Let Slip the Robot Dogs of War

“These dogs volition beryllium an other acceptable of eyes and ears portion computing ample amounts of information astatine strategical locations passim Tyndall Air Force Base,” Major Jordan Criss, 325th Security Forces Squadron commander, said of the systems during archetypal investigating successful precocious 2020. “They volition beryllium a immense enhancement for our defenders and let flexibility successful the posting and effect of our personnel.”

In the intervening years, robot dogs person go an increasingly communal fixture crossed the US military, beyond patrolling delicate installations. In July 2023, Minot Air Force Base successful North Dakota introduced robot dogs to alteration airmen to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, and atomic threats “without risking the information of themselves oregon others.” In August, Patrick Space Force Base successful Florida added robot dogs to its perimeter information rotation for an “additional detection and alert capability.” That aforesaid month, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division, announced the employment of robot dogs to “build 3-D vessel models aboard the ‘mothballed’ fleet of decommissioned ships astatine the Philadelphia Navy Yard,” portion the Coast Guard unveiled four-legged “droid” dogs successful Hawaii to “combat weapons of wide destruction.” Finally, successful November, airmen astatine Barksdale Air Force Base successful Louisiana debuted robot dogs for explosive ordnance disposal.

Despite these applicable noncombat applications, immoderate robotics companies person had an oculus connected weaponization. In October 2021, Ghost Robotics showed off a alleged “Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle,” oregon SPUR, quadrupedal robot with an 6.5-mm Creedmoor battle firearm developed by SWORD International mounted connected its backmost during an yearly Army weapons expo successful Washington, DC, successful the archetypal nationalist illustration of a robot canine equipped with a firearm. The pursuing year, a video of a robot canine outfitted with a PP-19 Vityaz submachine weapon by Russian entrepreneur Alexander Atamov quickly went viral connected YouTube and Twitter. By 2023, an American institution had debuted a robot canine with a flamethrower strapped to its back, albeit not explicitly for subject usage (no longer fielded to US soldiers, utilizing flamethrowers against force combatants is technically not prohibited). Like the Predator drone, you can’t physique a caller robot without idiosyncratic slapping a limb connected it.

Cry Havoc

The nationalist reception to weaponized robot dogs is overwhelmingly defined by interest mixed with discomfort, particularly fixed the emergence of autonomous oregon semiautonomous limb systems that tin independently way and place targets. Even beyond the accepted invocation of Terminator-inspired techno-anxiety, the robot dogs look eerily reminiscent of the menacing mechanized canines of Black Mirror.

Part of the creep origin stems from the “uncanny valley,” says Singer, invoking the intelligence improvement successful which robots that look and enactment almost-but-not-quite earthy extremity up unnerving their quality observers. “On the engineering side, these robots instrumentality inspiration from nature, since existent dogs are, done evolution, designed to run truly good successful the field,” Singer says. “As a result, we furniture our beliefs astir these types of creatures connected apical of ‘bioinspired’ robots, and the much thing acts lifelike but not likelike, the much we respond with fearfulness oregon disgust.”