Casual Fridays

P.W. Singer has written a very interesting book in "Wired for War: The Robotic Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century." This is his third release in six years - impressive, considering the 438 pages of this tome. If you want a technical discussion and evaluation of the value of robots in war, this isn't the book for you. Instead, Singer takes a journey into the history of robotics, the military's past work with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sudden love affair with robotics after 2003, the pros and cons of using robots in combat operations, and what the future might show.

Singer's success in this book is how he has addressed the social, technical, military, and ethical aspects of the robot revolution. It is a relatively recent technical explosion of activity, but as Singer shows, the social impact of robotics go back decades. Still, the desire to use unmanned systems to augment and replace human frailties has been strong, especially in warfare. The more recent advances in robotics, added to military concepts of operation in urban areas and social comfort with electronics, has led to a Revolution in Military Affairs - of sorts. We may not be there completely.

Singer has talked to a large number of people for this book, and just when you think you can't stand all the positive statements from industry leaders, he flips over to the many existing challenges of operating autonomous robots in the field. What happens when the computer-guided robot armed with an M16 rifle drives off the road, comes back toward you instead of going toward the enemy, or starts spinning around in circles? What happens when the enemy - say, for instance, Muslim insurgents - decides that they are the human resistance fighting the Terminator machines? What if using robots - even Predators and Global Hawks - convinces your enemy that you are too cowardly to fight in person, and that emboldens them?

Using robots isn't that simple. There is no doubt that we've turned the corner, but it appears that we've only started taking advantage of what robots can do. There's no question that we need to continue forward, but Singer warns us that there are social consequences to think about. If robots do all the fighting, will the public or our politicians be deterred from fighting bloody wars? Or, as long as our kids aren't dieing, does that make war okay? There are no easy answers here.

I enjoyed this book - it was an easy read that crossed a number of relevant topics, and Singer certainly interviewed enough people. They include not just civilian experts in industry and academia, but also military leaders and social analysts. He goes off the reservation occasionally - I didn't quite get the excursion into the philosophy of science fiction or the contributions of the SIGMA group. I thought including Ralph Peter's views of military strategy was really unnecessary (really, P.W.? Ralph Peters? Was every other military futurist busy?). Fellow blogger LTC Bob Bateman is in here along with Lawrence Korb, which helps counterbalance Peters.

And there's this gadfly who keeps commenting throughout this book, some guy named Noah Shachtman... Singer says that Noah hosts "the best site for data and discussion on future technology on the entire Internet." Well. I don't know about that. But the book is worth the price of admission if you want to understand where we are in the robotic revolution. 

UPDATE: Singer op-end in today's Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE II: Singer on The Daily Show. Dude gets around.

Comments

[Belphagor1527]

If you haven't read it, I'd also recommend his book on private military contractors which was quite good.

[Ray]

Is there a science fiction plot or storyline that some nation's weapons, robotic or not, have become so efficient, so superior, over an enemy that they have nothing other than nuclear weapons to resort to?
R.

[Sven Ortmann]

Noah's website is Wired's Danger Room, ranked #50 at Technorati.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/
He founded Defensetech earlier, but that went downhill without him for a while till the new operator had learned some lessons.

Danger Room seems to be a testing ground for about a dozen journalists; they drop short stories there and get valuable feedback in replies (swarm intelligence if you want).
There's always someone who writes so if a short article misses a major point.

[J.]

Ah, Sven, if you look on the list of contributing journalists, I'm one of them. Could not resist a dig at my virtual boss. Noah's a great guy to work for, Danger Room's got some tougher standards than my blog, but it keeps me sharp.

[Sven Ortmann]

Oops, sorry.
This happens to me when I open tabs for all 19 blogs linked on my own blog for a bi-weekly content check.
Too much at once, I guess.

Was I correct about the testing ground thing?

[Kilo]

I saw him on TDS. He's in his 30s?????