Israel Would Like To Play A Game
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 29 of January , 2008 at 5:26 am
According to Defense News, the Israeli military is in the early stages of planning a robotic defense system with the ability to “take over completely” from humans. We’re not just talking automated weaponry here… this system would be a command umbrella, able to take control of automated and semi-autonomous systems like interceptor missile launchers in the event of “attacks that exceed physiological limits of human command.” As far as I know, this is the first system that’s being designed to operate (at least partially) without any humans in the loop at all. Some meat from the article:
“It will be designed for man-in-the-loop as well as autonomous operations,” said Milo, the officer spearheading the vision within Israel’s user community. “But right now, our emphasis is on algorithms, not autonomy. Man-machine interface is the name of the game, because the more clever we make the interface, the more successful we’ll be in providing operators and commanders the situational awareness they’ll need to make very tough decisions…”
“Our approach cannot be based exclusively on man-in-the-loop, nor can it rely only on the opposite. Rather, we need to build an operational concept and a system that is flexible and situationally dependent,” Milo said.
In the future, and “under very complex scenarios,” Milo said, the envisioned super system would be able to generate a level of supreme situational awareness and snap intuitive capabilities that could surpass the very best wartime commanders.
“We’re talking about something that sees everything and calculates everything and makes decisions that can only be made through a real revolution in BMC4ISR [Battle Management/Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance],” he said. “We’re not there yet, and it could take a decade. But this is our vision and we’re running in that direction.”
There’s no denying the advantages of having a system like this in place. And even if humans are available to be in command, I have no doubt that Skynet the system will be capable of making more timely and efficient decisions than humans, because that’s what robots are good at. What robots are NOT good at, however, are making decisions like these… And we’re not talking about computer games, here. That could have been WW3, and it’s not the first time we’ve come close thanks to a computer error. I’m sure Israel is cognizant of the risks involved in giving control of weapons to a computer, I just fervently hope they’ve watched all the relevant movies and know what they’re getting themselves into.
VIA [ Danger Room ]
Category: Artificial Intelligence, Military
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Comment by Sale
Made Wednesday, 30 of January , 2008 at 1:32 pm
Wow, this looks nice and cuddly. I wonder if I could make something similar to protect my house, like an Atmel AVR firing staples at an intruder. I got my first LED blinking a few days ago, so I think I’ll have a nice and firm Autonomous Stapler System up and running within a week.