy a perspective on things?

Systems are being bought in such great numbers (5,300 in the air already, another 12,000 on the ground) not only because they save lives, but also because they offer an amazing array of military capabilities. But we also have to remember that there is no permanent “first mover” advantage in either technology or war. The Turks and Chinese discovered this with gunpowder, the French with tanks, and, in turn, I doubt you still use your Wang computer.

Forty-three other nations have military robots programs, including states like Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and China. But, importantly, robotic warfare will also be “open source” warfare. The systems are also available to non-state actors, made all the easier by the fact that so much of the technology is off-the-shelf or do-it-yourself.

For a thousand dollars, you can now build a drone that has essentially the same capabilities as the Raven drones our soldiers used in Iraq just a few years ago. The book features a group of college students who raised money to do something about the genocide in Darfur, upon which a private military company offered to rent them an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of their own.

A particular area of concern is the use of such systems by terrorists. During its conflict with Israel, Hezbollah operated at least four drones of their own. A militant website already has offered as a prize the chance to remote detonate an IED in Iraq via your home computer, while one of our bomb-squad robots in Iraq was even captured and then turned back into a mobile IED.

So we may also see new sparks of terrorism. One of the people I interviewed was Richard Clarke, the government official who warned about 9/11, but was unfortunately not heeded. He talked about how our new technologies raise such fundamental questions in ethics and law that we’ll see the rise of “neo Ludditism”–people who will resort to violence to stop it. The next wave of terrorism may therefore be a mix of Al Qaeda 2.0 and the Unabomber.

2. Historically, the United States has taken enormous care clearly to define command authority over weapons systems—the introduction of nuclear weapons in the closing days of World War II, for instance, led to extended deliberation over exactly how the principle of civilian control would be maintained, resulting in very complex protocols.

However, nothing comparable seems to be happening with the latest generation of weapons—particularly robots and drones. If anything the trend is to make things even murkier as contractors without training regarding the law that governs the use of force direct and discharge these weapons from remote locations. What needs to be done to change this?

In all my various interviews, this issue of control, particularly over increasingly autonomous systems is the equivalent of Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, the issue That-Must-Not-Be-Discussed. What happens to the human role in war as we arm ever more intelligent, more capable, and more autonomous robots? When this issue comes up, both specialists and military folks tend to either change the subject or speak in absolutes, saying things like “people will always want humans in the loop,” as one government official put it.

But the reality is that I came across gobs of programs focused on taking humans out of the loop. And we ignore how we have continually redefined what it means to be in the loop. On many of our most sophisticated systems right now, the human power is mere veto power. But even then it is one that we are afraid to use against the perceived better judgment of the computer. This also connects to the increasing civilian role in warfighting, even with these systems. Just as we have more private contractors in warzones, taking on more roles, we are seeing more of these “Soldiers of Fortran” on the digital side.

There are all sorts of ripple effects that we are just starting to be aware of, and again, these are already happening with the first generation of these systems, the Model T Fords compared to what is coming. For instance you have the rise of a new type of warrior, who I call “cubicle warriors” These are combatants who have the novel experience of juggling the psychological disconnect of being “at war” while still dealing with the pressures of still being “at home.” In the words of one Predator pilot, “You are going to war for 12 hours, shooting weapons at targets, directing kills on enemy combatants and then you get in the car, drive home and within 20 minutes you are sitting at the dinner table talking to your kids about their homework.”

This, of course, has taken the already preexisting tensions that soldiers in the field have towards those behind the lines and put them on steroids. It also has some worried that it might make the experience of war too distant, make us lose respect for the foe who share the bond of risk, and even make the contemplation of war crimes too easy. More than a century ago, General Robert E. Lee famously observed, “It is good that we find war so horrible, or else we would become fond of it.”

He didn’t contemplate a time when war became a daily grind of commuting to work each morning in your Toyota Camry, shooting missiles at an enemy 7,500 miles away and then hoping you are going make it home in time for Friends. Being able to move more Americans out of harm’s way may effect our very decisions on when and where to use force. Many I met with worry that more robots will make us more cavalier, a return to the “cruise missile diplomacy” of the 1990s, but on a whole new level. “We’ll have more Kosovos and fewer Iraqs” is what one former Pentagon official predicted.

Just imagine all the future digital robot warriors being trained by violent video games. Killing people remotely will be as easy as killing fake digital enemies. Who can make war with the beast?

I'm not aware of one systems (much less 5300 "in use") that are truly autonomous and that are armed. Regardless of what Sanger says.

There are autonomous surveillance systems widely in use today not only in other countries, but right here in the US.

There are remotely piloted vehicles that are armed, including the Predator but it's a pilot flying them via remote link. Not a robot but a parabot.

The science of pattern recognition, although around for a long time, and only a tiny portion of the systems needed for fully autonomous combat, still is not advanced enough to even steer a vehicle over unmarked or un-paved roadways. GPS is good to sub-meter resolutions on the MILSAT systems but that is not enough.

We're a long way from fully autonomous, much less sentient (self-aware) systems. According to Moores law, it will happen but it isn't today.

I'm not too worried about Al-Quaeda or N. Korea developing fully autonomous systems. They don't have to. They can make war with the "beast" by disrupting thier power supplies,perhaps as simple as a few ragheads with some home-brewed TNG on a power transmission pathway or sub-station or as sophisticated as an EMP pulse.

Not saying the systems are self-aware...yet. It is just getting less personal killing people. Just so many mouse clicks or buttons to push.

Xbox Helped Drone Pilot Be All He Could Be [Military]

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A guy went from high school dropout to drone pilot instructor in the Army - not a position most 19-year-old enlisteds hold, by the way - thanks in part to his video game skills.

In an interview, P.W. Singer, a former defense policy adviser to the Obama campaign, and the author of “Wired for War,” explained how video games helped this guy shoot up through the ranks, and how others weren’t so cool with it.

Democracy Now! talked to Singer - the conversation ranged into areas of civil rights and what the use of military force means if its deployed by robots. But they asked about the video game pilot, whose story is featured prominently in Singer’s book.

The soldier in question was a high school dropout who joined the military to make his father proud. But his failing grades in school made his superiors skeptical of his qualifications to be a helicopter mechanic, his first choice. So they asked if he wanted to be a drone pilot.

“And it turned out, because of playing on video games, he was already good at it. He was naturally trained up,” Singer told Democracy Now!. “And he turned out to be so good that they brought him back from Iraq and made him an instructor in the training academy, even though he’s an enlisted man and he’s still-he was nineteen.”

(I can’t help myself. Ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-nineteen. Nineteen.)

Best part? This doesn’t sit too well with bona fide academy flyboys. Says Singer: “You tell that story to someone in the Air Force, like an F-15 pilot, and they go, “I do not like where this is headed. You know, I’ve got a college education. The military spent $5 million training me up. And you’re telling me that this kid, this nineteen-year-old-and, oh, by the way, he’s in the Army-is doing more than I am?” And that’s the reality of it.”

How are they paying for it all?

Bottle tops???

There are some currently in Iraq.

The US military ordered 83.
Wait until Israel sends them into Gaza..

South Korea has placed them along their border with N Korea.

Wait until the US gets the idea to put them along the Mex border.

Marine Corps!

That one is low tech.
They have ones that are smaller, more human-like, that fire electronically. No firing pin!

Imagine when a President like Bush realizes he can wage war at will without grieving mothers breathing down his neck..