Wired for War by P.W.Singer. "The US Army's Future Combat Systems program calls for one third of their fighting strength to be robots by 2015. The American pilots seeing the most combat in Iraq and Afghanistan right now do so from flight consoles in the United States, and they are controlling Predator unmanned vehicles. Every branch of the US military has aggressive robotics programs in place. This is not anything unusual. Other nations are also developing and purchasing robotic systems designed to be used in combat. Advances in communications, software and hardware make it inevitable that robotics will have a profound effect on conflict in the future. The development of these systems has been rapid, and while technology hurtles forward, culture and understanding seem to lag behind. Similar to the way our legal codes are playing catch-up with new technologies, combat-enabled robots raise questions and issues that did not even exist a short time ago. Wired for War by Dr. P. W. Singer is an excellent opportunity for anyone interested to dive into just what is going on all over the world with regards to robotics and their use by the military.
Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. His focus and study on changes in modern warfare have made him one of the world's top experts on the nature of modern day combat as well as what developments are likely to come. Singer is an academic, but Wired for War is not a strictly academic approach to the issue of robots in war. He has made an intentional effort to make the book approachable, delivering a large amount of information wrapped in the context of popular culture and current events. The average geek is going to feel right at home in the sea of references made throughout the book as they often turn on sci-fi. This is not to say that the book dwells in a possible future of far-flung vaporware. Wired for War is divided into two large sections. The first is "The Change We are Creating" and deals with the definition, history and current technology of robotics. Some of this is talking about robotics in general but primarily with a view to military applications. Singer makes it clear that he believes that robotics is going to have a huge impact on many more areas of society and culture, but war is the focus of this work. The last chapter of the first section, "The Refuseniks: The Roboticists Who Just Say No" is an interesting look at those who are not comfortable with the direction they see technology being deployed. It makes for a very natural segue into the second section, "What Change is Creating for Us". It also serves as an excellent illustration of just what Singer does in this book. There is not a lot of highly technical detail or information. The discussion of various technologies in play deals primarily with capabilities available as opposed to how those capabilities are achieved. This is in keeping with Singer's stated desire to keep the book open to a wide audience. It also serves to reinforce what I believe is the real purpose of the book, though it is more subtly stated. That purpose is to educate the members of democracies on what is going on in the militaries of their nations, so that they can be more informed in how they participate in the political process. This is as much a sociology book as it is a technology book and as much as it gives insight into how the military uses technology it also gives insight into military trends and subcultures. Primarily the examples given and information shared deal with the U.S. military. The Chinese military gets some time as well but it is quite small in comparison. more... http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/10/132236 _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
