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Old 04-08-2019, 08:59 AM
unkated unkated is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Eastern Massachusetts
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Default Army of None by Paul Scharre

Paul Scharre has worked for 10 years in the policy side of robotic warfare. He has put together a book (Army of None) about recent development of autonomous weapons, directions that technology is heading, and the (US) government and military policies regarding that development.

Hmm. That reads a bit dry. But then, so does the book. It is a sober view of the development of autonomous weapons and the direction and capabilities of current technologic developments (published 2018). He has some excellent access to heads of technology development and policy inside the US military.

Army of None is even-handed on the question of where development should go. Essentially, after talking about what can be done, Mr. Scharre points out potential good uses of autonomous weapons and bad ones and basically says we need to think these out and choose now, because the capability to create fully autonomous weapons system is very close. Of course, the question becomes what do you want autonomous weapons systems to do; their discrimination and judgement regarding targets is far from perfect.

My major objection to the book is that Mr. Scharre's sources are 90% American, perhaps 6% British, and 4% Israeli (for technology) and there is little presentation about Chinese or Russian capabilities, or about anyone else's policies (beyond a few published comments).

If you have any interest in the current state of this area of weapons capability, this is a good read (or listen; it is available as an audiobook).

Uncle Ted
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