Scary as Hell

[Tyria]

Gamers are now the future soldiers of America. Who ever saw that coming?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517481,00.html

It could be the best Xbox 360 game ever, and a real kick in the ARSS.

The U.S. Army is testing the Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System (ARSS) — a remote-controlled unmanned Vigilante robot helicopter equipped with a high-velocity sniper rifle.

Its RND Edge semi-automatic gun is mounted on a self-stabilizing turret with built-in zoom camera, and fires 7 to 10 precisely aimed .338-caliber rounds per second.

Back on the ground, a human directs it using a modified Xbox 360 controller, which plugs into a laptop so that the operator can see what the drone sees.

"Having the ability to accurately engage single point man sized targets with an airborne UAV will give the ground based soldier the ability to have a high-point survivable sniper at their disposal when needed," stated the Army solicitation notice when the project was announced in 2005.

The Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University developed the Precision Weapons Platform guided turret and rifle system.

Anyone freaked out by this?

 

[FacetiousPersona]

Would you prefer to select an opponent for a controlled bot to attack Final Fatansy style or aim manually via a controller Call of Duty style? The aim option allows precision with our currently technology.

We have been doing this, essentially, for a while. When a human in a fighter jet targets an enemy, they can be using a controller to do this. It's aimed through this 'controller' and fired. The difference is the appearance of the controller and the person's closeness to the mechanisms of this controller.

The difference in the future is that we'll have soldiers in a chair/room controlling cyborgs' actions on a battlefield. These soldiers might subsequently be replaced with programmed robots to direct the cyborgs on the battlefield. The robots on the battlefield could also become programmed to aim precisely and require no one or remote bot of larger capacity to direct it (space in a control room would be larger for the guiding bot to have more components for functioning).

Have you read about UAVs? Drones? Drones can be unmanned aircrafts that are controlled via a human.

 

[Tyria]

I have read about them, but unmanned aircraft and robots are coming to the forefront of warfare. I imagine a scientist with no morals and who watched Terminator too many times thinks it's a great idea to make one. The genre of technology turning on its creators should never have been explored, and that movie should never have been made.

 

[FacetiousPersona]

This is all gradually leading to be an 'evolution' of technology, in my opinion. I wonder which advancement in thought/technology/science or significant change of sciety will lead to our next era. I also wonder if everyone's notions of these eras is subjective and whether or not we are categorizing them to a subjective criteria.

 

[Tyria]

"We'll see" said the Zen Master.

I love Charlie Wilson's War...

 

[Ermine]

I think it's a good and bad idea. It's great because there are a lot less casualties when it's remote control, and I bet there are more good gamers than skilled military personnel.

But it would have to have really tight security so the crazies don't forget the line between reality and videogames.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

I have read about them, but unmanned aircraft and robots are coming to the forefront of warfare. I imagine a scientist with no morals and who watched Terminator too many times thinks it's a great idea to make one. The genre of technology turning on its creators should never have been explored, and that movie should never have been made.

No, the movie should have been different; it gave viewers all these ideas about a future where humans and robots are at war, which is ridiculous. This isn't magic, machines do exactly what they are told to do, nothing more, nothing less. Therefore if our machines were to turn against us, it would be the result of somebody specifically making them do it.

Why be afraid of infant capacity artificial intelligence when there are more than 7 billion furless psychotic monkeys to be afraid of?

e.g. The flying buzz-saw drone from "Half Life" is entirely feasible technology.
(1 month + $10,000 + 2-3 Uni students = Flying RC death machine)

 

[dwags222]

Why be afraid of infant capacity artificial intelligence when there are more than 7 billion furless psychotic monkeys to be afraid of?

because AI could eventually lead to artificial consciousness and then we'd all die! haha too bad artificial consciousness is impossible (opinion).

wasn't there a movie about gamers as warriors in the 80's? i think it was called war games.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

artificial consciousness is impossible

...care to elaborate? I'm itching to debate that.

 

[ChristopherL]

Gamers are now the future soldiers of America. Who ever saw that coming?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517481,00.html

It could be the best Xbox 360 game ever, and a real kick in the ARSS.

The U.S. Army is testing the Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System (ARSS) — a remote-controlled unmanned Vigilante robot helicopter equipped with a high-velocity sniper rifle.

Its RND Edge semi-automatic gun is mounted on a self-stabilizing turret with built-in zoom camera, and fires 7 to 10 precisely aimed .338-caliber rounds per second.

Back on the ground, a human directs it using a modified Xbox 360 controller, which plugs into a laptop so that the operator can see what the drone sees.

"Having the ability to accurately engage single point man sized targets with an airborne UAV will give the ground based soldier the ability to have a high-point survivable sniper at their disposal when needed," stated the Army solicitation notice when the project was announced in 2005.

The Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University developed the Precision Weapons Platform guided turret and rifle system.

Anyone freaked out by this?

Yes I am.
The Xbox 360 controller as an interface for aim is piss poor.

 

[Oblivious]

Maybe they put an aimbot on it.

 

[Kuu]

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/subterranean-machine-dreams-of.html

Have I mentioned how much I love that blog?

 

[Artifice Orisit]

Maybe they put an aimbot on it.

Even aim-bots have their limits, unless it's part of a strong AI.

Then you're utterly screwed.

 

[tom]

You guys read Forever Peace?

There's a global war in which one side has remote control killing machines called "Soldierboys" operated from a distance and treated like a game.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Ender's Game was sort of like this......sort of.

I see remote controlled technology as a natural progression if not behind the times already. Arcades used to be fertile recruiting grounds for the military as the kids playing the games had the skills they were looking for. Hand/eye coordination.

 

[FacetiousPersona]

Maybe they put an aimbot on it.

The UN would sanction them for h4x.

 

[inerTia]

Is this supposed to be a joke? The xbox 360 controller is a terrible aimming device for accuracy critical missions, what are they thinking? Besides I'am not too worried, why is that? Well these machines are easily defeated, they forgot that with deployment of these machines they have unique weaknesses, such as signal interfearence, prone to EMP, latency delay, fuel consumption, environmental weaknesses, ie hot or cold, limited degree of viewing points, there are many ways to defeat it.

If anything I would be more worried about long distance assassinations with such devices. But than again could the robot give precise input about wind, temperature, humidity? and range? and compensation? For the aimbot? maybe, maybe not? But it might still be possible for the human to do it with the robot.

Not sure what the max weapon range is on that rifle, but that round could be fired upto 1200 meters, even up to 1600 or more if your really good!