I'm dr. Thomas McKenna. I'm a program officer at the Office of Naval Research
So there's substantial losses incurred when you have a major flyer when you can't suppress it at an early stage
Safer is the shipboard autonomous firefighting robot?
And this is a program
That's been going on for about five years basically to develop a humanoid capable of fire suppression
My name is John Farley
I worked at the Naval Research Laboratory
And I'm the director of the Shadwell which is the Navy's fire tension if we have a shipboard fire?
We have to be able to quickly get it under control and then regain the ship's ability to maintain its fighting mission
You know we have not only the ship, but we have ordnance on board, and we have a lot of flammable systems on board
Sometimes it's hard to keep the sailors up to the latest as far as training is concerned sometimes
They could create an environment and make it worse now the robot could be
trained and constantly updated to make sure that the conditions are not as bad as
What a human could make it well our objectives for the demo on the Shadwell were to show that the the robot could walk over
What was a very uneven floor that it could orient itself to the fire that it could?
autonomously
Handle the hose operate the hose
Aim the hose and suppress the fire which it succeeded in I'm Brian Lattimer
I'm an associate professor at Virginia Tech, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering
I think robots are well suited to be sent into those environments and bipedal humanoid
robots are particularly good for those applications because
even in the tight
confined
Conditions that you might have inside of structures these types of robots can be designed to maneuver in those conditions
Safer is an electromechanical robot
So it's driven by batteries and all the motors are electrical so we put a rain gear
Type suit on the robot just to protect it from those types of basic
steam
Particulate and water drop hazards so we have
Visible cameras on board the robot we have something called a lidar which is
a
Rotating laser that gives the location of the points in the field of the view of the robot and then lastly we have
Stereoscopic thermal imaging cameras that the robot uses to
Detect and locate the position of a fire so they can suppress it we combine the notion of
smart sensors in the spaces
micro fliers that can fly it even in smoke go through those extremely narrow doors that it could
locate
fires and
Operate in those hallways even in dense fire smoke, and it's exceeded all those tabs
So today was the first time we came on board an actual Navy ship we were able to
Do a lot of things
Today that we hadn't done previously and you have a lot of hope for new advancements in the future
we have some fundamental issues in robotic mobility that we still have to address as well as
working out the human system integration issues and
Will continue to advance the capability with better and better demonstrations at the current time the robot is
Teleoperated so you have operators standing off with the computer console
where we we intend to go is to have a combination of natural language and
Gesture control, I think the robot has gone through
Amazing transition within four years, and I think it's a worthy investment for a long-term project
But it's going to take a lot of time a lot of dedication and we're working towards
Human-robot team so we call the hybrid force
humans and robots working together
Over the past decade I've watched American troops operate on the frontlines of war in Iraq and Afghanistan
Both as a u.s.. Marine. Then later as a journalist
During that time two things have struck me
First Americans have developed a low tolerance for seeing their soldiers returned home in coffins
and
second
Soldiers are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of new technology
It's now part of their everyday lives
These two trends are shifting the way the u.s.. Fights its Wars
The Pentagon is currently building an army of what it calls unmanned systems
It's their fastest growing arm of development, and there's a momentum to create machines with more autonomous capabilities
robots, which can take certain decisions themselves
But what will this new era of warfare look like?
And do the legal and political structures exist to deal with it
These are big big meta meta changes that are happening in war that
We've got to wrap our heads around so I see this as a very major threat to respect the human rights
What is more going to look like when it's robot versus robot who wins that war and and how can you even tell?
This is the largest gathering of robotics companies in the world
It's organized by a UBS. I the association of unmanned vehicle systems international
Hundreds of private corporations and university researchers are here to show off their latest cutting-edge inventions
And so there's things that we can actually pick up with the gripper use them to defuse a bomb and then put them back
They're all either selling their products or soliciting funds for their projects
And most of them are targeting a single customer with deep pockets the US military
This is an annual conference for the robotics industry in Washington DC years ago. This is a pretty small gathering this year. There'll be over
7,000 attendees it's an enormous business here now it covers everything you'd be surprised what you can find everything from unmanned
boat ships submarines to armed drone
Helicopters and just the air portion of the robotics or unmanned industries this year will be worth 7 billion dollars
In 2009 the US Defense Department earmarked 18 billion dollars over five years for the development of unmanned systems
This boom in military robotics comes off the back of the so called global war on terror
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
along with lethal action in Pakistan and Libya have created a political and strategic space for unmanned robotic systems
It's not a situation where you you're in these big you know formation
operations of fights you're dealing with with very
Explosive very spontaneous events so you need something that's watching all the time and something that's very
Adaptable to be able to move in from one location to another very very quickly the US Air Force is presently training more
unmanned systems operators than its training man fighter plane and man bomb and plane pilots put together
But that actually makes perfect sense because they're actually buying more
Unmanned systems than they're buying man fighter planes or man bomber planes
The number of drones in use by the US military has surged from a handful of 2001 to over 7,000 today
And the number of ground robots has shot from 0 to 12,000
When you start to take a look the amount of robot research funded by the US military is astonishing
Faultlines put in more than 100 requests and follow-ups to the Pentagon military contractors private robotics companies and university research labs
But gaining access to see how these tax dollars are put into use isn't easy
When we could actually get a response it was almost always a firm no
After several months of chasing only a handful agreed to allow us to build
Thar deck was one of them it sits on a base just outside Detroit, Michigan. Just want to try it out
That's it an army research facility from World War two it used to build tanks
Now much of their work is dedicated to robotic technology well
We're looking at here at our deck is unstructured
environments so robots that can move out of out of the area of
Very strict programming so one of the ways of doing that is through teleoperation so we have
No, it's not the classic robot. It's somebody actually controlling something is not a remote-controlled car because doing it through a TV set
All the robots here are collaborations between tar deck and private companies or university labs for both
Companies like iRobot in Bedford, Massachusetts
This is the home of the pack bot one of the first ground-based robots the US military adopted after 9/11
Thousands are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan to defuse improvised explosive devices or IEDs
The old way of doing business was to ask a individual our sons our daughters our brothers our sisters
to mount up one of those heavy cumbersome hot bomb suits and
Literally to waddle out to go face-to-face with an IEP
Today we do that at distance and we do it virtually via robot much much better way to do business
So the interesting thing about this one it's like it weighs about
five pounds or so and
Here's what the military warning?
A robot that you could throw say over a wall or something and then look it writes itself
And now you can see over that wall with the cameras on that robot
With video game-like controllers soldiers can guide recon robots like this one to see over walls, or defuse bombs
These ground-based robots add a buffer between the soldiers that use them and a potential threat whether it's a bomb or a human enemy
But technology designed to save lives can be easily modified to kill
the step between
Putting a laser beam on someone's forehead
It's not a technological leap to then putting a bullet in their forehead
It's actually a legal political question. We feel strongly and ethically that there has to be a man in the loop
If you look at the history of any military technology it typically starts in reconnaissance
Then becomes frustrated that you see bad happenings, but can't deal with them, and it evolves to strike
Really the technology will happen. It's how we're going to deal with that technology
While the idea of arming ground robots still seems taboo in the air it's a line that has long been crossed
At a Utah, Army testing facility the military has invited members of the media to a display of its unmanned aerial systems
We're gonna showcase that entire package for you here today in a way that I think
It's gonna really resonate with once you see what's inside of behind the curtain
It's the largest drone demonstration the US Defense Department has ever allowed to be filmed
As the drones fly overhead journalists watch the mock operation from inside a hangar
From 7,000 meters in the air the grey eagle plus its target
It's estimated that the Pentagon will invest nearly 37 billion dollars toward drone development through 2020
Advancing unmanned systems more than piloted aircraft. Oh, I think it's fundamentally change warfare
I think it's fundamentally change where we operate
I think eventually it's gonna find a million change the way we live in the United States
And now we have a technology that allows you to carry out acts of force without having to think about some of the consequences
the political consequences of sending sons or daughters into harm's way so in my mind the the
Barriers to war in our society they were already being lowered
Now we have a technology that literally takes those barriers to the ground
All of which make it such an attractive tool for the US, but drones are some of the most controversial weapons in the American arsenal
Particularly in their use for targeted killings a phrase first termed under the Bush administration's so-called war on terror
to use lethal force against specific individuals
It means killing people often outside official war zones
The program has been ramped up under the Obama administration in places where there would be very serious
geopolitical ramifications and the ramifications of American lives
Being placed on the ground even those dangerous situations the drone appears like a silver bullet
Pakistan has borne the brunt of this silver bullet
And it's all secret the CIA not the military runs the Pakistani drone program
The CIA is not required to offer any information about its operations
How its Lexus targets who's in charge?
And how many people are killed and the Obama administration will not officially discuss the CIA drone program?
Not even to confirm, or deny its existence
If they can't even say the word
Where's the accountability?
How could we even know how well this program is working even if you want to put aside the questions about whether we should be?
using drones as
Instruments of war there's just so little
Transparency and so much opacity when it comes to this program
What it belongs to the CIA that some people now think if it belonged to the military you could at least get?
More insight into how it works, and then debate about whether it should be run this way
Reportedly civilians and private contractors control the CIA drones pushing a button from their offices thousands of miles away in Langley, Virginia
At the time this film was made there have been 308 drone strikes reported in Pakistan since 2004
256 of those under President Obama that figure could be far higher
Over 200 strikes hit the region of Waziristan alone roughly one attack every four days
conservative estimates put the total number of deaths around
2900 of those over
750 were civilians including
175 children and at least 1,100 people have been injured
The CIA and the Obama administration have extended these strikes to Yemen and Somalia and according to recent US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks
the United States is building secret drone bases in places like Ethiopia and the Seychelles an
indication that Washington wants to increase surveillance and strikes in the region
At least a dozen strikes have been carried out in Yemen one of which in late September killed
Anwar al-awlaki an american-born Imam with alleged ties to al-qaeda
the willingness to target and kill a US citizen
Provides just one example of how this secret war often operates beyond recognized legal boundaries
if a
Intelligence operation carries out an airstrike that goes awry that accidentally kills civilians that violates the rules of engagement
There's not a court-martial
process set up for that there is
In my view at the end of the day no accountability for what is going on now
Philip Austen spent six years studying the legality of the US drone program for the United Nations
Human Rights Council the congressional committees have as far as anyone knows never
Exercised oversight in any specific way in relation to these killings. He says that the American government's justification for the strikes
Self-defense in response to 9/11 even now ten years later is a manipulation of the international laws governing conflict
Now in terms of international law that represents the fundamental breakdown in what are called the rules on the use of force
It would enable the United States to use force against any target any country any time
Following 9/11
Congress passed a resolution called the authorization for use of military force or
AUMF
It allows the u.s.. President to use military force
Anywhere against people believed to be responsible for 9/11 and when the Obama administration
Has been asked what authorities do you possess to go you know into Yemen to go into Somalia?
Even you know outside Afghanistan into Pakistan
For the purposes of attacking people that you say are aligned with al-qaeda. They use the AUMF. I think the u.s.
is certainly risking setting itself up for a
significant
global backlash against its
extension of power extraterritorially
But the bigger problem of course is other states saying well. This is the norm you do it. Why shouldn't we do it?
The UN Human Rights Council has taken no action to further investigate the legality of the US drone program
While the US continues to expand the program
45 other nations are working on their own drones
many being sold on the open market and
The rush to turn out robotic military systems who buys these technologies, and how they're used has minimal international oversight
in
Short the law is not keeping up with the pace of development you
know technology doesn't stop and that's I think one thing that people need to realize is that accelerating ever faster, not just in the
number that we're using it
But how advanced it is the accelerated pace of development is such that it is
inevitable that we are creating machines that are going to be able to do things we cannot currently conceive of them doing I think if
The United States were serious part of this major program - if you want to create a word - robot eyes
It's war making functions would be to build in
various safeguards designed to ensure respect for the laws of war
there has been a mad dash for advancement with very little consideration for
How that advancement will play out against the human society and Rita J
King is a futurist who studies the potential dangers that technological advances and robotics and artificial intelligence can bring
Within the United States you have the military and then you have you know private business
And you have universities so all these different groups are doing their own research and their own creations at different paces
and eventually there will be more of a coming together of these different aspects of the programming and the creations and
We will cross the line
In a university lab at Virginia Tech
Professor Dennis Hogg and his students work on a robotic soccer team the real thing is if you want to use these
Robots outside the lab in new life doing real work then
Without all the skills needed to playing soccer it won't happen
So we're actually it's a really good controlled competition where it can develop all the technologies needed for robots to be used in real life
Virginia Tech's funding comes from a variety of sources
These robots are part of a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation
But they also take on projects financed by the US military
So as a research lab the technology we do we want the society to be using our technology of course?
Many of our robotics projects most of them not all of them are to really to help the society
But here they recognize that the technology's ultimate use its
Unpredictable time to time as a group we sit down and discuss about these kind of problems
Mainly it's very sensitive especially for we work on military funded projects and those kind of things, but many times
We don't have any control once it leaves our hands. However. That's true for any technologies any science besides robotics as well
It's hard to put a timeline on how fast robots and artificial intelligence will develop
But almost everyone we spoke to seemed to believe that in just a few decades
The robots that will exist in our world will be unrecognizable
by today's standards
I
Think the probability is virtually one a certainty that
Machines will be as intelligent as people that we will have intelligent robots that robots will be ubiquitous so then
the consensus of
people in the industry is
somewhere around
2025 2030
You know and even if you would say well. That's optimistic so maybe it's 2050
You know maybe some of us won't be around to see it perhaps, but it's not that far in the future
It's not a thousand years. It's not five hundred years
It's certainly not never when people say machines will never be as
Smart as people never is a very long time
the robots that we create could of course eventually will become much smarter than we are and
Because they're smarter than us
We won't be able to conceive of how smart they are
And we'll have no control over that and I don't think our brains are really equipped to
Accept the enormity of what that means because we do find ourselves intelligent now science-fiction stories have always made predictions about
Conflict between machines and people the way to avoid that is for humans to always be at least as intelligent as their machines
While we may not know exactly if or when robots will become as intelligent as humans
An AUV aside the talk of autonomy of military robots taking more decisions by themselves
There's growing techniques
You know work on the next generation of autonomy maybe before it's really needed to show where it can go
General Riggs talked about unfair advantage, and I'm in full agreement with him. We want unfair advantage we want lots of unfair advantage
Why shouldn't we in unmanned systems and especially weaponized unmanned systems
Clearly provide a huge advantage
So how far will robot autonomy go and will a robot ever be allowed to make the ultimate decision to take a human life
Officially the US military claims there will always be a man in the loop
That a human will always make the decision to kill
But there are signs that this may not always be the case in
2006 the army funded a major study to find out if lethal autonomous robots could be programmed to act ethically on the battlefield
There's a long and rich history of war crimes in every war
We try and train our soldiers and soldiers are instructed in this
But we are human beings and there is emotions there's anger fear frustration
We don't have to put those in autonomous systems
We can engineer out the emotions that get in the way run Arkin a professor at Georgia Tech
Worked on this study and argues that robots can be more ethical than human soldiers
Even in decisions to kill by programming and what he calls found in morality is you?
establish a venue a region or a
Task environment or a mission under which the system is operating and you engineer that system to make sure that it acts
appropriately under those particular circumstances whether it makes that decision
what to fire at and when to fire and who to fire on
that I think is a critical decision that we should that we already sort of ritualize within the military decision process, and we shouldn't
Relinquish that there's reasons to deny people their right to life self-defense
Intervening on behalf of another to defend their life, but um those are decisions that human agents and moral agents should be making and not
Automatic processes, I will never ever make the claim that these systems will be perfect
But I do make the claim that I have law I do may I have the belief that these systems can
outperform human beings in the battlefield ultimately from an ethical perspective
We do have a moral responsibility to try to prevent this and to not
invest our time and energy and resources as
Scientists as a society into building a technology that has that of capacity to kill people on its own
But for now there are no signs that research like this will stop
Because there's an assumption that underlies not only Arkans work, but also the billions spent on defense
The assumption that war will always continue
War is a very cultural thing
It's a kind of social deliberation instead of a moral deliberation or cultural deliberation if you will like how do we want to?
Fight wars what is it to be a warrior in the society?
And what is this society decide that war is about and is good for?
In the past battles had formal boundaries and ends
Where each side had to bury their own?
but as more robots go to war on behalf of humans mistake to society hold as
killing becomes more automated does it make war all too easy, so I think that is a big issue as far as
What these technologies are going to do and making more much easier to become involved in and really detaching?
especially in the United States the American public from its sense of
responsibility and moral and social deliberation that should go into deciding when the wars occur a
Lot of people say well, why don't we stop working on this technology?
There's a problem though. You'd have to
Stop science it means you'd also have to first stop war and stop capitalism
And there's such a vast amount of money that goes into
Thinking about defense problems and solving defense problems that if we turned that time and energy and resources
into solving more practical problems
We would actually probably alleviate most of the social and political problems
that cause us to
defense and security concerns
And the fact of the matter is that most of the funding was going into robot research of course is to create a better war
Machine and to what end they demonstrates how far we are from the sort of intelligence we need to build
Robots that can help us instead of her
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