The SkyNet Alpha

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This hasn't been the best two weeks for those of us concerned about the increasing sophistication of military robots and artificial intelligence networks:

"A van full of insurgents speeds through the desert. They do not notice a series of networked ground sensors that have begun tracking their every move.
Hovering somewhere overhead, a tiny robot points its camera at the van and takes note of its color scheme and markings. An even bigger drone, thousands of feet above its hovering kin, maintains a God’s-eye vigil on the whole hunt.
Everything these robots see is radioed to monitors thousands of miles away -- and into the targeting systems of a B-52 bomber winging, silent and nearly invisible, several miles overhead.
This scenario, played out at a remote Nevada facility last week, was the first major test of the Army’s $160-billion, 20-year plan to build a high-tech family of networked robots and hybrid-electric armored vehicles. The “Future Combat Systems” program, co-managed by Boeing and consultants SAIC, aims to equip roughly a third of the Army with 14 new vehicle types that are connected constantly to a vast communications net.
The theory behind the FCS is that dispersed, intelligent robotic systems plugged into a universal communications network can help small numbers of U.S. troops riding in new vehicles to control huge swaths of terrain. Any ship, airplane or tank fitted with the FCS network devices will be able to see everything the others see.
The SkyNet-like network and dynamic coordination “is the most important thing,” Brigadier General James Terry says."

Read the full story here.