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The Military Science

Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' (vice.com) 98

Posted by BeauHD from the future-warfare dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Wednesday, a group of military and military-adjacent scientists gathered at a conference to discuss the possibility of creating a super soldier. They discussed breeding programs, Marvel movies, The Matrix, and the various technologies the Pentagon is researching with the goal of creating a real life super soldier complete with cybernetic implants and thorny ethical issues surrounding bodily autonomy. The talk happened at the The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference, or I/ITSEC, an annual conference where military leaders come to talk shop and simulation corporations gather to demo new products. It's the kind of place where execs and generals don virtual reality helmets and talk about the virtues of VR sims. You could even catch members of congress talking about the importance of simulations and war. "Winning the war of cognition by pushing readiness and lethality boundaries," reads the official poster for the 2019 I/ITSEC.

It was here, in Orlando, Florida, where five illustrious members of the military-industrial complex gathered to discuss super soldiers at the "Black Swan -- Dawn of the Super Soldier" panel. Lauren Reinerman-Jones, an analyst from Defense Acquisition University, moderated a panel that included U.S. Army Developmental Command representatives George Matook and Irwin Hudson, research scientist J.J. Walcutt, and Richard McKinley, who works on "non-invasive brain stimulation" for the Air Force. I/TSEC advertised the panel in its program with a picture of the experts next to a posing Master Chief, the genetically enhanced super soldier from the Halo video game franchise. Throughout the conversation, which covered the nuts and bolts of what's possible now and what's about to be possible along with various ethical concerns, references to science fiction and fantasy stories were common. Some of the ideas discussed include synthetic blood, pain-numbing stimulants, limb regeneration, and non-invasive brain stimulation. The discussion references the John Scalzi book about a near future where Earth wages war by offering the elderly new youthful bodies in exchange for military service.

They also discuss the ethical and legal concerns surrounding the creation of super soldiers, as well as the societal norms and potential risks. "What risks are we willing to take? There's all these wonderful things we can do," Matook said. "We don't want a fair fight. We really don't, this is not an honorable thing. We want our guys to be over-matching any possible enemies, right? So why aren't we giving them pharmaceutical enhancements? Why are we making them run all week when we could just be giving them steroids? There's all these other things you could do if you change societal norms and ethics. And laws, in some cases."

The discussion concludes with considerations about the long-term effects, reversibility of enhancements, and the potential ownership of enhanced individuals by the government. "So if you do these kinds of changes to an individual, what do you do when their service is up? What happens? Or are they just literally owned by the government for life," asks Reinerman-Jones. Hudson replied with a grim joke: "Termination."
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Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' More

Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers'

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  • Kinda makes you wonder (Score:3)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @10:48PM (#64048169)

    Haven't we learned anything from Khan and The Borg?

    In short, biological and mechanical manipulation of humanity threatens to destroy and/or enslave us all.

    • Maybe...but some people want to be enslaved. Take this for example:

      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

      We already know from past conversations that he's an automaton, that he wants to be owned by the state in the name of equality, and he considers liberty to be unimportant. But as you can see here, he also wants to be given steroids and hormones so that he can get out of his basement and get laid.

      He...may be on to something. Sure, that last bit will never happen, but the Pentagon doesn't need that. If the expe

    • I'm wondering if they realised they were in the real world and not at Worldcon. Did anyone think of asking them?

      • Sometimes I want to, but usually I don't because I'm afraid of the answers I could get.

        • In know what you mean. I once ran into some Air Force general, Jack D. Ripper I think his name was, who had some pretty strange ideas about potential threats to the US. It was like he was some character out of a movie plot.

          • I know what you mean.

            Back in my army days, at a time I was responsible for collecting the daily reports from the various outposts we had, and of course 99% of these reports were "nothing to report", because, you know, it wasn't like there was a war going on or anything. So I asked my captain why the hell they report about nothing and his response, without even the hint of exaggeration or joking, was "Because that way we know that they were not wiped out by an atomic first strike".

            I stared at him and didn't

          • ...You ever see a Commie drink a glass of water?

  • The problem with soldiers is (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @11:38PM (#64048255)

    When the war's over, soldiers come home. Take a normal human and put them through a war, they come back at least a little traumatized.

    Try rebuilding someone into a 'super-soldier' with a combination of mechanical and chemical means... and you're going to have a whole new kind of 'going postal' after the next war.

    • I should add that I'm absolutely not against the kind of tech that makes war less traumatic for a soldier. Like drugs that inhibit PTSD if taken immediately after a traumatic incident, for instance.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by noodler ( 724788 )

        So they can forget and never talk again about the horrific and immoral things they were made to do? Yeah, that's going to work out just fine...

         

    • If you can find it, I would suggest an old SF novel called "War Games" by Karl Hansen. I read it a lot of years ago, and I'm not 100% sure how well it would stand up, but it was a very interesting look at exactly this problem.

    • You'll mostly have a whole new level of shell shock.

      Oh. Sorry. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

      Or is that also already too direct and decipherable so we actually understand what these people go through and we invented a new bullshit label to remove the humanity even more completely from it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Really? I guess we all have different takes on things but I don't think shell shock sounds like the long term negative psychological condition that PTS can be. Shell shock doesn't even sound like a legitimate psychological problem, it sounds more like one of those old timey disease or disorder names for stuff that didn't exist.

        • Shell shock is real and was the colloquial name for PTSD at a time before PTSD was a condition studied by psychology. In fact, it's likely the identification of the problem as "shell shock" and its facilitation of a common way to talk about the problem that enabled it to get caught up in the post-Vietnam zeitgeist and normalized to where psychologists began really taking it seriously. Before the 60s, PTSD was sort of the default for men, who were expected to get caught up in wars every generation.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Why are you assuming that I'm not familiar with the term? I would think the assumption would be that I'm familiar with the term given that I'm debating its feel versus the modern term.

            At any rate, legitimate medical names for disorders are always going to sound more legitimate and as more cause for concern than names like shell shock. For instance, which sounds like more of a cause for concern "kissing disease" or "Epstein-Barr Virus" https://microbeonline.com/list... [microbeonline.com] ? Despite "kissing disease" being a ver

      • Shell shock was something much more specific. It referred to the condition soldiers developed after experiencing intense bombardment. We now recognize it as a special case of PTSD, which is a much broader category. PTSD can happen to anyone who's been through a traumatic experience: victims of violent crimes, patients who have recovered from severe illnesses, people in abusive relationships, etc. Most of them have nothing to do with being shelled.

    • From the MIC perspective you're making the case for a breeding program and a slave race of supersoldiers.

      Because we HAVE TO be prepared to conquer the world with might and control.

      They can see no other option.

      It's a malignancy.

      Very sad.

    • That's the thing about modern civilized warfare, if you can call it that: it's not just about technological superiority, but also a respect for lives: protecting civilians (which means accuracy and quality intelligence), as well as regard for your own soldiers' well-being. Making sure they stay alive, for one, but also make sure they are cared for when the war is done. Drugs might help with that to a degree, theoretically, but augmentation and brain stimulation probably comes with its own class of PTSD an

      • >as opposed to simply issuing better equipment.

        The moment we can send humanoid robots that are mostly self-governed with a human remote operate providing oversight, we'll do that.

        Anyone who has read enough science fiction to think through the eventual likely outcomes will be horrified, but we'll do it.

        • In a way, small expendable drones are already taking that role. They are still mostly remote control, but the experience with electronic warfare in Ukraine will prompt manufacturers to make them more autonomous, and less reliant on the link to the operator.

          • Yeah, it's a hell of a lot harder to jam an autonomous drone and that alone will be sufficient to drive the development of independent kill-bots.

            Personally, I'd make them work on a mix of dead reckoning and terrain recognition with an encrypted kill switch in case they go off course.

            GPS is hardly worth bothering with since the first thing you'd expect the enemy to do is jam or spoof it. But hey, maybe the military's encrypted GPS signals would be worth it if it's only a few cents' more in parts.

    • See... this is the real value of AI. Just use KillBots. That way when they hit their pre-programmed kill limit, they will just shut down.
      /futurama

  • Somebody's going to need a lot of gold bullets to deal with these Cybermen!

  • Geneva Convention (Score:3)

    by MDMurphy ( 208495 ) on Saturday December 02, 2023 @12:12AM (#64048309)
    Lots of things have been codified in international law to make war less brutal. Full metal jacket bullets, mustard gas. The rules had to do with being less brutal to people. If the definition of "people" changes then all the old rules go out the window.

    • On the other hand, when wars were still more brutal, they also were quite a bit shorter.

      • Have you ever heard of the 100 year war?

        • Yes, have you analysed it? If historians were as quick to sum up wars like they were with these, the first and second world war would be considered a single conflict, and they were far more connected than many wars in these 116 years. Hell, even the belligerent parties weren't consistent.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        On the other hand, when wars were still more brutal, they also were quite a bit shorter.

        Not really, loads of brutal conflicts continued over decades, the Rohingya insurgency has been gong for 70 years, the Colombian conflicts went for over 50, WWII only seemed short because the US didn't get involved until 1942, it started with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The Napoleonic wars went on and off for 12 years.

        I think the difference you're trying to enunciate is the difference between a limited war (I.E. Iraq, Vietnam) and a total war (WW2). In total war almost nothing is off limits, c

  • /eyeroll (Score:3)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Saturday December 02, 2023 @12:20AM (#64048327)
    Sounds like the pentagon should just read a bunch of science fiction books. They’ll get about as good a future-proofing and the taxpayer wont need to pay nearly as many sky-high consultant fees to self-proclaimed futurists.

    • "read a bunch of science fiction books"

      Why do you think they don't?

      "wont need to pay nearly as many sky-high consultant fees to self-proclaimed futurists"

      Why do you think those people do not include writers of the science fiction books you haven't checked whether they are reading or not?

      • just as a point of fact, Larry Niven (a science fiction writer, among other things) and Jerry Pournelle another science fiction writer) did work on the so called Star Wars initiative... and Jerry Pournelle's son, when he was in the Navy, worked in several thinktanks as a Naval Officer. I am sure there are other examples, you can find... Robert Heinlein and E.E. "Doc" Smith as well as L. Sprague De Camp worked for the military during WWII but i do not think they pushed any science fiction articles on their s

  • We know where it all falls apart (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Saturday December 02, 2023 @12:33AM (#64048349)

    "What risks are we willing to take?"

    Every person with a three figure IQ who reads that quote understands that the person who said it will incur no risks whatsoever, and that the use of "we" is just a cheap rhetorical device. Risks are for the poor bastards they manipulate into doing the dirty work.

    Whoever said this deserves a quick, hard punch in the yap to remind them, as they spit out some teeth, that "we" actually means something when discussing risk.

    • Every person with a three figure IQ who reads that quote understands that the person who said it will incur no risks whatsoever, and that the use of "we" is just a cheap rhetorical device.

      Brings to mind all the cowards in Congress that have the authority to declare wars - i.e., send other people to die - but won't risk their careers defending the republic against Donald Trump.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by noodler ( 724788 )

      Whoever said this deserves a quick, hard punch in the yap to remind them

      Or, to be on the safe side, a bullet through their general brain area.

  • Cause it's cool (Score:3)

    by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Saturday December 02, 2023 @01:04AM (#64048397)
    I mean, if you're a rando US Defense Department flunkie but get billions of dollars to throw at anything plausibly military sounding of course you're going to think of super soldiers.
    "Gimme like, Crysis, but with that cyber arm Captain America's boyfriend has." First words out of your mouth, every time.

  • Soldiers who were killed in action are brought back to life in a top secret military experiment

  • ... literally owned by the government for life?

    In war-time, a general means "do anything I say or die trying". It is imperialism with guns ("policy by other means"), so cultures that don't admire machismo have a lower death-toll.

    It might be"character-building" to teach men to invade a home and murder people but when that is a job, they stop being normal. No government takes responsibility for that mental illness.

    We don't want a fair fight.

    The US has used 'go' pills (causing drug addition) so personnel don't sleep, tried to invent a 'brave' pill so they don't worry about dying

  • Someone wants tax funding because he can't land a corporate contract.

  • Never happen the last thing the old coffin dodgers want to is go out and fight the wars they start even if they are given a new body. What lose all my wealth after we have spent decades pulling the ladder up to the young!!
  • You can't use the stupid shit you see in movies to make real world judgements. Those morons in Hollywood couldn't pass a science quiz if it was open book.
  • Yet another piece of data to prove that humans are the stupidest species in the planet bar none.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by noodler ( 724788 )

      Yet another piece of data to prove that humans are the stupidest species in the planet bar none.

      In, but mostly on the planet. Which kindof proofs your point..

  • This all sounds nice and dandy but what happens when your super soldier decides they are done working for the US government and starts working against the establishment? Go watch Bourne and get back to me.

  • Allow the military to circumvent all ethics and all societal norms, but prohibit anyone from joining under the age of 30.

    As long as children can be recruited (and, neurologically, you're a child until you're about 24, whatever the law says), then the recruit is mentally incapable of taking decisions that will disable them permanently and irreversibly. Not might, will. Children simply don't have enough of a concept of aging or mortality to take such life-changing decisions.

    Allow a few years extra to develop

  • So you mean a bunch of criminals convene to discuss ways around societies annoying laws and morals?

    And why do we allow this?

  • Cybernetic soldier = wiped out with an EMP, while the mundane soldiers remain unaffected.

  • This is a great idea!

    -- Mr. Red Skull, Germany

  • >They also discuss the ethical and legal concerns surrounding the creation of super soldiers, as well as the societal norms and potential risks. "What risks are we willing to take? There's all these wonderful things we can do," Matook said. "We don't want a fair fight. We really don't, this is not an honorable thing. We want our guys to be over-matching any possible enemies, right? So why aren't we giving them pharmaceutical enhancements? Why are we making them run all week when we could just be giving t

  • I saw a Khan (Star Trek) reference, but no shout outs for Captain America or The Hulk?
    No understanding of THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM with super soldats?

    Super Soldiers may eventually STOP FOLLOWING ORDERS (unless they come from another super soldier).
    That's the plot of *every* super soldier story. And it worries the hell out of the officers and political leaders.
    What good are super soldiers if they don't follow orders?

  • I can honestly say that the officers in command don't give a damn about ethics, just about enhancing their careers. And, yes, they do consider that they own you. 24/7, until the day you leave the service. If they think that giving you steroids would enhance your performance, then they will, without a qualm, knowing that there are significant dangers to you that you may have to live with after your service is up... and they wouldn't care one bit.

    If you join, join as an officer, don't join as enlisted, beca

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