Another "Sci-fi in the here & now" moment No doubt playing on the fictional comic book anti-hero (or maybe its just coincidence)… It is the future of war for soldiers in the field of battle. It’s an exoskeleton that aids in endurance and strength. Whilst researching my book, as well as following up on an article I wrote a couple of months ago on “Killer Robots: when sci-fi meets reality today” (click on the "Killer Robots" link in the archives), I stumbled upon this piece on a futuristic exoskeleton by Lockheed Martin (there are competitors). It’s practically a precursor to the full self-actuating body armour you see in many science fiction war stories. ONLY, this is not fiction… For a while the role of the foot soldier has been debated, what with the wave of modern war machines and the video-game-like drones, where pulling a trigger means pressing a button on a hi-tech device in a remote location. However, Special Forces regiments continue to illustrate their effectiveness. All modern covert operations involving the apprehension of a high profile international criminal/terrorist has been carried out by men of unparalleled training. You’ve probably by now heard of SEAL Team 6 and the Osama Bin Laden operation (now the subject of an award winning film), or the Special Forces originals, the SAS… but virtually every country in the world has an elite force that doesn’t get the publicity of the two mentioned here. They’re always small in number and fight odds well out of their favour. However the HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) project has been developed to improve the capabilities of soldiers – enabling them to carry bigger loads for longer distances, with the ultimate goal being to eventually develop super soldiers… the journey does not end there though. The HULC exoskeleton may be an external addition to the conventional fighting force, but for a long time, governments have been at work trying to develop the perfect soldier, using any and all methods… including mind control, or hypnosis, specific scientific drug use and anything falling within the realm of mental conditioning. The latter just so happens to be a facet of my next book. Here's a look at the Lockheed Martin HULC promotional demo: It was while researching the topics of mental manipulation, mind control etc that I explored TMS or "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation". This is literally involves using magnetism to temporarily improve higher brain functions. In the field of neuroscience, it's particular use is targeted, in this instance, at the military, specifically at improving soldiers cognitive resources under duress or extreme fatigue. Apparently some subjects demonstrated "Rain man" type capabilities when under TMS. This is all in the quest to develop the Super soldier, mind you, bringing two concepts together - that of numbing the human brain's responsiveness to stress, effectively making them more like a machine than ever before; begging the question: when does it stop, and at what point do we regard this sort of thing as forfeiting our humanity. Here's the link to the article on Super Soldiers which was published a little over a year ago on The Independent. Are we moving from this: To this:
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Wallpaper from cyberdyne-systems.fr article by Steven Benjamin (2012) When Terminator was released in the mid-eighties, it was hailed and would later prove to be a trend setting film, re-establishing the thought process of science fiction films. A key element in it's success, was the plausibility, or perceived plausibility of some of the events. It wasn’t that people thought “Robots from the future will send terminators back in time to kill off our future resistance fighter leaders, effectively winning the war before it begins”, but everyone recognized the distinct possibility that sometime in the future, if technology continued on the progressive path it was, and still is on, artificial intelligence and ‘robots’, could bite back eventually. In other words, it wasn’t that difficult to connect the proverbial dots, much like the thought provoking film ‘Children of Men’ – chronicling a near future wherein women are unable to give birth – an occurrence that has been noted and experienced in various areas for a variety of different reasons. So, how close are we to developing a system that mirrors that of the fictional ‘SkyNet’ or ‘Cyberdyne Systems’? The truth is, we’re not that far off… Tesla book cover. The first thing that might come to mind when you hear “Killer Robots”, is most likely Drones, aka UAV’s (Unmanned aerial vehicles), scout machines, drone boats etc. which are developed and used by several countries including the USA, Israel, China, Russia, Germany, et al. Basically very large remote controlled airplanes in military use. Nicola Tesla (the man/genius who gave us the AC motor, neon lights and the remote control, among many other inventions) spoke of unmanned aerial fleets as early as 1915, so the idea is anything but new. Killer Robots though, are something quite different. Whereas Drones always have a person operating it via satellite from some military base, ‘Killer Robots’ are autonomous – meaning there is little or no human involvement when the machine does inevitably pull the trigger. The Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense system is one such machine/program which operates autonomously, ‘sensing’ incoming rocket fire and relaying messages to operators (human) who then take action. Many human and civil rights watches have led inquiries and protests of such weapon use, calling for greater care and conducting further intensive investigations, stating that in a few decades, the global military scene could be largely autonomous… And how safe would we all feel then? Here's a look at some, albeit crude looking, robots from DARPA - think of them as today's version of SkyNet... I suggest you Google DARPA on look for their videos on youtube, such as the Big Dog, humanoids and the Sand Flee (an small autonomous robots that can jump onto rooftops or scale fences)... Special Forces on tumblr This is simply natural progression. Military's have sought and trained the veritable perfect soldiers, legions of Special Forces, then they sought to create ideal weapons to kill with minimum risk to human life (on the side of the ones doing the killing anyway)… meaning the highly contested chess match of the world’s super powers can now make their moves and issue their action orders – to be carried out almost instantaneously… And that, without even the touch of a button, because ‘autonomous’ means the machines will pre-empt the decision, practically eliminating the human power game and guidance. Effectively this will not only redefine war, but it will redefine what constitutes an act of war, infringing on the rules of engagement, and removing much of the element of accountability in the inevitable transgression of the parameters of said war. - “If you have an autonomous robot then it’s going to make decisions who to kill, when to kill and where to kill them. The scary thing is that the reason this has to happen is because of mission complexity and also so that when there’s a problem with communications you can send a robot in with no communication and it will decide who to kill, and that is really worrying to me.” – Noel Sharkey (2008) – Prof. of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield. Many, if not all of the world’s super powers have committed war crimes, including the very initial (catalyst) act of war itself – Vietnam, Iraq… yet they’ve gone unpunished and largely unnoticed by an uninformed or misinformed public. So how much can the powers-that-be get away with in the future… and what happens when that power is taken from them by the very things they created… It could be called the ‘Frankenstein complex’… Man, we’ve always been our own worst enemy. It’s not all doom and gloom though. Autonomous Robots have also been deployed in disaster relief efforts, and let’s not forget bomb disposal robots. DARPA (the USA’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is often associated with such projects. Many robots are developed with humble and often good intentions, but governments more often than not take those designs, concepts and prototypes and inevitably weaponize them. From humble beginnings, SkyNet was born… Welcome to the bizarre, and the creepy of modern robotics, and think to yourself; if this is what they publicise, what they let us know about, what don’t we know, and what the heck is already in use today? In any event, however crude these 'bots may look, give them 10/15 years... “We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true.” - Nikola Tesla For a list of 10 inventions by Nikola Tesla, click here Amendment (20/12/2012): Skynet does exist... ... and by that very name too! It is in actual fact a series, or "family", of satellites, the first of which, Skynet 1 was launched in 1969 (the series, which was last updated, or shall I say the youngest addition was welcomed to the family just a few days ago with the launch of Skynet 5 - *report TBC) - predating the fictional Terminator version by a decade and a half. FYI, the Brits and NATO 'owns' the family... Of course we all know about satellites and the technology they possess - being able to look into your backyard, powerful enough to detect the color of your eyes etc... and that actual privacy is a remnant idea of the past - it is amazing however, just how powerless we are to this encroachment. This is the type of information most people know about without actually truly knowing about it, though it was highlighted for me quite recently, and quite plainly, by a highly qualified industry insider, opening my eyes a bit wider to the devious ways of 'Big Brother'. Predictions are widely set at 2060 - the time whereabouts the existence of a Technological singularity will emerge (a self aware AI supercomputer) - though I do have my own opinions and misgivings about this - beyond that date, experts believe the future to be, well, 'an unpredictable crapshoot' (my words)... In man's continuous attempts to create an independent artificially intelligent entity, I keep asking myself "Why? For what purpose?" and "to what end?" |
[Banner illustration by Joel Kanar]
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