All of you who wasted way too much time playing first-person shooters on your PC? Your Time Has Come. Yep, you can now go to Iraq and hunt down real-life enemies on an LCD screen, controlling a robotic soldiers which can be equipped with a wide variety of weapons. Of course, there are only 3 in service in this capacity right now, and I bet the support is a pain (short runtime from the batteries, recharge time, slow deployment, etc.).
I think there’s an ethical question here, though. One of the proposed uses — as demonstrated in the video — is hunting down a sniper. When you can deliver pinpoint-precision bursts of fire at 300 yards and feel removed from the act of killing by a video screen, I wonder how that affects how easy it is to kill? I feel no compunction at mowing down virtual opponents in video games. Would this be similar?
And then there are the technical issues. If the enemy can figure out what frequency you are using, it’s trivial to create a RF jammer with a range larger than 1000 yards. Of course, your average terrorist isn’t going to have one lying around his home and they take some time to make. That said, I’ve made one accidentally using an electric guitar and a malfunctioning distortion pedal. It was cool broadcasting my guitar through my radio 🙂
Obviously, they will be using some sort of encryption with key negotiation to prevent a takeover of the machine. Heck, I use that sort of technology when flying my model airplanes; the only way to “take over” my plane from me is to gain physical access to it, put a jumper on a pair of pins on the receive, and use a sequence to bind it to a new transmitter. I’ve seen enough R/C aircraft go down, though, to think that we need to be pretty cautious.
Plus..
What’s the chance of taking down friendlies and civilians.. fun.
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Non Argument
I think this is a great tool. Anything that will put a machine in harms way more than a troop is okay by me.
I don’t see how the argument of this allowing an easier kill is at all any more relevant than it is with a myriad of other weapons currently in use by the Armed Forces. (Scary information can be found on the NET – Armed UAV’s are currently in use in Iraq. This weapon accomplishes the same mission, only from the sky rather than on the ground. The Abrahms technology gives the operator a view of a target on his “screen” 8000m away. One of the interesting ones I read about last year was a weapon that is capable of firing a million rounds per minute I am sure the list could go on.
I am more curious what happens when an operator freezes. What happens when he can’t take the shot? What happens when one of these units gets compromised? As sure as it can sneak up on me, I can sneak up on it and smash it (heh) or better yet sneak up and go old school and tip it over.
Cameras
Big vulnerability:
It has cameras fore, aft, left, and right, all of which display on the viewfinder. It has no camera pointing up. One of the forward cameras is wide-angle, so it might see you, but the simple solution seems to be to get above it and smash it, or else run out of its field of fire faster than the operator can reorient it.
Both options that I don’t want to try out myself, of course, but there you have it 🙂
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Matthew P. Barnson
Camera’s…
The Camera’s that they discussed didn’t mention fixed left / right camera’s (that i remember). I remember: 1. Fore camera 2. Aft Camera 3. Wide angle 4. Driving 5. Rotatable 6. Scope mounted
hmm… I remember there were 7… oh well.. still a pretty neat toy (um, i mean weapon.)
Hunting…
Heck, if there isn’t sufficient demand from the army, I could see this being used to help disabled hunters still get their thirty-point bucks!
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Matthew P. Barnson
See
See also… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4022147.stm
Alike
Sick minds… erm, great minds think alike!
I could totally see someone who is either disabled or who has too much money burning a hole in their pockets go for this option. They ship you the meat and do the taxidermy work for your kill if you want, so I don’t see much difference between that and buying some expensive meat off the shelf along with a nice stuffed head over your mantle.
My only concern would be for the humaneness of killing this way; a poorly-aimed shot is a poorly-aimed shot, and you have no way of tracking the injured animal to complete the job if you’re sitting in an easy-chair 7000 miles away. I guess that’s part of your fee for the service, though, that someone will take care of the grody part for you.
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Matthew P. Barnson