April 11, 2018
Meet the New Robot Army
Intelligent machines that could usher in an era of autonomous warfare are already here
In contemporary sci-fi—HBO’s “Westworld,” for example—sentient machines take up arms against humanity. In the real world, intelligent—and increasingly autonomous—robots are being created with weapons already in hand. More than 16 countries (not to mention terrorist groups like the Islamic State) already possess armed drones. Militaries around the globe are racing to deploy robots at sea, on the ground and in the air. For now, these machines operate mostly under human control, but that may not be the case for long. This raises a question: What happens when a Predator drone has as much autonomy as a driverless car?
More than 30 nations have defensive, human-supervised autonomous weapons for situations in which the speed of engagement is too fast for people to respond. Used to defend ships and bases against rockets and missiles, these systems are overseen by humans who can intervene if necessary. South Korea has deployed a robotic sentry gun to the demilitarized zone bordering North Korea. Israel has used armed ground robots to patrol its Gaza border. Those weapons aren’t fully autonomous, but the Israeli Harpy is. A loitering munition programmed to search a wide area for enemy radars, the Harpy is able to detonate without asking permission once it acquires a target. Five countries have purchased the weapon; China has reportedly reverse engineered a version of its own. And the Harpy may be only the beginning.
Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal
More from CNAS
-
Biotech Matters: Public-Private Coordination of Biotechnology
An appreciation of biotechnology’s great opportunities is, for many commentators, intimately joined with regret about a disconnect between the U.S. government and the private ...
By Richard Danzig
-
$6.6 billion TSMC deal in Arizona the latest in the CHIPS Act’s rollout
“President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act just about 20 months ago, which in government time is yesterday. And they’ve hired 200 people,” said Vivek Chilukuri, a senio...
By Vivek Chilukuri
-
Response to NTIA Request for Comment: “Dual Use Foundation Artificial Intelligence Models with Widely Available Model Weights”
In February 2024, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a Request for Comment (RFC) on the implications of “ope...
By Caleb Withers
-
Biotech Matters: Great Data Competition and Interoperability with Allies and Partners
Understanding and strengthening America’s biotechnology leadership requires exploring the limits of existing data relevant to the U.S. bioeconomy so that policymakers and the ...
By Michelle Holko