Pentagon Creates 'Autowarcom' to Expand AI and Drone Capabilities (reuters.com) 51
Longtime Slashdot reader ThurstonMoore shares a report from Reuters: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced the creation of a new military command that would be dedicated to building and providing autonomous and robotic capabilities across the U.S. military. The command, which Hegseth said would be called "Autonomous Warfare Command," highlights the rapidly changing nature of warfare and the need to make progress on systems like drones and the use of artificial intelligence.
Speaking in front of hundreds of junior officers and enlisted personnel at Quantico, Virginia, in a speech peppered with attacks on the media, Hegseth said the command would be led by a four-star officer. "The pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it," Hegseth said in a speech called the "State of the Force," in which he announced other changes, including the creation of the office of religious affairs. "Cheap compute, superintelligence, and advanced commercial manufacturing have enabled the proliferation of low-cost, high-precision strike," Hegseth added.
[...] The United States has long relied on its vast military budget to field some of the world's most expensive weapons systems. But there is an increasing realization within the Pentagon that this is not sustainable. "Today we need both quality and quantity," Hegseth said.
Speaking in front of hundreds of junior officers and enlisted personnel at Quantico, Virginia, in a speech peppered with attacks on the media, Hegseth said the command would be led by a four-star officer. "The pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it," Hegseth said in a speech called the "State of the Force," in which he announced other changes, including the creation of the office of religious affairs. "Cheap compute, superintelligence, and advanced commercial manufacturing have enabled the proliferation of low-cost, high-precision strike," Hegseth added.
[...] The United States has long relied on its vast military budget to field some of the world's most expensive weapons systems. But there is an increasing realization within the Pentagon that this is not sustainable. "Today we need both quality and quantity," Hegseth said.
This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
AI could literally not be worse at war than the current DUI hire and the moron who hired him. We don't need Super Intelligence here. We don't need Artificial intelligence. In fact we could do with just 5 functioning interconnected neurons and a bunch of crayons at this point and it would be an upgrade to America's war strategy.
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
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After visiting your ophthalmologist, because I wrote "60s"
My bad. :-)
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Insightful, entertainingly witty, and made me laugh out loud - thanks for sharing.
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This is pretty much a textbook case of a stopped clock being right twice a day.
Notwithstanding Hegseth's absymal record prior to and within the Department of Defense/War/Being Tough, the war in Ukraine has showed how different war can be run than the way our military is currently organized.
Even if if you don't buy the army having "Transformers" type robots punching each other out (and I don't), it's clear that there is going to be a lot of "AI"-ish and highly automated stuff fighting wars. There needs to be
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
So we get Terminator or benevolent AI (Score:2)
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Reminds me of a Stanislaw Lem story in which two competing countries perfect a method of having their robotic armies connect up into supergenius networks, growing smarter as they grew bigger. Until the final day, when they were ready for all-out battle, and each had their army connect up into one big ultimate network before the two met...at which point both armies realized how stupid the whole war was, and simply didn't fight.
Re:So we get Terminator or benevolent AI (Score:4, Interesting)
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Absolutely. It was collected in The Cyberiad. I'll go to the trouble of looking it up.
Here we are: "The First Sally, or, the Trap of Gargantius."
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into supergenius networks
Maybe we should call AI "Wile E Coyote Intelligence".
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When benevolent super intelligent AI arrives, ...
Actually it's now SI, so that would be super intelligent Super Intelligence. /s
(Or, as our President will eventually re-name it, "Super-Duper Intelligence" - *sigh*)
Another unnecessary renaming (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not called Skynet anymore (Score:2)
It's SpaceAmericaNet.
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I must admit, I read the title and immediately thought "Car Wars".
The last thing we need is an autonomous command (Score:4, Insightful)
for warfare.
A office of religious affairs (Score:3)
Well, it's been a good run but if the US military is going religious it's soon to be all over.
Correction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of the YouTube commenters I watch refer to "Secretary of War Crimes Pete Kegsbreath" so frequently that I think of it as the fucker's official title and name. If it isn't, it should be.
As for "dedicated to building and providing autonomous and robotic capabilities across the U.S. military", as far as I can see the current Armed Forces leadership is doing everything it can to suppress and destroy autonomy in the ranks. So I can't wait for AI to autonomously do some shit that's just the opposite of what Kegsbreath ordered.
If this shitshow wasn't so dangerous, destructive, and off-the-rails stoopid, it would be truly popcorn-worthy.
Pete (Score:2)
You're about seven months too late. It's like they had no idea where the drones hitting Ukraine were being made.
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Sadly, it often is faster to do that than work within the old bureaucracy and its entrenched people, rules, and regulations.
Better than 6 branches not coordinating (Score:1)
"we need to streamline this and get better faster" - so let's create a new bureaucracy and fill it with people, rules and regulations!
To be honest, without this unified command, we'd have six military branches all doing the same thing without any coordination.
I realize people hate Space Force because Trump created it, but in reality its unifying the efforts of various military branches and civilian agencies is a good idea. OK, the name could have been better, and the dress uniforms are definitely a bit too much. But the real work they do is good.
Insists we can't afford to take of our own people. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whitehouse angrily insists that we cant afford to help one another.
Spins up "space force" and "autowarcom" like he's playing with action figures.
Re:Insists we can't afford to take of our own peop (Score:5, Insightful)
White House angrily insists that we cant afford to help one another.
But they *are* taking care of people - those with net worths over $1B.
Read this (Score:5, Interesting)
A military document published before WW2 ended. https://archive.org/details/Ar... [archive.org]
Fascists in America may differ slightly from fascists in other countries, but there are a number of attitudes and practices that they have in common. Following are three. Every person who has one of them is not necessarily a fascist. But he is in a mental state that lends itself to the acceptance of fascist aims.
1. Pitting of religious, racial, and economic groups against one another in order to break down national unity is a device of the "divide and conquer" technique used by Hitler to gain power in Germany and in other countries. With slight variations, to suit local conditions, fascists everywhere have used this Hitler method. In many countries, anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) is a dominant device of fascism. In the United States, native fascists have often been anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Negro, anti-Labor, antiforeign-born. In South America, the native fascists use the same scapegoats except that they substitute anti-Protestantism for anti-Catholicism.
Interwoven with the "master race" theory of fascism is a well-planned "hate campaign" against minority races, religions, and other groups. To suit their particular needs and aims, fascists will use any one or a combination of such groups as a convenient scapegoat.
2. Fascism cannot tolerate such religious and ethical concepts as the "brotherhood of man." Fascists deny the need for international cooperation. These ideas contradict the fascist theory of the "master race." The brotherhood of man implies that all people — regardless of color, race, creed, or nationality
-- have rights. International cooperation, as expressed in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, runs counter to the fascist program of war and world domination.
In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations. Right now our native fascists are spreading anti-British, anti-Soviet, anti-French, and anti-United Nations propaganda. They know that allied unity now foretells the certain defeat of fascism abroad. They know that post-war allied unity means world peace and security. They realize that fascism cannot thrive or grow under these conditions.
3. It is accurate to call a member of a communist party a "communist." For short, he is often called a "Red." Indiscriminate pinning of the label "Red" on people and proposals which one opposes is a common political device. It is a favorite trick of native as well as foreign fascists.
Many fascists make the spurious claim that the world has but two choices — either fascism or communism, and they label as "communist" everyone who refuses to support them. By attacking our free enterprise, capitalist democracy and by denying the effectiveness of our way of life they hope to trap many people.
Hitler insisted that only fascism could save Europe and the world from the "communist menace." There were many people inside and outside Germany and Italy who welcomed and supported Hitler and Mussolini because they believed fascism was the only safeguard against communism. The "Red bogey" was a convincing enough argument to help Hitler take and maintain power. The Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, whose aggressions plunged the world into global war, was called the "Anti-Comintern Axis." It was proclaimed by Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito as a "bulwark against communism."
Learning to identify native fascists and to detect their techniques is not easy. They plan it that way. But it is vitally important to learn to spot them, even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.
Piece of shit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the guy who fired the Army's Chief of Staff who was championing a battalion drone unit that was drawing on experience from the Ukrainian army and learning how to operate on a modern battlefield. In addition, the former commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa was also in full support of this unit, but he too was fired by Hegseth.
One of the reasons Hegseth fired both generals was because he wanted to "refocus" to "help ensure the army revives the warrior ethos, rebuilds for the modern battlefield and deters our enemies around the world."
Well golly gee, that sounds exacly like what the drone battaltion was doing until you got rid of it then fired all the generals who supported it and put in your lackey. Now comes this announcement.
Now we're being told of this new command.
Incompetence doesn't begin to describe the drunk.
Re:Piece of shit (Score:5, Informative)
The reason they fired the generals was because they refused to swear allegiance to the man over the nation. They are purging anyone who does not pledge personal loyalty.
It is an attempt to remove the final check on the power of the executive.
"I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. Why can't you be like the German generals?"
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A few days ago he stated that at least half the higher officers should be fired, he wants to replace them with AI (OK, SI).
Just too bad the engineers developing AI have yet to figure out how to keep it in check, I bet Hegseth could be their first victim
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A general named Randy George would normally be a good influence in Hegseth's army but the guy wanted to know why Apache helicopters were buzzing Kid Rock's swimming pool, and you just can't tolerate that kind of killjoy.
If only Trump wasn't Putin's little bitch (Score:5, Informative)
Ukraine has become the world leader at this, when you read about their Delta Situational Awareness [wikipedia.org] system and what it's capable of it's extremely impressive, it's a world leading system for drone warfare. It's the type of thing a nation develops rapidly because they are forced to.
Now if Trump and his admin weren't such bitch babies about the conflict and actually did the right thing and assisted Ukraine we could be partners in sharing this newfound capability with them, work on it hand in hand down the future. There's a world where Ukraine becomes a key US strategic ally as much as the UK or Japan or Australia is.
Alas because Trump is a deep, deep coward and refuses to take a strong stand on just about anything he will continue to string the Ukrainians along and basically cede much of that future relationship to Europe all while at the same undermining that relationship with NATO thus isolating us even further.
Spending trillions of dollars on warfare only to make us weaker than ever because they want to play strongman. It's more important that our soldiers get handbooks.
Hegseth’s new ‘field manual’ for troops is filled with his speeches and Trump promising not to fight ‘dumb wars’ [independent.co.uk]
Whoopsie doodle!
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I never said Trump was afraid of losing NATO you absolute drooling fucking retard.
In NATO's entire history there has been ONE, exactly ONE call on Article 5. It was by the United States and every NATO member honored their commitment.
Stop being such a manipulated cumsock for once in your life and think for yourself. Stop being led around by the nose by outrage merchants.
The same people who are telling Europe is overrun are the same propagandists, probably working for Russia, who are helping divide people a
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You are not going to change hearts and minds with that kind of talk. Only if you and their peers surround them and do an intervention would this attitude work. Like a dog, you have to begin with a positive tone like "good dog" while saying hard truths mixed in with complements... since they are not much smarter than a dog; possibly more anti-social. Sad thing is you end up having to be their understanding therapist to get them out of their cult - reason and/or negative emotions only have a chance from a "s
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Forcing them into hiding didn't solve the problem but they did shrink while underground - and they weren't in much power which is most important.
Definitely agree on this, we lost a bit of sight on the power of making something broadly socially unacceptable.
I especially agree on not wimping out, I think it's just the vibes based world US politics is in which liberals are finally coming around to; recent example is Mary Petolta who my bet is won't see any loss of support from those leaked messages and probably gain support from it.
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They had their chance, it was called 2016 elections.
Then they tried to overthrow the government. Now yeah, you don't get a say because you decided to destroy the system. So, you know, eat shit. Next time learn some civics.
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An American woman in Minneapolis woman tells one of the illegally appointed and illegally masked federal gestapo to stop terrorizing her neighbors
He responds by shooting her in the face
Make authoritarianism Socially Unacceptable again.
No fascists or you'll become them.
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I want America to be the leader in the West, not isolate it by throwing tantrums, engaging in illegal trade wars, pissing off longtime allies, threatetning our bordering nations with annexation and generally making us look like jackasses on the world state. I want America to be, as a famous Republican said, "the shining beacon on the hill". Your party and your leader are denying Ukraine aide, right now! You are not agreeing with me!
People like you have tried to ovverrun America with the same bullshit. It
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there is a department/unit headquartrered in Poland where the best practices and lessons are downlaoded to NATO staff for dissemination from Ukrainians. The problem is the US with it's posturing and short sighted actions have moved some of the resources/staff out of Europe where they were benefiting from all this... not all... but enough to degrade the effectiveness.
Speaking of handbooks.. the last Field Manual with guidance for drone warfare- don't get spotted, if spotted - hide. Otherwise - shoot and pra
Names are difficult (Score:2)
This is one of the hardest problems in computer science: getting names right.
Should it be called WOPR or skynet?