Greg Harris
Twenty-first century technology is making giant strides forward in some key areas. One of these is cinematic special effects. Having already relegated script-writers to a minor role, US movie studios are near the point where they can do without actors or real scenery. Even if the US military can't win a war against Iraq, Hollywood can present a convincing victory over invading Martians.
It is therefore ironic that technology is having less than stellar success in its military application. While the US has the technical capability to destroy all life on Earth, at a more local level it can kill a lot of people, but it can't defeat a hostile population. This is at a time when the US army has identified a problem with modern warfare: the US population is extremely sensitive to US military deaths.
In an ambitious new technology program, Defense News reported on March 28 last year that the US Department of Defense (DoD) has mandated that by 2015, one-third of US army ground vehicles be autonomous, that is, have no humans in them. These remote-controlled killing machines could then be sent onto foreign soil without endangering US military personnel.
Unfortunately for the military planners, robotic vehicles don't work very well at the moment. In an attempt to create some competition around the development of remote-controlled killing machines, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency sponsors an annual "Grand Challenge". This requires competing teams to cross a 280 kilometre Mojave Desert trail in less than 10 hours. In the 2004 race, none of the entries managed to finish, although 2005 was more productive.
But automated remote-control vehicles are just an upscale version of children's toys. For really threatening technology, the DoD is reaching further afield. At the same time as announcing the autonomous vehicle requirement, it also declared an interest in swarms of military robots. This concept has been presented to a mass audience by Michael Crichton in his science fiction work Prey, which described a technical program that goes horribly wrong and threatens humanity.
US military architects apparently liked the idea. DoD's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative is investing in a program named "Scalable Swarms of Autonomous Robots and Sensors". The Daily Pennsylvanian on March 23, 2005 described a US$5 million grant to the University of Pennsylvania. This will examine how small bird-like robots could swarm around a military zone, monitoring and reporting back to remote observers. Other participants in the program are Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California at Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.
Once again the purpose is a reduction of US military casualties. Program participant Yale professor Stephen Morse explained, apparently without understanding the irony, "The military is anxious to take the human being off the battlefield". Given that US wars are currently targeting countries with a substantially lower technical base, they don't expect to be fighting other machines. These robots and autonomous vehicles will be directed against relatively defenseless opponents.
While weapons' development might seem a waste of human intellect, some receiving the military funding see a different picture. For MIT professor Daniela Rus, the cross-discipline research opportunities are wonderful: "It's a dream team in my point of view. I can't wait for the opportunity to interact with everyone closely."
So within the next decade, if the US military planners overcome immense technical and ethical obstacles, we may see the prospect of driving, flying, swarming machines overrunning countries that fail to meet the expectations of the US government and butchering their citizens. Hollywood has already made the movie series: Terminator.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, April 12, 2006.
Visit the