With the War Against Terror not coming to an end in the foreseeable future, The Department of Defense (DOD) has decided to move towards autonomous vehicles to help save US lives. The DOD has decided that the men and women who have the daunting task of traveling in a vehicle in a combat zone is becoming too risky.
With the increased use of guerrilla-like tactics and roadside bombs becoming harder to defeat, the Pentagon and DOD decided to help this situation with the addition of automated vehicles.
Although some troops travel in tanks, it does not necessarily make them safe. Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) can be designed to take out foot troops and vehicles as large as tanks! The tactics used in war have been some that the US has never encountered, so it makes it hard to determine when, where, and who will be attacking US convoys.
Popular Science says that, “Vehicles would be in a leader-follower system. It involves two humans manning a lead vehicle, and then up to seven other following vehicles are driverless, with autonomous systems guiding them to follow their humans in the lead.” The autonomous vehicles will be armed and able to fire upon enemy contact remotely. They are extremely sophisticated and allow the safe passage of troops or supplies through enemy territory.
Questions:
1. Do you think the money required to make autonomous military vehicles is worth the benefit?
2. How would implementing the autonomous vehicles shape military incursions?
3. Some people have said that making these vehicles autonomous makes war too much like playing a video game, do you agree? Why or why not?
Hey Josh, great blog post! I love the topic you chose. I was just recently discussing with some friends about how the US government, border security, and military should overall increase their use of technology in order to be more effective and efficient.
ReplyDeleteConsidering we spend a large amount of our federal budget already on Military, I am sure we could reallocate some money that is spent on medical expenses of our personnel to rather more technology like the automated military vehicles. As the number of soldiers injured from being put in these kinds of situations would decrease, there would be money left over from a decrease in medical expenses.
Implementing autonomous vehicles would shape military incursions slightly by allowing them to enter more dangerous zones than they would with military personnel in them. This can overall increase the success of missions as it would increase efficiency and mitigate the risk of losing the lives of our soldiers.
Lastly, I do not agree with the opinions of others who believe that autonomous military vehicles are like playing a video game. I believe this is a great method towards saving our soldiers who sacrifice their lives for our freedom and for the safety of others in the country they are in. If we are going to involve ourselves in war, we might as well utilize our technology and put robots and computers at the forefront of war rather than our soldiers. There is a line of ethics that should not be crossed however just because it is not human lives at risk.
Hello Cayla,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to view our blog. We like the idea of allocating some medical to the R&D of these vehicles however, it is important to consider the PR impact. The news would make such a huge deal about taking money from military medical it could possibly blow up in their faces. We feel that it would be better focus on Robotics instead of spending Billions on trying to reconfigure vehicles or weapons that were used in old wars.
You bring up a great point about the utilizing all of the US capability in battle. For individuals who man the drones and have to fire live ammunition in support of the ground troops know how devastating these weapons are and how much damage they cause. It would not make sense for us not to use all available assets to gain a tactical advantage over our enemy.