The next generation of autonomous robotic warriors

The Independent on Sunday:

Rather like a dog with a rubber bone, the Crusher likes to toy with its prey. After first sizing it up, it leaps, rolling and gripping its target until it is sufficiently chewed up and “dead”. Unlike a dog, the Crusher is capable of performing this feat on a line of parked cars.

More disturbingly, this six-tonne, six-wheeled monster developed for America’s Department of Defence and otherwise known as the Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle, or UGV, can pounce without the intervention or say-so of a human operator. It is an ability which, in theory, can stretch to firing the machine-gun mounted on its roof.

The UGV is a forerunner of what many in the defence world believe is the next quantum leap in warfare – a generation of fully autonomous weapons which would be capable of crossing one of the great Rubicons of modern conflict by “deciding” for themselves when to take human life. In the words of one US general, they are the harbingers of an age where “death by algorithm is the ultimate indignity”.

But as a result of a decision taken in a Geneva conference room today, Crusher and its cousins – dubbed “killer robots” – could now be equally on the road to extinction after a vote by the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons (CWC) which would pave the way to a global ban on autonomous weapons.

The unanimous vote means a multi-nation assessment of the technology will now begin, with the aim of yielding a “pre-emptive” prohibition before prototypes such as the Crusher become fully authorised weapons rolling off production lines from Texas to Beijing.
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History shows mixed results at trying to ban weapons.  While there has been limited success in banning chemical and biological weapons, attempts to limit the number of battleships led to increased reliance on aircraft carriers.

Speaking of which the US Navy is already testing a drone that might fit the definition of an autonomous weapon system, that will be a key response to the Chinese carrier killer missiles.  I don't see the US giving up that response in a sane world.   The X-47B has an extended range that a manned plane cannot allowing the stealth aircraft to launch well out of the range of the Chinese defenses.

Here is a live fire drill by a robotic weapon with people standing around like they are watching a ditch digger: