US Air Force says decision-making attack drones will be here by 2047
By Laura June 
posted Jul 28th 2009 4:28PM
posted Jul 28th 2009 4:28PM
Leave it to the military to dream big. In its recently released "Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047" report, the US Air Force details a drone that could fly over a target and then make the decision whether or not to launch an attack, all without human intervention. The Air Force says that increasingly, humans will monitor situations, rather than be deciders or participants, and that "advances in AI will enable systems to make combat decisions and act within legal and policy constraints without necessarily requiring human input." Programming of the drone will be based on "human intent," with real actual humans monitoring the execution, while retaining the authority and ability to override the system. It's all still extremely vague, with literally no details on exactly how this drone will come into existence, but we do know this: the Air Force plans to have these dudes operational by 2047. We're just holding out to see what those "classified" pages are all about. [Warning: read link is a PDF]
[Via PC World]
Read -Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047
[Via PC World]
yay skynet!
I guess no-one has seen Stealth.
a simple virus would cause this thing to freak out and kill all humans
I'll alert Jessica Biel.
Stealth was a fun movie, be pretty darn scary to have a plane like that on the loose
Yay! Thats what I am thinking too!!
What ever the case -- Skynet or Stealth -- the human race is toast.
Whats the point. The world is going to end in 2012!
No Puggs, that's the London Olympics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lhs7VR52Bg
@Samboini you took the work exactly out of my mouth, or at least off my fingers before I could type them.
He took WHAT out of your mouth!?
Have these people not seen Eagle Eye!!! This is the beginning of the end! Get Shia and his robots on the case quick! We need to put a stop to this!
Sounds completely foolproof.
Bwhahahaha!
The comment of the day, right there.
And yeah, totally sounds like Skynet. And we all know what happens in that movie... plus, guys like John Connor don't exist in real life, so we'll all be f*cked by then and at a mercy of all these people on top, if machines don't take over by then.
One call and Chuck Norris will roundhouse kick it.
Don't worry guys, giving attack drone robots autonomous decision making abilities on who to kill is a GREAT idea. And don't worry, I'm sure the kill switch will still be very useful when it fires 10 homing missiles going 1500MPH back towards the monitoring center.
We can just make autonomous robots to kill the autonomous robots.....oh wait...
Just another step closer to the eventual robot apocalypse.
All this thing means is that they actually have the tech NOW and can't release the classified info. Think about the SR-71, that thing had been around for many decades before it came to light and even then it was because one crashed (I think...). We ('we' being the US) have got stuff way better than smart drones, this is amusing though.
I wish they would just let me see what kind of classified stuff they are hiding... *sigh* :\
this reminds me of a movie i watched, the name escapes me the first one came out a long time ago.
Who cares? It'll all be over in 2012 anyway...
Palin decision-making attack drones. oh noes.
In 2047, attack drones can see you from your house.
Why did this story disappear off the front page? Are the robots rebelling already?
Self-Aware!
am-not!
'Hi this is Skynet. I'm unable to take your call right now, please leave your mortal wailing after the tone and I'll get back to you...'
S**t, I will still be alive when this happens!
Are you sure?
Dy-no-mite!
You'll be too busy with your pleasure-bot to care.
Well, its been fun.
By 2047? If we make it that long, I'll pee.
I'll be 85 then.. I'll be doing nothing but peeing.
The classified documents probably say that they'll be ready by 2014 but not to tell anyone they're in use. :)
They'll have made organic consuming self fueling robots by then who will power themselves off your pee as they carry you around pretending they are your wheel chair and doing you a service.
^ I'd be down with that.
seems completely arbitrary - how would you calculate a 38 year plan?
bet there not operational until 2049
PAPER OR PLASTIC?
Hmmm. Anyone remember the game "Robotron"? It says in the year 2048 that Robotrons will eliminate the human race. This seems about right if these drones will be available in 2047... Scary, huh?
That's 2084, but I love where you were going with that.
Super Stardust HD, Burn Zombie Burn, etc has nothing on Robotron!
LOL! I'm dyslexic... can you tell? :)
Well that won't go horribly wrong and end up killing loads of people it wasn't meant to. Sounds like a great idea.
Don't they realize this is almost the exact way Skynet came into being? Only the best intentions, and a supposedly "fail-safe" system. What happens when they decide the rules shouldn't apply to them? Guess I'd better start working on my underground bunker right away.
Ye, when they drop bomb to civilians, they have a new excuse -- "the drone made the decision". So now who should be responsible for an execution? Who should be punished if a machine made a wrong decision? Who can correct a decision made by a machine? Authorizing a machine to decide when and how to kill people? Crazy.
Obviously the engineers that designed the machines will be held responsible for the actions of their creation. There are projects of unmanned vehicles all over the world, but are being used for useful purposes instead of killing.
Actually, there was a story on NPR about that, regarding UAV's. Who is accountable for what these pieces of hardware does, can a UAV commit a war crime, etc.
The programmer who wrote the algorithm.
there's no way that this could go wrong