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Saturday, October 15, 2016


Royal Navy's 'robot wars' under way off Scotland and Wales

From The BBC

14 October 2016


What the Royal Navy has described as its first "robot wars" are fully under way off the coasts of Scotland and west Wales. Unmanned Warrior features more than 50 vehicles, sensors and systems on the surface of the sea, underwater and in the air. The exercise is being held at the same time as Joint Warrior, a UK-led Nato exercise held twice a year. Joint Warrior involves thousands of armed forces personnel. Military ranges and sites in Benbecula, Kyle of Lochalsh and off Applecross are being used for Unmanned Warrior.

Various manufacturers of military technology, including BAE Systems, are taking part in the exercise which runs until 20 October. BAE Systems has described Unmanned Warrior as the world's first large-scale demonstration of "innovative maritime robotic systems". The Royal Navy has reported that earlier this week nine autonomous systems were operated at the same time, "responding to each other, flying, swimming and diving together, but at different tasks, looking for different things". The vehicles being used in Unmanned Warrior include BAE Systems' Pacific Class 950 Unmanned Rigid Inflatable Boat. A craft called Maritime Autonomy Surface Testbed (Mast) is also being trialled.

Joint Warrior, meanwhile, involves about 5,700 military personnel from armed forces from countries including Norway, Sweden, Germany and the US.

Thirty-one warships and submarines as well almost 70 aircraft, many of them being flown out of RAF Lossiemouth in Moray and Prestwick in Ayrshire, are being used in the training off the Scottish coast.

[We’re not that far away from fully autonomous fighting vehicles. Maybe 20-30 years if I wanted to be conservative, maybe less if we have some kind of breakthrough event. As things progress they’ll be part of elite units with plenty of human back up, sent in on the most dangerous and difficult jobs. As they become more proficient the human support troops will reduce and will eventually be replaced by robots too. Eventually the robotic forces will be deployed, serviced and maintained completely by other robots. Initially they’ll be used to fight human enemies, probably those unable to field robots themselves. But it will become quickly apparent that humans facing machines will generally be on the losing side so, say 50-75 years from now wars (if we can still call them that) will be fought machine vs machine. Will that make war any less likely when human casualties are zero? I doubt it. If stakes are high, as I guess they will be, the investment in robotic warriors will be significant. War could end up being little more than another ‘reality’ show watched largely for entertainment and betted on extensively. Maybe the military could even turn a profit if the odds are favourable enough. Welcome to a very strange future….]

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