[NOTES]
AUTHOR’SNOTE:WHY A BOOK ON ROBOTS AND WAR?
1 Because robots are frakin’ cool Frak is a made-up expletive that originated in the computer science research world. It then made its way into video gaming, ultimately becoming the title of a game designed for the BBC Micro and Commodore 64 in the early 1980s. The main character, a caveman called Trogg, would say “Frak!” in a little speech bubble whenever he was “killed.” It soon spread into science fiction, appearing in such games as Cyberpunk 2020 and the Warhammer 40,000 novels. It crossed over into the mainstream most explicitly in the new 2003 reboot of the 1970s TV series Battlestar Galactica. That the characters in the updated version of the TV show cursed, albeit with a made-up word, was part of the grimier, more serious feel of the show. Soon thereafter, the word was used in such popular teen shows as The OC and Veronica Mars, completing its crossover to pop culture.
1 “It is not a phrase to be written” John Keegan, Six Armies at Normandy (New York: Random House, 2004), 30.
5 From war sprung the very first specializations Elizabeth Arkush and Mark W. Allen, The Archaeology of Warfare: Prehistories of Raiding and Conquest (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006).
5 “War is a sign of disobedience” Jean Martensen, Director for Peace Education for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as quoted in David R. Smock, ed., Religious Perspectives on War: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Attitudes Toward Force, Perspectives Series (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002), 42.
5 It is our arrogance chastised Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict, IISS Studies in International Security (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 20.
5 we sure do seem to be obsessed with war John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976), x.
6 “fighting is where man will win glory” Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? as quoted on 33.
6 war is described as a test Ibid., 21-32.
6 a cruel teacher who reveals Ibid., 30.
6 Democracy came from the phalanx Ibid., 24.
6 “to end all wars” Ibid., 30, 99.
6 all find their definitive expressions Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare (London, New York: Routledge, 2001).
6 Yet the reality is “ever again” Yael Danieli, “What Determines How Social Scientists and Psychologists Try to Understand the Next War,” paper presented at Imagining the Next War, Guggenheim Conference, New York City, March 25, 2006.
7 “The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be” Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005).
7 “producing more history” Vago Muradian, “Interview with John Hillen, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State, Political-Military Affairs,” Defense News, October 9, 2006, 110.
8 Another 7 million more Gates, “A Robot in Every Home.”
8 a robot in every home by 2013 Ibid.
8 assembly-line factory robotics “Born Again Robots,” Fortune Small Business, October 2007, 57.
8 Roughly one of every ten workers Gates, “A Robot in Every Home.”
10 “Genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics” Steve Martini, The Jury (New York: Putnam’s, 2001), 112.
11 “science fiction and futurism” Michael E. O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 33.
11 “The true watersheds” Daniel Boorstin, “History’s Hidden Turning Points,” U.S. News & World Report, April 22, 1991, 52.
13 “These robots are extensions of us” Lee Gutkind, Almost Human : Making Robots Think, 1st ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2006), 32.
14 Both groups tend to disregard K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1st ed. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986).
14 these three problems can be diminished Ibid.
14 but also much continuity Stephen D. Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
1 . INTRODUCTION: SCENES FROM A ROBOT WAR
19 “We are building the bridge to the future” U.S. Army colonel, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
19 averaging nearly 2,500 a month Greg Grant, “U.S. Army: Active Protection Not Needed in Iraq,”
Defense News, September 25, 2006, 30. See also Michael O’Hanlon and Jason H. Campbell, “The Iraq Index: Tracking Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008); available at
http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex.
20 “IEDs are my number one threat” General John Philip Abizaid, Commander CENTCOM, as quoted in Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 219.
20 spending more than $6.1 billion Whitney Terrell, “The Bomb Squad,” Washington Post, October 29, 2006, W20.
20 In a typical tour in Iraq U.S. Navy EOD technician, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, May 26, 2006.
20 the pressure from the blast Renae Merle, “Fighting Roadside Bombs: Low-Tech, High-Tech, Toy Box,” Washington Post, July 29, 2006, A1.
20 they loaded the remains Noncommissioned officer, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
22 “We were the longest overnight success” David Whelan, “Fights Wars, Lint,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006): 96.
23 “rescuers [that] are unaffected by the carnage” Jennifer 8. Lee, “Agile in a Crisis, Robots Show Their Mettle,” New York Times, September 27, 2001, G7.
23 “We began to run out of Afghans” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
24 “really excited by it” Patrick Seitz, “With Scoob, iRobot Looks to Clean Up for the Second Time,” Investor’s Business Daily, January 17, 2006, A5.
24 “This is all very new stuff ” Colin Angle, as quoted in Seitz, “With Scoob, iRobot Looks to Clean Up for the Second Time.”
24 “the demographics of our purchasers” Ibid.
24 “there are no clear buyers yet” iRobot designer, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
25 “A robot may not harm” Isaac Asimov, I, Robot (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1950).
25 “I think he would think it’s cool as hell” Helen Greiner, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
26 Foster-Miller has boomed Associated Press, “Robots Sniff Out Bombs.”
26 an additional $20 million repair “U.S. Navy Orders Talon Robots,” Defense News, October 23, 2006, 46.
27 “The soldiers have started taping” Edward Godere, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
27 “is all about robotics” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
27 “We don’t build Buicks” Whelan, “Fights Wars, Lint,” 96.
27 “a defense firm at heart” Bob Quinn, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
27 “We’re industrialists looking for needs” Foster-Miller executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
28 the family got 40 percent annual returns Daniel Golden, James Bandler, and Marcus Walker, “Bin Laden Family Has Intricate Ties with Washington,” Wall Street Journal Europe, September 28-29, 2001, 4.
28 “We hear that robots are trendy” iRobot executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
28 “We don’t just do robots” Foster-Miller executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
29 “I wouldn’t use anything else” Foster-Miller, Inc., The Soldier’s Choice—Talon Robots. Talon E-mails from Iraq, brochure, 2005.
29 Another Talon serving Foster-Miller employee, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
29 “This little guy saved our butts” Peter W. Singer, “Research Visit to Foster-Miller,” 2006.
30 “with this increased firepower” Discovery Channel Pictures, “Smart Weapons,” in Future Weapons, Discovery Channel, broadcast on May 17, 2006.
30 “You can read people’s nametags” Frank Colucci, “Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robots Outfitted with Weapons,” National Defense 88, no. 597 (2003): 44.
31 “It’s small. It’s quiet” Ibid., 44.
31 “bootstrap development process” Singer, “Research Visit to Foster-Miller.”
31 “not everything has to be super high tech” Anthony Sebasto, as quoted in Michael Regan, “Armed ‘Robo-Soldier’ Set for Iraq”
Sydney Morning Herald , February 4, 2005,
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/ 2005/02 / 03 /1107409974357.html.
31 gunslingers cost just $230,000 “Hi, Robot,” Time 164, no. 22 (2004): 81.
31 In a test of its antitank rockets Regan, “Armed ‘Robo-Soldier’ Set for Iraq.”
31 “pinpoint precision” as “nasty” Foster-Miller employee, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006. 31 “It eliminates the majority” Regan, “Armed ‘Robo-Soldier’ Set for Iraq.”
31 “The SWORDS doesn’t care” David Platt, as quoted in Regan, “Armed ‘Robo-Soldier’ Set for Iraq.”
31 “G.I. of the 21st century” Associated Press, “Robots Sniff Out Bombs.”
32 “They have been a hit” Eric Lenkowitz, “Robots Roll into Iraq War Zone,” New York Post, August 4, 2007.
32 reach as high as 12,000 Robert S. Boyd, “They’re Very Expensive, but They Save Lives: U.S. Enlisting Smart Robots for War’s Dirty, Deadly Jobs,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 20, 2006, E2.
32 some twenty-two different robot systems Jefferson Morris, “Military Projects 4,000 Robots in Theatre in FY’06,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report 217, no. 26 (2006): 4.
32 “The Army of the Grand Robotic” Charles Dean, “Unmanned Ground Vehicles for Armed Reconnaissance,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006. Charles Dean is a former lieutenant colonel with the United States Army who now is project manager at Foster-Miller.
32 “looks like a baby plane” Susan B. Glasser and Vernon Loeb, “A War of Bridges: 225,000 U.S. and British Troops Are Now Within Striking Distance,” Washington Post Foreign Service, March 2, 2003, A1.
33 “a flying meat fork” Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 362.
34 in the first two months of operations Ibid., 367. 34 “The Predator is my most capable sensor” Elizabeth Bone and Christopher Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2003), 24.
34 “Our major role” Glasser and Loeb, “A War of Bridges: 225,000 U.S. and British Troops Are Now Within Striking Distance,” A1.
34 He had been an F-16 pilot Eric Schmitt, “Remotely Controlled Aircraft Crowd Dangerous Iraqi and Afghan Skies,” New York Times, April 5, 2005, A9.
34 The idea then arose Air force general, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 22, 2007.
35 “it was a big problem” Ibid.
35 “It saddens me to know” Ibid.
35 In the words of one U.S. officer Boot, War Made New, 383.
35 Predators carried out 2,073 missions Bill Sweetman, “USAF Predators Come of Age in Iraq and Afghanistan as Reaper Waits in the Wings,” Jane’s International Defence Review 39, no. 6 (2006): 52.
36 “you basically hit the land button” Air force officer, interview at Pentagon, Peter W. Singer, March 31, 2008.
36 The plane itself costs some $35 million Renae Merle, “Price of Global Hawk Surveillance Program Rises,” Washington Post, 2004, A17.
36 the U.S. Air Force plans to spend Bill Sweetman, “Long Range Endurance UAS Targets the Adversary,” Jane’s International Defence Review 39, no. 8 (2006): 41.
37 “It is more of a rush” Kevin Maurer, “Pilotless Plane Guides 82nd,” Fayetteville (NC) Observer, August 13, 2004.
37 the number of Ravens in service Ibid.
37 “reconnaissance with firepower” Owen West and Bing West, “Lessons from Iraq,” Popular Mechanics 182, no. 8 (2005): 50.
37 there were 5,331 drones Tom Vanden Brook, “Report: Insurgents Benefit from Drone Shortage,” USA Today, March 25, 2008.
37 “given the growth trends” David A. Deptula, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Taking Strategy to Task,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 49 (2008): 50.
39 CRAM required a congressional earmark David Wichner, “Army Eyes Raytheon’s High-Tech, Sea-going Gatling Gun (Mortar Defense),” Arizona Daily Star, May 19, 2005.
39 “Thank you, Osama bin Laden ! ” Ibid.
39 “reached heights not seen” Stephen Handelman, “Technology vs. Terrorism,” Popular Science 269, no. 3 (2006): 33.
39 “we will sell tens of thousands” Business executive, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 20, 2006.
40 The robot border-cop helped Sweetman, “USAF Predators Come of Age in Iraq and Afghanistan as Reaper Waits in the Wings,” 56.
40 “But the acceptability of using these systems” Bruce V. Bigelow, “Robot Planes’ New Role Won’t Fly with Some,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 19, 2004.
40 “The Second Mexican-American War” Max Blumenthal, “Vigilante Injustice,”
Salon.com, May 22, 2003,http://
dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/05/22/vigilante/index.html . See also Glenn Spencer, “The Second Mexican-American War,” DVD of the 2002 American Renaissance conference, Herndon, Virginia, February 22-24, 2002; available at
http://www.amren.com/estore/catalog/product_1672_2002_AR_Conference_Samuel_Francis_and_Glenn_Spencer_cat_94.html.
41 “aerial cell tower” Larry Dickerson, “UAV’s on the Rise,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 15, 2007, 116.
2. SMART BOMBS, NORMA JEANE,AND DEFECATING DUCKS: A SHORT HISTORY OF ROBOTICS
42 “The further backward you look” As quoted in Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005), 35.
42 “Perhaps the most wonderful piece” David Brewster, as quoted in Jay Richards, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI, 1st ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2002).
42 “the Defecating Duck” Jessika Riskin, “The Defecating Duck, or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life,” Critical Inquiry 29, no. 4 (2003).
43 “getting assistance by producing some machines” Gelman, “Gallery of Automata.”
44 “If every tool, when ordered” Alan L. Mackay and Maurice Ebison, Scientific Quotations: The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (New York: Crane, Russak, 1977).
45 they were automated Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002).
45 von Kempelen had hidden a dwarf This is much like the fighting robot Homer built for Bart in
The Simpsons, which turned out just to have Homer hidden inside, getting beat up by the real robots. T. H. Tarnóczy and H. Dudley, “The Speaking Mashine of Wolfgang von Kempelen,”
Journal of Acoustical Society of America 22, no. 2 (1950). See also Robert Capps, “The 50 Best Robots Ever,”
Wired 14.01 (2006),
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/robots.html?pg=2&topic=robots&topic_set=.
45 the field of modern chemistry J. Boone Bartholomees Jr., “The Heirs of Archimedes: Science and the Art of War through the Age of Enlightenment,” Parameters 35, no. 4 (2005): 136.
46 “I called an official” Robert Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
47 the Germans protected their coast Steven M. Shaker and Alan R. Wise, War Without Men : Robot on the Future Battlefield (Washington, DC: Pergamon Brassey’s International Defense Publishers Inc., 1988).
49 “bombing without knowledge” Chris Gray, Post-modern War: The New Politics of Conflict (New York: Guilford Press, 1997).
50 “put a bomb in a pickle barrel” Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 278.
51 Besides the automated bombsight Ibid.
51 “Giant Electronic Brain” David Hambling, Weapons Grade : How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005), 90.0.
52 “Why don’t we just have a network” Ibid., 99.
53 a “formal set of instructions” Ibid., 103.
53 “how to get the driver out” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
53 “certainly in the range of 2015-2030” Ibid.
54 “The sad thing” Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace? ”
54 “Then Nixon pulled the plug” Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7; Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace ? ”
54 “the gift wrap industry was larger” Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace? ”
54 “One decision criterion of mine” Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
55 “It took decades for UAVs to recover” Ibid.
55 The Aquila was to be General Accounting Office, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Outrider Demonstrations Will Be Inadequate to Justify Further Production (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, 1997).
56 what is called “customer pull” Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace ? ”
56 While they reloaded Ralph Sanders, “An Israeli Military Innovation: UAVs,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 33 (2002).
56 “The Iraqis came to learn” Dina El Boghdady, “Small Firms Turn to Drones: Demand Grows for Unmanned Craft,” Washington Post, October 31, 2005, D1.
57 “‘smart bombs’ are really only” “Notes, 8 June 2004,” in
National Security in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Principles of War (Arlington, VA: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, 2004); available at
http://www.jhuapl.edu/POW/notes/notes_8Jun.htm.
57 “dropping a Cadillac” Hambling, Weapons Grade, 125.
58 the U.S. military had bought into the idea Gray, Postmodern War, 52.
58 “I couldn’t have done it all” Ibid., 36.
58 “That’s when it really came together” Tom Erhard, interview, Peter W. Singer, January 31, 2007.
59 “it was threatened” Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace ? ”
59 “running an after-retirement jobs program” Robotics firm executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 13, 2004.
59 shrinking by more than 30 percent George C. Wilson, “Tough Choices Loom for the Services,” Air Force Times, January 20, 1997, 14.
59 an added reason for investing Edward Luttwak, “Post-Heroic Armies,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 4 (1996): 33.
60 “So what do you do?” Senator John Warner, as quoted in George C. Wilson, “A Chairman Pushes Unmanned Warfare,” National Journal 32, no. 10 (2000): 718.
60 “Every now and then” Ibid.
60 “The Robot Is Our Answer” H. R. Everett, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 20, 2006.
61 the total Pentagon budget Steven Kosiak, Classified Funding in the FY 2009 Defense Funding Request, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, June 17, 2008,
www.csbaonline.org.
61 “unchecked growth” Jeffrey M. Tebbs, “Smelting the Triangle: Constraining Congress, Defense Contractors, and the Military Brass to Restore a Fiscally Prudent Defense Budget” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2006), 3.
61 the black budget is not released to the public John Bennett, “CSBA: ‘Black’ Spending Doubled Since 1995,” Defense News, July 30, 2007, 22.
61 “Prior to 9/11” Larry Dickerson, “UAV’s on the Rise,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 15, 2007, 115.
61 “Make ’em as fast as you can” Stayne Hoff, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 5, 2006.
61 93 percent of the bombs and missiles dropped Sean J. A. Edwards, “Swarming and the Future of Warfare,” doctoral thesis, Pardee Rand Graduate School, 2005, 36-37.
61 “The undertaking has attracted” Renae Merle, “Fighting Roadside Bombs: Low-Tech, High-Tech, Toy Box,” Washington Post, July 29,2006, A1.
62 “Just as World War I accelerated” Robert Finkelstein and James Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots” (DARPA, 2004), 104.
62 “the most dynamic growth sector” “Teal Group: UAV Spending to Triple Within Decade,”
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, September 1, 2006; available at
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/.
62 global spending on unmanned planes Ibid.
62 “ground vehicles are just now on the edge” Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace? ”
62 “One, the technology has finally matured” H. R. Everett, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 20, 2006.
63 “They’re not afraid” Tim Weiner, “Pentagon Has Sights on Robot Soldiers,” New York Times News Service, February 16, 2005.
63 “Can you keep your eyes open” Hambling, Weapons Grade, 324.
63 Even using the same mine-detecting Jerry Harbor, “Assessing Unmanned System Performance,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
64 “The airplane was too good” As quoted in George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century (New York: Crown, 1996), 296.
64 “the UCAV [the unmanned fighter jet]” iRobot designer, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
64 “The trend towards the future” Ibid.
64 can share that skill or knowledge with another computer Jay Richards, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI, 1st ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2002).
65 “robots don’t participate” Robotics company executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, Acton, MA, November 18, 2006.
65 “The military is deciding” Eliot Cohen, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 15, 2006.
3. ROBOTICS FOR DUMMIES
66 Like a robot, sometimes I just know not Eminem, 8 Mile. Soundtrack. Shady Records, CDC 493508, 2002.
66 “The ROBOTs are dressed like people” Karel Capek, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), in Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Capek Reader, ed. Peter Kussi (Highland Park, NJ: Catbird Press, 1990), 35.
66 first mention of the word “robot” Ibid., 33.
66 “And God said unto them” Genesis 1:28.
67 man-made devices with three key components: Robert Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
68 “too much technology” U.S. Army soldier, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 2, 2006.
68 “User interface is a big, big problem” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
68 “playing to the soldiers’ preconceptions” Ibid.
69 “if it takes more than two clicks” As quoted in Giles Ebbutt, “Knowledge Is Power,” Jane’s International Defence Review 40, no. 1 (2007): 29.
69 The new controller programs M. O’Madharain and B. Gillespie, “The Moose: A Haptic User Interface for Blind Persons” (Stanford University, 1995), 131.
70 “In terms of evolution” Julian Jones, director, How William Shatner Changed the World, produced by the History Channel, broadcast on October 21, 2006.
71 “We know that machines . . . phenomenal memory” Andrew Smith, “Science 2001: Net Prophets,” Observer, December 31, 2000, 18.
71 An EEG wearer Peter Schwartz, Chris Taylor, and Rita Koselka, “Quantum Leap,” Fortune 154, no. 3 (2006).
71 “like watching a high-definition plasma screen” Ibid.
71 “Every other day I wanted to die” Discovery Science Channel, Robosapiens: The Secret (R)evolution, broadcast on June 18, 2006.
72 “I do feel like it was a part of me” Ibid.
73 it wasn’t so much that he could “feel” Tim Usborne, Stargate SG-1: True Science, produced by Paul Sen and Rosie Kingham, Sci Fi Channel, broadcast on July 18, 2006.
73 you can squeeze it into tight parking spaces Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002), 227.
73 “is going to be my mental prosthesis” Schwartz, Taylor, and Koselka, “Quantum Leap.”
73 “We would all share information” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
74 “network-enabled telepathy” Schwartz, Taylor, and Koselka, “Quantum Leap.”
74 National Science Foundation envisions Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Health: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” (National Science Foundation, 2002), 19.
75 “Having a dedicated operator” Robert Finkelstein and James Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots” (DARPA, 2004).
75 “The autonomy thing is f’ing hard” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 25, 2006.
75 “Forget about whether the intelligence” John Arquilla, as quoted in Warbots, produced by Dan Saxton Company, History Channel, broadcast on August 8, 2006.
75 “an ability to act appropriately” George A. Miller, “WordNet Search—3.0” (Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University, 2006).
76 They argue that a machine Chris Gray, Postmodern War: The New Politics of Conflict (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 71.
76 “calculate faster than any human being” David Hambling, Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005), 205.
77 which is 95 percent of what we ask David Hambling discusses this analogy in Weapons Grade, 205.
77 “If you think it’s easy” Ian Rowley et al., “Ready to Buy a Home Robot?” BusinessWeek, no. 3892 (2004): 84.
77 “perceive something complex and make” Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
77 “Simply put, we can’t know” “Interview with Lynne E. Parker,” International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 2, no. 2 (2004).
78 Starting with the acclaimed battles Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002), 103.
78 the size of the AI market Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005), 279.
78 the U.S. military funds as much as 80 percent Ibid., 205.
78 “We are not close to having AI” Neal Conan, “Interview with Helen Greiner, Chairman and Co-founder of iRobot,” on Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio, broadcast on June 23, 2006.
78 GT Max has been able Ibid.
79 Thaler has created Tina Hesman, “Stephen Thaler’s Computer Creativity Machine Simulates the Human Brain,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 24, 2004.
79 the computer might learn so much by Richards, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI, 1st ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2002).
80 “If it’s a child, you want to stop” Preston Lerner, “Robots Go to War: Within 10 Years, Infantry Soldiers Will Go into Battle with Autonomous Robots Close Behind Them,” Popular Science 268, no. 1 (2006): 42.
81 “understanding the environment is the Holy Grail” Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
81 “black pick-up truck driven by two men” Stephen Trimble, “US Eyes Hyperspectral Technology for UAVs,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, September 6, 2006, 31.
81 Its multispectral sensors detect Richards, Are We Spiritual Machines?, 110.
82 “As opposed to a computer” David Bruemmer, “Intelligent Autonomy for Unmanned Vehicles,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
82 recent U.S. Navy work on a system Jennifer Bails, “Water Bug Robot,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 6, 2006.
82 a “diamond-tipped” buzz saw John Canning et al., “A Concept for the Operation of Armed Autonomous Systems on the Battlefield,” Dahlgren Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center, 2008.
83 “The combination of robotics” Steven Metz, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 19, 2006.
83 The devices have a range General Dynamics, Long Range Acoustic Device, 2002. Product Information Sheet.
84 shoots blobs of compressed glue Lothar Ibruegger, “Special Report: Emerging Technologies and Their Impact on Arms Control and Non Proliferation” (NATO Parliamentary Assembly, International Secretariat, 2001).
84 being off just a few degrees could kill Hambling, Weapons Grade, 346.
84 Another prototype is the tetanizing beam weapon Hambling, Weapons Grade, 237.
85 The idea of lasers first came H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (New York: Tor/Forge, 1993 [1898]), 25.
85 George Lucas sued the U.S. government Hambling, Weapons Grade, 119. See court case. Lucasfilm Ltd. v. High Frontier, 622 F. Supp. 931 (D.D.C. 1985).
85 called it the “Holy Grail” of weapons Doug Beason, The E-Bomb (New York: Da Capo, 2001), 188.
85 a useful defense against “terrorists on Jet-Skis” Dan Wildt, as quoted in Bill Sweetman, “Fact or Fiction,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, February 22, 2006.
86 the Tactical Relay Mirror System Joshua Kucera, “US Eyes Fast Fielding of Attack Laser,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, July 6, 2005, 6.
86 “It didn’t like carbonated beer” As quoted in Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 248. 87 The U.S. Air Force is presently exploring Hambling, Weapons Grade, 152.
87 Another UAV, the Global Observer Stephen Trimble, “Multi-UAV Approach Proposed for BAMS,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, September 13, 2006, 10.
87 There are all sorts of projects Lonnie D. Henley, “The RMA After Next,” Parameters 29, no. 4 (1999).
87 A contemporary of Chew-Chew’s Ibid.
87 It is called a “vampire-bot” Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 248.
88 “The tool has to fit the task” Mark Barber, “Force Protection Robotics,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
88 “Every vehicle is a robot” Daniel H. Wilson, How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion, 1st U.S. ed. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005), 26.
88 Its journey ended Wilson, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, 26.
89 Wheeled vehicles can only operate Finkelstein and Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots.”
89 “humanoid robots should be fielded” Finkelstein, “Military Robotics: Malignant Machines or the Path to Peace?”
90 describe human eyes as “badly designed” Brooks, Flesh and Machines.
90 “In the next 10-20 years” Rodney Brooks, “Technology Impacts on Military Robotics over the Coming Decades,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
91 “getting robots to jump” Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 35.
91 the research was also used by the Pixar Elizabeth Corcoran, “The Stickybot,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006): 106.
91 “Fact of nature” Finkelstein and Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots,” 158.
92 Big Dog will be “unleashed” Preston Lerner, “The Army’s Robot Sherpa from the Backcountry to the Rubble-Strewn Back Alleys of a War-Torn City, This Mechanized Pack Animal Will Follow Soldiers Wherever Duty Calls Them,” Popular Science 268, no. 4 (2006): 72.
92 DARPA’s survey on robotics futures Finkelstein and Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots.”
93 researchers are at work on “claytronic” robots Tom Simonite, “Shape-Shifting Robot Forms from Magnetic Swarm,” New Scientist, January 29, 2008.
93 “it may be increasingly difficult to say” Gates, “A Robot in Every Home.”
4. TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: THE POWER OF EXPONENTIAL TRENDS
94 “I decided I would be an inventor” Ray Kurzweil on Discovery Science Channel, Robosapiens: The Secret (R)evolution, broadcast on June 18, 2006.
95 “About thirty years ago” Ray Kurzweil, interview via phone, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, December 7, 2006.
95 “We use predictions” Ibid.
95 “I’ve slowed down aging to a crawl” Ibid.
96 Kurzweil gets a reported $ 25,000 Ibid.
96 He is also one of five members Ibid.
96 “only an early harbinger” Kurzweil, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 7, 2006.
96 will “create qualitative change” Ibid.
96 “In just 20 years” Kurzweil, as quoted in Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 6.
96 “very much at the mainstream” Kurzweil, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 7, 2006.
97 “the pace of change” Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005), 35.
97 “Skeptics said there’s no way” Kurzweil, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 7, 2006.
97 “If you double from 1 percent every year” Ibid.
97 some two billion people around the world Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 312.
98 Tradic, the first computer Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Health: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” (National Science Foundation, 2002).
98 it has roughly the same capacity Thomas Homer-Dixon, “The Rise of Complex Terrorism,” Foreign Policy, no. 128 (2002): 54.
98 to build a next-generation supercomputer Ibid.
98 Only four years later Garreau, Radical Evolution, 59.
99 refrigerator magnets that play Christmas jingles Ibid.
99 “riding someone else’s exponentials” Ibid.
99 “The Law of Accelerating Returns” Kurzweil, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 7, 2006.
99 Internet bandwidth backbone is doubling Roco and Bainbridge, “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Health.”
99 the number of personal and service robots Unless otherwise noted, all figures are from Garreau, Radical Evolution, 59.
99 The modern-day bomber jet Sean J. A. Edwards, “Swarming and the Future of Warfare” (doctoral thesis, Pardee Rand Graduate School, 2005), 136.
100 the range and effectiveness of artillery fire Stephen D. Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 30.
100 exponential “stretching” of the battlefield Michael E. O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 121.
100 each plane was destroying 4.07 targets Edwards, “Swarming and the Future of Warfare,” 137.
100 the agricultural revolution Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002).
100 launching the Industrial Age Richard R. Nelson, Technology, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 135.
100 In less than a decade, over a billion people Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto (New York: Scribner, 2003), 112.
101 the aggregate of technologic change Ray Kurweil in an interview with Kip P. Nygren, “Emerging Technologies and Exponential Change: Implications for Army Transformation,” Parameters 32, no. 2 (2002): 91.
101 “The Singularity Is Near” Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
101 “We often say things like” Kurzweil, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 7, 2006.
102 the human brain is created Jay Richards, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI, 1st ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2002), 206.
102 “about twenty thousand years of progress” Kurzweil, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 7, 2006.
103 “the laws of science and our ability” As quoted in Garreau, Radical Evolution, 72.
103 “the Internet-based cognitive tools” Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End (New York: Tor Books, 2006), 5.
103 “The Coming Technological Singularity” Vernor Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” (paper presented at the VISION-21 Symposium, March 30-31, 1993).
103 “within thirty years” Ibid.
103 “point where our old models” Ibid.
104 “We are on the edge of change” Vinge, as quoted in Garreau, Radical Evolution, 71-72.
104 “It’s a future period” Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 7.
104 “It’s not merely a technology” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 25, 2006.
104 “fits many of our happiest dreams” Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.”
104 “physical extinction of the human race” Ibid.
105 “the non-biological intelligence” Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 136.
105 “By the way, Joy’s thesis is spot-on” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 7, 2006.
105 “Never before in history” As quoted in Frank Schirrmacher, “Beyond 2001: HAL’s Legacy for the Enterprise Generation,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 31, 2000.
106 “some people, smart people” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 25, 2006.
107 That is, while an electric charge Peter Schwartz, Chris Taylor, and Rita Koselka, “Quantum Leap,” Fortune 154, no. 3 (2006).
107 “The challenges facing the robotics industry” Ibid.
107 “doesn’t require us to try” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
107 “If this war keeps going” Personal communication at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
107 “When you marry all that up” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 25, 2006.
5. COMING SOON TO A BATTLEFIELD NEAR YOU: THE NEXT WAVE OF WARBOTS
109 “They’re going to sneak up on us” John Pike, as quoted in Preston Lerner, “Robots Go to War: Within 10 Years, Infantry Soldiers Will Go into Battle with Autonomous Robots Close Behind Them,” Popular Science 268, no. 1 (2006).
109 “ Instead of us telling machines where to go” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 25, 2006.
110 “The robots you are seeing here” Patrick Rowe as quoted in Warbots, produced by Dan Saxton Company, History Channel, broadcast on August 8, 2006.
110 “But I’m convinced” Lerner, “Robots Go to War.”
110 twenty-two different prototypes of intelligent ground vehicles Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
110 “It’s already been done” Ibid.
111 fire a variety of ammunition John Dyer, “Robotics in Urban Warfare,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
111 “You’ll actually see the sniper” Hiawatha Bray, “Robotic-Vacuum Maker, BU Team Up on Anti-sniper Device,” Boston Globe, October 4, 2005, E3.
111 “It is not an insurmountable problem” Bob Quinn, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
111 “world’s first multipurpose combat robot” Dennis Sorenson, “Technological Development of Unmanned Systems to Support the Naval Warfighters,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
112 “It is just fucking nasty” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 25, 2006.
112 “If you can avoid unnecessary situations” Ibid.
113 “The average surgeon will become” Robert Langreth, “Robo-Docs,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006): 100.
113 “The last thing I want to see” History Channel, Warbots.
113 Future Combat Systems (FCS) program United States Congressional Budget Office, The Army’s Future Combat Systems Program and Alternatives (Washington, DC, 2006).
114 “it would have saved an NCO’s life” Fred Baker III, “Soldiers Like FCS Test Systems So Much, They Don’t Want to Return Them,” Army News Service, February 13, 2007.
114 cost as much as $16 billion a year Jeffrey M. Tebbs, “Smelting the Triangle: Constraining Congress, Defense Contractors, and the Military Brass to Restore a Fiscally Prudent Defense Budget,” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2006), 12.
114 “the largest weapons procurement in history” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
114 “it’s the system that ate the army” Ralph Peters, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 29, 2007.
114 the majority of technical hurdles United States Congressional Budget Office, The Army’s Future Combat Systems Program and Alternatives, 82, 39.
114 “Everything’s working against you” Carl Posey, “Robot Submarines Go to War,” Popular Science 262, no. 4 (2003).
115 the Fire Scout can fly more than Nick Brown, “Fire Scout Takes Over Landing Control,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, February 1, 2006, 30.
116 It lands in the water Bill Sweetman, “The Navy’s Swimming Spy Plane: It Floats, It Flies, It Eliminates Enemy Targets—Meet the Water-Launched Unmanned Enforcer,” Popular Science 268, no. 3 (2006).
116 “I want to see a Predator” David A. Fulghum, “Predator’s Progress,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 158, no. 9 (2003): 48.
116 “It may not be unreasonable” Bill Sweetman, “USAF Predators Come of Age in Iraq and Afghanistan as Reaper Waits in the Wings,” Jane’s International Defence Review 39, no. 6 (2006): 52.
116 The air force sees at least 45 percent Robert S. Boyd, “They’re Very Expensive, but They Save Lives: U.S. Enlisting Smart Robots for War’s Dirty, Deadly Jobs,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 20, 2006, E2.
117 It would have a wingspan Bill Sweetman, “Boeing Working on New Large UAV,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, July 5, 2006.
117 The next step is DARPA’s plan Ramon Lopez, “Five-Year Plan,” Defense Technology International 1, no. 7 (2007): 16.
117 airships could literally be “parked” David A. Fulghum, “Space-RAAM: AIM-120 Recast as Ballistic Missile Interceptor,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 166, no. 19 (2007): 32.
117 small, pilotless planes Dina El Boghdady, “Small Firms Turn to Drones: Demand Grows for Unmanned Craft,”Washington Post, October 31, 2005, D1.
117 “It was tough to track on film” David Hart, “Nano-Air Vehicle Program,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
118 “similar in size and shape to a maple tree seed” Lowe, “High-Flying, Secret Drone Unveiled.”
118 “A lot of the three-letter agencies” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
118 recharge themselves off electrical outlets Ibid.
118 Boston College researchers Ibid., 234.
119 “flat as a pancake” Matthew Brzezinski, “The Unmanned Army,” New York Times Magazine, April 20, 2003.
120 “Can you see him now, sir?!?” interview with U.S. soldier, Peter W. Singer, September 18, 2007.
120 “space Pearl Harbor” Shephard W. Hill, “A Legacy of Support to the Warfighter,” High Frontier Journal 2, no. 3 (2006): 22.
121 to “crush someone anywhere in the world” As quoted in Walter Pincus, “Pentagon Has Far-Reaching Defense Spacecraft in Works,” Washington Post, March 16, 2005, A3.
121 “the single dumbest thing I have heard so far” Ibruegger, “Special Report: Emerging Technologies and Their Impact on Arms Control and Non Proliferation,” NATO Parliamentary Assembly, International Secretariat, 2001, 41.
121 open up the floodgates for others Bruce M. DeBlois, “Space Sanctuary: A Viable National Strategy,” Airpower Journal 12, no. 4 (1998).
121 “a space superpower, it is not going to be alone” Richard Fisher, “Space to Manoeuvre,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, March 2007, 63.
121 the Tamil Tiger group of Sri Lanka Peter de Selding, “Intelsat Vows to Stop Piracy by Sri Lankan Separatist Group,” Space News, April 17, 2007, 1, 4.
6. ALWAYS IN THE LOOP? THE ARMING AND AUTONOMY OF ROBOTS
123 “Wars are a human phenomenon” Thomas K. Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking,” Parameters 31, no. 4 (2001): 57.
123 “people will always want humans” Eliot Cohen, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 15, 2006.
123 “In some cases, the potential exists” Patrick Eberle, “To UAV or Not to UAV: That Is the Question; Here Is One Answer,”
Air & Space Power Journal—Chronicles Online Journal, October 9, 2001, http:// w w
w.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/eberle.html.
124 “It’s far away enough” Helen Greiner, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
124 “ever be able to autonomously fire” Bob Quinn, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
124 “It helps keep people calm” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, July 2, 2007.
124 “The navigation computer” Eberle, “To UAV or Not to UAV.”
124 The system came with four modes George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1996), 196.
125 the computer was trusted Chris Gray, Postmodern War: The New Politics of Conflict (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 69.
125 “In ten to twenty years” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
125 “just a political description” Ray Kurzweil, interview via phone, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, December 7, 2006.
125 U.S. Patriot missile batteries Defense Science Board, “Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Patriot System Performance” (Washington, DC, 2005).
126 “The irony” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 25, 2006.
126 “you cannot take the human out” Predator pilot, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 28, 2006.
126 “currently, at best, very ambitious” Michael J. Barnes et al., “Soldier Interactions with Aerial and Ground Robots in Future Military Environments” (NATO, 2006).
126 “Even if the tactical commander” Sean J. A. Edwards, “Swarming and the Future of Warfare” (doctoral thesis, Pardee Rand Graduate School, 2005), 139.
127 “By making them autonomous” Jim Rymarcsuk, interview with Ralph Wipfli, Washington, DC, October 20, 2006.
127 “If you can automatically hit it” U.S. military officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 17, 2006.
127 “establish a track record of reliability” Ibid.
127 “supervisor who serves” Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking,” 58.
128 “are rapidly taking us to a place” Ibid., 57.
128 “humans will always be in” Randall Steeb, Examining the Army’s Future Warrior: Force-on-Force Simulation of Candidate Technologies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004), 44.
128 “Let’s design our armed unmanned systems” Stephen Trimble, “DoD Group Seeks to Give Autonomy to Armed Drones,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 11, 2006, 10.
128 “Concept for the Operation of Armed Autonomous Systems” Ronald C. Arkin, “Governing Legal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative /Reactive Robot Architecture” (Georgia Institute of Technology/U.S. Army Research Office, 2007); John S. Canning, “Concept for the Operation of Armed Autonomous Systems on the Battlefield,” Dahlgren Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center, 2008.
128 “Unmanned Effects : Taking the Human Out of the Loop” U.S. Joint Forces Command, “Military Robots of the Future” (U.S. Joint Forces Command, 2003).
128 “all the lip service paid” Preston Lerner, “Robots Go to War: Within 10 Years, Infantry Soldiers Will Go into Battle with Autonomous Robots Close Behind Them,” Popular Science 268, no. 1 (2006).
128 “That’s exactly the kind” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 7, 2006.
129 “There is a lot of fear” Retired air force officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, January 28, 2007.
129 “Soon you will just” James Lasswell, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 7, 2006.
129 “We all joke about it” As quoted in John Barry and Evan Thomas, “Up in the Sky, an Unblinking Eye,” Newsweek, June 4, 2008.
129 officers describe unmanned systems Elizabeth Bone and Christopher Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2003).
130 Wilkerson is not some groundpounder Ibid.
130 “We clearly see an evolution” Bob Quinn, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
130 Special forces roles were felt Robert Finkelstein and James Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots” (DARPA, 2004).
130 “As technology advances” Ibid.
130 “2035 [that] we will have robots” Ibid.
131 “Common sense is not a simple thing” Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005), 177.
131 our “emotional intelligence” Ibid., 191.
131 Rod Brooks of MIT and iRobot predicts Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002), 22.
131 “My job will be eliminated” As quoted by David Bruemmer, “Intelligent Autonomy for Unmanned Vehicles,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
131 “Asking whether robots” Rodney Brooks, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 30, 2006.
132 “I firmly believe” H. R. Everett, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 20, 2006.
133 the soldier would call the “play” Susan R. Flaherty et al., “Playbook® Control of Multiple Heterogeneous Weaponized UAVs,” paper presented at the Unmanned Systems North America, AUVSI’s 34th Annual Symposium and Exhibition, Washington, DC, August 6-9, 2007.
133 “Just see it and shoot it is not the future” Thomas McKenna, interview, Peter W. Singer, Arlington Office of Naval Research, December 12, 2006.
133 “The robot will do what robots do best” Ibid.
133 “human and robot roles will evolve” Bruemmer, “Intelligent Autonomy for Unmanned Vehicles.”
133 The military, then, doesn’t expect U.S. Joint Forces Command, “Military Robots of the Future.” See also “Automated Killer Robots ‘Threat to Humanity’: expert,” Agence France-Presse, February 26, 2008.
133 “I believe we should think” Finkelstein and Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots,” 182.
133 WT-6 is a robot in Japan Eric Mika, “This Modern Robot,” Popular Science 269, no. 3 (2006): 66.
134 “trust is a huge issue” Bruemmer, “Intelligent Autonomy for Unmanned Vehicles.”
7. ROBOTIC GODS: OUR MACHINE CREATORS
135 “You have to remember” Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
135 “Each year some forty-two thousand people” Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
135 The Grand Challenge is a robotics road race DARPA, “Grand Challenge 2004 Final Report,” 2004 (cited May 4 2006); available at
http://www.darpa.mil/body/NewsItems/pdf/DGCreport30July2004.pdf+% 22grand+challenge+2004% 22 +final+report+to+Congress & hl= en& gl=us &ct= clnk&cd=1; DARPA, “Grand Challenge 2004 Rules,” 2004 (cited May 4, 2006); available at
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/Rules_8oct04.pdf; Anthony J. Tether, “Grand Challenge 2004 Briefing,” 2005 (cited May 4, 2006); available at
http://www.darpa.mil/body/pdf/Courtyard_Event_Briefing12_05_05.pdf; Lee Gomes, “Team of Amateurs Cuts Ahead of Experts in Computer-Car Race,”
Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2005.
136 “it’s an endurance race” Warbots, produced by Dan Saxton Company, History Channel, broadcast on August 8, 2006.
136 “the first Grand Challenge came off ” Preston Lerner, “Robots Go to War: Within 10 Years, Infantry Soldiers Will Go into Battle with Autonomous Robots Close Behind Them,” Popular Science 268, no. 1 (2006).
137 as much as $100 million in investment Tether, “Grand Challenge 2004 Briefing”; Gomes, “Team of Amateurs Cuts Ahead of Experts in Computer-Car Race.”
137 “the best part of the Grand Challenge” Business executive, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 20, 2006.
137 “We trained Stanley” Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
137 “We all won” Sebastian Thrun, as quoted in Elizabeth Corcoran, “Data Driver,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006): 102.
139 “too many rules specifications” Brian Miller, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
139 “When you are deciding” Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
139 “it left [me] with an empty feeling” Colin Angle, as quoted in David Whelan, “Fights Wars, Lint,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006).
139 “We always knew we would change” Helen Greiner, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
139 “GIT Rockin’: Government IT Rocks, Do You?” “GIT Rockin’: Government IT Rocks, Do You?” 2006 (cited May 4, 2006); available at
www.gitrockin.com
140 “featured talent from Juniper Networks” Federal Computer Week, “Special Report: GIT Rockin’,” 2006 (cited June 8, 2007); available at
http://www.fcw.com/gitrockin/
140 “Folks from around” Ibid.
140 up to a third of major university research faculty Jonathan Moreno, “Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense,” presentation at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, December 7, 2006.
140 “accelerate the future into being” Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 24.
140 And now it’s focusing on robots Ibid., 22.
141 “By the time a technology” Ibid.
141 “it takes risks” Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
141 “challenges verging on the impossible” Steven Wax, as quoted in Garreau, Perfecting the Human.
141 “a mind-numbing mix” Defense industry expert, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 28, 2006.
142 “I have had everyone complain” Ibid.
142 development of such varied programs Robert Kavetsky and Christopher J. R. McCook, “The Technological Perfect Storm,” Proceedings, October 2006.
142 “ideas that literally changed the world” Michael T. Isenberg, Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, 1st ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).
143 “I was supporting some one hundred top graduate students” Thomas McKenna, Arlington Office of Naval Research, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 12, 2006.
143 “sometimes I just find them on the Web” Ibid.
143 “an idea and technology hummingbird” Interview with NSA official, Peter W. Singer, Arlington- Crystal City, VA, February 29, 2008.
144 “You basically beat the snot” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
145 It took eleven days for the labs Dale G. Uhler, “Technology: Force Multiplier for Special Operations,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 40 (2006).
145 “When your butt’s on the line” Ibid.
145 “Any one who wants to play” David Bruemmer, “Intelligent Autonomy for Unmanned Vehicles,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
146 “my obsession with robots” H. R. Everett, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 20, 2006.
146 number sixteen on Wired magazine’s list Capps, “The 50 Best Robots Ever.”
147 the ultimate opportunity for customer feedback Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
147 “Heat and computers don’t mix well” Noncommissioned officer, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
147 “Make it work” Army specialist Jacob Chapman, interview at the Military Robotics conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
148 “We’re going to take” Tom Ryden, interview at the Military Robotics Conference, in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
148 “sometimes we get phone calls” Mark Barber, “Force Protection Robotics,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
148 “The scientist did not need” George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1996), 43.
148 “There are tons of guys” Military analyst, e-mail, Peter W. Singer, June 12, 2007.
148 “Our robots have logistic information” Jim Rymarcsuk, interview with Ralph Wipfli, Washington, DC, October 20, 2006.
149 went through some thirty-five different changes Byron Brezina, interview at the Military Robotics Conference, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
149 a request for “warranty repair” John Dyer, “Robotics in Urban Warfare,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
8. WHAT INSPIRES THEM: SCIENCE FICTION’S IMPACT ON SCIENCE REALITY
150 “You can never tell” Donna Shirley, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 2, 2006.
150 “ridiculous . . . monstrosity” Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto (New York: Scribner, 2003), 220.
151 “like admitting that you masturbate” Ibid., 149.
151 the navy’s “Professional Reading” program Admiral Mike Mullen, “The Means of Knowledge: The Navy’s New Professional Reading Program,” Proceedings 132, no. 10 (2006): 22-23.
152 Museum director Donna Shirley Donna Shirley, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 2, 2006. See also Science Fiction Museum, “Donna Shirley Named Director of Science Fiction Museum,” February 11, 2004 (cited October 16, 2006); available at
http://www.sfhomeworld.org/press_room/donnashirley.pdf
152 “Although the guys in my classes” Sally Richards, “Managing Martians: Donna Shirley, WITI Hall of Fame Inductee, Talks About Generating Creativity and Accomplishing Goals in the Workplace,”
Women in Technology International, 1989-2000 (cited July 7, 2007); available at
http://www.witi.com/wire/feature/dshirley.shtml
152 “Not only were these events” “Donna Shirley: Managing Martians,”
Managing Creativity (cited October 16, 2006); available at
http://managingcreativity.com/
152 “but their heroes were always” Donna Shirley, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 2, 2006.
152 “educate people about science fiction” Ibid.
153 “The technology is not the interesting part” Ibid.
153 science fiction is more about Harry Turtledove and Martin Harry Greenberg, eds., The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century, 1st ed. (New York: Ballantine, 2001).
153 “remade and rereleased every time” Donna Shirley, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 2, 2006.
153 “Women writers tend to write” Ibid.
153 “in the hands of our depraved society” Ibid.
153 “I thought Ender’s Game” Orson Scott Card, interview by e-mail, Peter W. Singer, January 24, 2007.
154 “Soldiers feel like Ender’s Game” Ibid.
155 “The real question” Ibid.
155 “The conflict is obvious [in war]” Robin Wayne Bailey, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 27, 2006.
155 “Fiction is about character” Turtledove and Greenberg, eds., The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century, viii.
156 “It only seems fitting” Heinlein Centennial Inc., “The U.S.S. Robert A. Heinlein Campaign,” Open Letter: The U.S.S. Robert A. Heinlein Campaign, Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter.
156 “the Father of Science Fiction” Adam Roberts, The History of Science Fiction (New York: Routledge, 2000), 48.
157 called Wells’s idea “moonshine” Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986).
157 “the Man Who Invented Tomorrow” Peggy Teeters, Jules Verne: The Man Who Invented Tomorrow (New York: Walker and Company, 1993).
158 George is just a run-of-the-mill database administratorCNN.com, “From Sci-Fi to Reality,” August 1, 2006.
158 “I think there is a world market” David Hambling, Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005), 153.
158 “We don’t do well, historically” Joseph J. Collins, “From the Ground Up,” Armed Forces Journal, October 2006, 47.
158 “no nation would permit it” Tom Reiss, “Imagining the Worst,” New Yorker 81, no. 38 (2005): 112.
159 “Our advances in technical intelligence” Collins, “From the Ground Up,” 47.
159 “Science fiction is not making predictions” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 25, 2006.
159 “Science fiction at its best is about ideas” Robin Wayne Bailey, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 27, 2006.
159 “Science fiction did not predict” Donna Shirley, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 2, 2006.
159 “Science fiction is unreliable” Ray Kurzweil, interview via telephone, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, December 7, 2006.
160 “‘I told you so” Orson Scott Card, interview via e-mail, Peter W. Singer, January 24, 2007.
160 “It’s the near future” Greg Bear, Quantico (London: Harper Collins UK, 2005).
160 “I mean, how many science fiction books” David Sonntag, interview via e-mail, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 28, 2006.
160 “think tank of patriotic science fiction” Grant Slater, “Futuristic Writers Offer Ideas to Fight Terrorism,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 25, 2007.
160 “If you don’t read science fiction” Ibid.
161 “I say there are bad people” Jay Cohen, as quoted in Slater, “Futuristic Writers Offer Ideas to Fight Terrorism.”
161 “If you lead the life” Greg Bear, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 4, 2006.
161 “Harry Truman loved science fiction” Ibid.
161 “They seem to be more like FDR” Ibid.
161 “How William Shatner Changed the World” Julian Jones, director, How William Shatner Changed the World, produced by the History Channel, broadcast on October 21, 2006.
161 “All this wiz-bangering” Ibid.
162 drink a “Commander Riker-Rita” “Star Trek: The Experience” (cited July 7, 2007); available at http://
www.startrekexp.com/
162 the origin of the transporter How William Shatner Changed the World.
162 “There’s Captain Kirk” Ibid.
162 “In Silicon Valley, everyone’s a Star Trek fan” Ibid.
163 Perlman is working Ibid.
163 an anthology of short stories Turtledove and Greenberg, eds., The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century.
163 These range from exoskeleton suits Such systems actually became a point of political debate in the Iraq war, as the Pentagon delayed developing and deploying such systems, despite their potential for protecting vehicles from ambush.
163 “We wanted ground mobility” James Lasswell, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 7, 2006.
163 “But now we are finding” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
164 “People like Isaac Asimov” Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Health: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” (National Science Foundation, 2002).
164 “It’s a way to make possibilities” Developer, interview at the Military Robotics Conference, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
164 “Naval customers just assume” Thomas McKenna, interview, Peter W. Singer, Arlington Office of Naval Research, December 12, 2006.
164 “You have to beg for money” Steven Metz, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 19, 2006.
165 “Any sufficiently advanced technology” Arthur Charles Clarke, Profiles of the Future, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 21.
165 a magic box that killed almost a thousand spear-armed warriors John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun, Johns Hopkins paperback ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 89.
165 what analysts call “Future Shock” Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1970).
165 “Thereseemsastrongtendency”TimothyHornyak, as quoted in Mark Jacob, “Japan’s Robots Stride into Future,” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2006, 7.
166 “stems from the fact that doomsday scenarios” H. R. Everett, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 20, 2006.
166 “And I have no idea” Rod Brooks, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 30, 2006.
167 “So, it is easy to use machines” Jacob, “Japan’s Robots Stride into Future.”
167 robots are given Shinto rites Timothy N. Hornyak, Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots, 1st ed. (Tokyo; New York: Kodansha International, 2006).
167 “If you make something” Jacob, “Japan’s Robots Stride into Future.”
168 “too artificial and icky” Rod Brooks, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 30, 2006.
168 his lab has more collaboration with Asian companies Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
168 “There’s definitely a feedback” Science Fiction Museum, “Donna Shirley Named Director of Science Fiction Museum.”
169 “The military is doing a fine job” Robin Wayne Bailey, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 27, 2006.
169 “The idea of trying to hit a bullet” Donna Shirley, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 2, 2006.
169 It not only predicts and influences the future Bailey, interview, September 27, 2006.
169 “Science fiction says ‘what if?’ ” Shirley, interview, October 2, 2006.
9. THE REFUSENIKS: THE ROBOTICISTS WHO JUST SAY NO
170 learned to say, “No, thank you” Illah Nourbakhsh, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 31, 2006.
172 “They said, ‘Here’s some thousands of dollars’ ” Eric Baard, “Make Robots, Not War,” Village Voice 48, no. 37 (2003). Note: Potter declined an interview.
172 “astonishing robotic creations” Ibid.
172 His dad worked on projects Ibid.
172 “However, there is a slippery slope” Ibid.
173 a work stoppage by key scientists George Friedman and Meredeth Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century (New York: Crown, 1996), 45-49.
174 “It is, in some ways, responsible” Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix, ed. Glenn Yeffeth and David Gerrold (Chicago: BenBella Books, 2003), 219.
174 “The experiences of the atomic scientists” Ibid., 221.
174 “a very touchy subject” Illah Nourbakhsh, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 31, 2006.
174 “I stay out of politics” Brian Miller, interview, Peter W. Singer, April 10, 2006.
174 “He didn’t do it thinking” Sebastian Thrun, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 18, 2007.
174 “What you don’t get” Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 43.
175 “For 364 days out of the year” Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
175 “That ’s above my pay grade” As quoted in Garreau, Radical Evolution, 43.
175 “You can’t let the fear of the future” Ibid.
175 “I don’t think” Baard, “Make Robots, Not War.”
176 “Technology has begun to outstrip” Paul Evans, “Dividing Lines,” UVA Alumni News, Winter 2005, 21.
10. THE BIG CEBROWSKI AND THE REAL RMA: THINKING ABOUT REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGIES
179 “Guns and violence have the potential” Pete Hegseth, “Lessons from a War,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, November 7, 2007.
179 “Here at the end of a millennium” Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 124, no. 1 (1998): 28.
179 “a nervous energy and maverick streak” Clay Risen, “War-Mart: So Long, Clausewitz. Hello, Tom Peters,” New Republic, April 3, 2006, 20.
180 “baby-sit the petri dish” Adam Bernstein, “Adm. Arthur Cebrowski Dies; Led Pentagon Think Tank,” Washington Post, November 15, 2005, B6.
180 “For nearly 200 years” Cebrowski and Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare.”
181 “A Sudden Tempest Which Turns Everything Upside Down” Francesco Guicciardini, as quoted in Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 6.
181 revolutionized by the world of online file sharing Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002), 100.
182 “must prepare to abandon everything” David Rejeski, “The Next Small Thing,” The Environmental Forum, March/April 2004.
182 at least ten revolutions in military affairs since 1300 Andrew F. Krepinevich, “Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions,” National Interest, no. 37 (1994).
182 “a sudden tempest” Francesco Guicciardini, as quoted in Max Boot, War Made New, 6.
182 “when the first early man” Ralph Peters, Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-first Century, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007), 29.
182 “How do you become a winner” Boot, War Made New.
183 “Imagine for a moment” Murray Scott, “Battle Command, Decision Making, and the Battlefield Panopticon,” Military Review, July-August 2002, 46.
183 “the military equivalent of a duck-billed platypus” Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, 175.
184 That doesn’t mean that industrialization Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005), 95.
184 “dramatically increase force effectiveness” David Albert and John J. Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare. Report to Congress” (Department of Defense, 2001).
184 The side that was networked Frederick W. Kagan, “The U.S. Military’s Manpower Crisis,” Foreign Affairs 85, no. 4 (2006).
185 “a move away from platforms to networks” Timothy L. Thomas, “Chinese and American Network Warfare,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 38 (2005).
185 “Everything in war is very simple” Carl von Clausewitz, Michael Eliot Howard, and Peter Paret, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 119.
185 with “near-perfect clarity” Michael J. Mazarr, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Benjamin Ederington, “The Military Technical Revolution: A Structural Framework” (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993), 38.
185 “result in a quantum leap” William A. Owens and Edward Offley, Lifting the Fog of War, 1st ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).
185 “technological innovation” MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 178-79.
185 it would inevitably be “a winning force” Michael E. O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 8.
185 “The U.S. is the only nation” Stephen J. Cimbala, “Transformation in Concept and Policy,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 38 (2005).
186 “The IT-RMA was pitched” Richard Bitzinger, “Is the Revolution in Military Affairs Dead?” Defense News, October 23, 2006.
186 “a revolution in the technology of war” Ian Roxborough, “From Revolution to Transformation: The State of the Field,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 32 (2002).
186 “Bush was (and remains) a firm believer” Kagan, “The U.S. Military’s Manpower Crisis,” 98.
186 a mantra among the “Vulcans” Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon, 2006), 5.
186 “harness the technological advances” Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 4 (2003): 42.
186 “They accepted the presumptions” Frank Hoffman, “Challenging the Technocrats,” Armed Forces Journal, January 2007, 33.
187 “speed and agility and precision” Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, interview at WAPI-AM Radio, Birmingham, AL, Richard Dixon, September 28, 2004.
187 “If ‘Rummy’ was the president’s high priest” Scott Truver, review of James Blaker, Transforming Military Force: The Legacy of Arthur Cebrowski and Network Centric Warfare, Proceedings, January 2008, 75.
188 “Iraq, in turn, was set up” Boot, “The New American Way of War,” citation 44.
188 “at a cost of ‘only’ 27,000 dead soldiers” Ibid.
189 “No one is shooting” Loren Thompson, “Dot-Com Mania,” Defense News, October 28, 2002, 12.
189 “Theories and business models” Hoffman, “Challenging the Technocrats,” 32.
189 “We will never operate” Ralph Peters, “Progress and Peril,” Armed Forces Journal, February 2007, 35.
189 “We kind of lost track” Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, 300.
190 “When do we get red force trackers?” Ibid.
190 “if we run out of batteries” Ibid.
191 “there is probably no conflict” Milan Vego, “The NCW Illusion,” Armed Forces Journal, January 2007, 17.
191 they debated back and forth R. Mike Worden, “Rethinking the U.S. Military Revolution,” presentation at the Stanley Foundation Conference on Leveraging US Strength in an Uncertain World, Washington, DC, December 7, 2006.
192 “Sir, the PackBot” John Dyer, Robots in Urban Warfare: The Evolving Threat Requires an Innovative, Flexible, and Persistent Response, 2006. PowerPoint presentation.
192 “I believe that we are the pioneers” Robert Finkelstein and James Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots” (DARPA, 2004), 230.
192 “nascent stage, set to burst” Brooks, Flesh and Machines, 10-11.
192 “tsunami that will toss our lives” Ibid., 6.
192 I found it repeated See for example Martin van Creveld, “War and Technology,”
Footnotes: The Newsletter of FPRI’s Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education, 12, no. 25 (2007),
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1225.200710.vancreveldwartechnology.html; Williamson Murray, “War and the West,”
Footnotes: The Newsletter of FPRI’s Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education, 12, no. 26 (2007),
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1226.200711.murray.warwest.html.
192 “in something like the position” Thomas K. Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking,” Parameters 31, no. 4 (2001): 57.
193 “It is always hard to see” Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix, ed. Glenn Yeffeth and David Gerrold (Chicago: BenBella Books, 2003), 209.
193 “There is a tendency to talk” As quoted in Richard O. Hundley et al., Past Revolutions, Future Transformations: What Can the History of Revolutions in Military Affairs Tell Us About Transforming the U.S. Military? (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999).
193 “Historians will see the last decade” Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-modern Warfare (Carlisle,
PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2000), 93.
194 “First, you had human beings without machines,” John Pike, as quoted in Fred Reed, “Robotic Warfare Drawing Nearer,” Washington Times, February 10, 2005.
194 “We now stand on the cusp” Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict, IISS Studies in International Security (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 171.
194 “a very different age” George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1996), xi.
195 “The robot kept operating” Tim Kiska, “Robot Firm Liable in Death,” Oregonian, August 11, 1983.
195 “attacked by a humanoid robot” “Trust Me, I’m a Robot,”
Economist 379, no. 8481 (2006);
http://tmsuk.co.jp/artemis; “Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Attacked by Humanoid Robot,” in our
media.org (2005).
195 “Robots are very complex” Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
196 His response: “No.” Francis Harvey, private presentation, Brookings Institution, December 15, 2005.
197 At its first demonstration David Hambling, Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005), 314.
197 the system “detected” a launch Croucher, “Killer Computers.”
197 “We’ve all had problems” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, July 2, 2007.
198 “It will drive off the road” Noncommissioned officer, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
198 SWORDS doing “a Crazy Ivan” iRobot engineer, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
198 The Marine Corps’ Gladiator combat robot Interview at Pentagon, March 31, 2008.
198 “pressure to try to pass safety tests” Jonathan Hall, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, August 6-9, 2007.
199 sometimes just crash when they fly Ibid.
199 “In football, everything is complicated” Steve Rushin, “Thus Spake Mountaineers,” Sports Illustrated , January 22, 2007, 15.
199 “The more complex any system becomes” Ralph Peters, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 29, 2007.
199 “weak and easily jammed” John A. Gentry, “Doomed to Fail: America’s Blind Faith in Military Technology,” Parameters 32, no. 4, (2002) 91.
200 to fry the other side’s electricity O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare.
200 ongoing work on radio-frequency weapons Ibid., 60.
200 “The smarter the weapons” Boot, War Made New, 448.
200 radio-frequency weapons, or “e-bombs” Michael Abrams, “The Dawn of the E-Bomb,” IEEE Spectrum 40, no. 11 (2003).
200 electronic “battles of conviction” Ralph Peters, “The Future of Armored Warfare,” Parameters 27, no. 3 (1997): 52.
200 Ninety-five percent of its communications Gentry, “Doomed to Fail: America’s Blind Faith in Military Technology.”
200 “vulnerable to robots” Jürgen Altmann and Mark Gubrud, “Anticipating Military Nanotechnology,” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 23, no. 4 (2004): 38.
201 “The idea that they can make software unhackable” Ralph Peters, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 29, 2007.
201 “Why is it that every time” Richard Clarke, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, August 8, 2007.
201 “six-year-old kid” Robert Young Pelton, “Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror,” presentation, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, October 5, 2006.
202 “We cannot expect the enemy” Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “21st-Century Land Warfare: Four Dangerous Myths,” Parameters 27, no. 3 (1997).
202 the “bandwidth battle” Gopal Ratnam, “Bandwidth Battle: Supply Falters as Demand Soars, Forcing U.S. to Manage Info Flow,” Defense News, October 9, 2006.
202 “During Gulf War I” Harry Raduege, as quoted in Gopal Ratnam, “Bandwidth Battle,” 37.
202 “For him to deliver” Jeffrey Smith, as quoted in Gopal Ratnam, “Bandwidth Battle,” 37.
202 “staring at the ground” Lewis Crenshaw, as quoted in Gopal Ratnam, “Bandwidth Battle,” 40.
203 “hotspots on the battlefield” Steven Boutelle, as quoted in Gopal Ratnam, “Bandwidth Battle,” 37.
203 “Who’s overseeing all this crap?” Air force pilot, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 9, 2006.
203 “unleash a hurricane” Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century, xix.
204 “Ultimately no one can fully predict” Ibid., 99.
11. “ADVANCED” WARFARE: HOW WE MIGHT FIGHT WITH ROBOTS
205 the thesis comes not from Ibid.
207 “When people think about the future of technology” Robert Bateman, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 27, 2006.
207 “Kurzweil, while an interesting technologist” Ibid.
207 “The Turing test” Ibid.
207 “First and foremost” Ibid.
207 “completely bottom up right now” Ibid.
207 “leaders not able to think beyond” Ibid.
208 “U.S. Army had to rip out the radios” Ibid.
208 A doctrine is the central idea J. F. C. Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (Fort Leaven-worth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1993), 254.
208 “outline of how we fight” Clinton J. Ancker III and Michael D. Burke, “Doctrine for Asymmetric Warfare,” Military Review 83, no. 4 (2003): 18.
209 “prostitution of the air force” Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006): 223.
209 He set up fifty-seven committees James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 37; Murray Williamson, “Armored Warfare: The British, French, and German Experiences,” in Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, ed. Murray Williamson and Allan Reed Millett (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
210 the French alone had more tanks George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1996), 124.
210 “the Maginot Line of the 21st century” John A. Gentry, “Doomed to Fail: America’s Blind Faith in Military Technology,” Parameters 32, no. 4 (2002): 88.
210 developing a strategy and doctrine Robert Finkelstein and James Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots” (DARPA, 2004).
210 “smacked of attention deficit disorder” Bill Sweetman, “UCAVs Offer Fast Track to Stealth, Long Range, and Carrier Operations,” Jane’s International Defence Review 40 (2007): 41.
210 “There’s got to be a better way” Interview at U.S. military facility, February 19, 2008.
211 they “lost it somewhere in Iraq” U.S. Army soldier, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 2, 2006; “American Drone Discovered in Baghdad Cache,”
Danger Room, June 20, 2008,
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/insurgents-unma.html
211 “We don’t have the strategy” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
211 “We are just now thinking” Ibid.
211 “And it’s been a mess for decades” Scientist, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 17, 2006.
211 “mainly bottom-up” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 25, 2006.
211 “They still think of robots” iRobot executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
211 “nothing yet on logistics” Foster-Miller executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
211 “It started out with people arguing” Scientist, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 17, 2006
211 “in all sorts of offices” Ibid.
212 “The Navy has programs” U.S. Joint Forces Command, “Military Robots of the Future” (U.S. Joint Forces Command, 2003).
212 “We were defeated by one thing only” Arthur C. Clarke, “Superiority,” in The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century, ed. Harry Turtledove and Martin Harry Greenberg (New York: Ballantine, 2001), 129.
212 “We now realize” Ibid., 131.
212 “How We Lost the High-Tech War” Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “How We Lost the High-Tech War of 2007: A Warning from the Future,” Weekly Standard 1, no. 19 (1996); Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 1912,” Parameters, 12, no. 4 1992.
213 “are part of the traditional U.S. military repertoire”Jeffrey Record, “Why the Strong Lose,” Parameters 35, no. 4 (2005): 16.
213 “During the Cold War” Steven Metz, Learning from Iraq: Counter-Insurgency in American Strategy (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2006), 78.
213 not being localized battles of asymmetry Rick Brennan et al., “Future Insurgency Threats” (RAND Corporation, 2005); David Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 4 (2005).
213 “in discussing any modernization effort” Ann Roosevelt, “FCS Would Bring Significant Advantages to Future Insurgency-Type Operations, Harvey Says,” Defense Daily, January 23, 2007.
213 “We continue to focus” Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004), 3.
213 “On the battlefields of the future” Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, 1999).
213 “We have made huge leaps” USAF lieutenant general Lance L. Smith, as quoted in Boot, War Made New, 394.
214 “Defeating an insurgency” John Nagl, “A Better War in Iraq,” Armed Forces Journal, August 2006, 23.
214 “The use of force is but temporary” Edmund Burke and Andrew Jackson George, Burke’s Speech on Conciliation with America, 1775 (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1895).
215 “When it comes to reorganizing” Frederick W. Kagan, “The U.S. Military’s Manpower Crisis,” Foreign Affairs 85, no. 4 (2006): 107.
215 “more effective than all the high-tech shit” Robert D. Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (New York: Random House, 2005), 337.
215 “Insurgents don’t show up” Boot, War Made New, 239.
215 “After all the GBUs” Todd Fredericks, “Comments and Discussion: We Have a Serious COIN Shortage,” Proceedings 133, no. 7 (2007): 79.
215 “I’m bothered by the old canard” Steven Metz, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 19, 2006.
216 finally led them to be truly accepted Quote from an Ohio State professor at a presentation by the author on “Wired for War,” October 10, 2006.
216 “ ‘UAVs? Yes, give me more!’ ” Eliot Cohen, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 15, 2006.
216 “In March of 2002” Lieutenant General Walter E. Buchanan III, Commander of USAF 9th Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces, during a meeting with the Defense Writers Group on October 27, 2005, in Washington, DC, as quoted in Marc V. Schanz, “A Complex and Changing Air War,”
Air Force Magazine 89, no. 1 (2006),
http:// www.afa.org/magazine /jan2006/0106airwar.asp.
216 “It was a Hunter UAV” Nathan Hodge, “Interview with Gen. William Wallace,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 4, 2006, 50.
216 they responded that they wanted more Joshua Kucera, “UAV Missions in Iraq Set to Rise,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, January 19, 2005, 11.
217 the air force retooled its pilot training program Noah Shachtman, “Deadly ‘Drone Shortage’ in Iraq?”
Danger Room, March 25, 2008,
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/theres-a-drone.html; and Noah Shachtman, “Gates, Air Force Battle over Robot Planes,”
Danger Room, March 21, 2008,
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/gates-vs-usa-f-o.htm.
217 the army flew 54 percent of all drone flights Jeffrey Kappenman, “Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Decisive in Battle,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 49 (2008): 23.
217 “a power grab” Amy Butler, “Let the Race Begin,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 166, no. 13 (2007): 52.
217 “Robots were only used” Edward Godere, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
217 “After five years of trying” Anthony Aponick, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
217 more than thirty thousand missions Kris Osborn, “U.S. Wants 3,000 New Robots for War,” Defense News, August 13, 2007, 1.
217 “For a long time” Charles Duhigg, “The Pilotless Plane That Only Looks Like Child’s Play,” New York Times, April 15, 2007.
218 “We adapt, they adapt” As quoted in Boot, War Made New, 411.
218 “There is a huge intellectual battle” Foster-Miller employee, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
218 more than ninety ways of triggering IEDs John Bokel, “IEDs in Asymmetric Warfare,” Military Technology 31, no. 10 (2007).
219 “The enemy realizes” As quoted in Byron Spice, “Battlefield Robots Saving Lives, Proving their Worth in Iraq,” Pittsburgh Gazette, June 9, 2006.
219 “They’re always trying to outsmart us” Stew Magnuson, “Bomb Disposal Teams Deliver Blunt Talk on Robots,” National Defense 91, no. 632 (2006).
219 “Insurgents have been intensifying” “U.S. Navy Orders Talon Robots,” Defense News, October 23, 2006, 46.
219 “We figured it out” Noncommissioned officer, interview at the Military Robotics Conference in Washington, DC, Peter W. Singer, April 10-12, 2006.
219 “Jihadis are also concerned” Insurgent, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 17, 2006.
219 They ranged from jury-rigged Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 219.
220 “like the wind was pushing it” Kenneth Dahl, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 16, 2006.
220 “It’s basically a game” H. R. Everett, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 20, 2006.
221 “Americans have the watches” David Barno, “Briefing” (presentation, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, October 4, 2007).
221 “we can use robots” Foster-Miller executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
221 “Robotics also hold great promise” Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-modern Warfare (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2000).
221 “Solving root causes” Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century.
222 “see things develop over time” Predator pilot, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 28, 2006.
222 “we can spot the bad guys” Owen West and Bing West, “Lessons from Iraq,” Popular Mechanics 182, no. 8 (2005).
222 has “TiVo-like capabilities” Tom Vanden Brook, “U.S. Spy Technology Caught in Military Turf Battle,” Defense News, October 8, 2007, 54.
222 The Odin team was able Kris Osborn, “U.S. Aviators, UAVs Team Up Against IEDs,” Defense News, January 21, 2008.
222 “provide persistent staring” Brian Newberry, “The Air Force in the Urban Fight,” Armed Forces Journal , September 2006, 29.
223 “The driver had a perfect ID” Bing West, “Nowhere to Hide,” Popular Mechanics 182, no. 2 (2005).
223 “It’s a comforting sound” Thomas E. Ricks, “Beaming the Battlefield Home: Live Video of Afghan Fighting Had Questionable Effect,” Washington Post, March 22, 2002, 1.
223 “Situational awareness ain’t deterrence,” Sam Mundy, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 3, 2004.
223 guided in by lasers and GPS coordinates Zoran Kusovac, “Joint Intel Located Al-Qaeda Leader,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, June 4, 2006, 24.
223 “While technology is not the sole answer” John Bellflower, “The Indirect Approach,” Armed Forces Journal, January 2007, 16.
223 “an era of ‘oh gee’ technology” James Lasswell, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 7, 2006.
224 “UCAVs are the answer” As quoted in Sweetman, “UCAVs Offer Fast Track to Stealth, Long Range, and Carrier Operations,” 41.
224 “faster speeds, greater stealth” Joris Janssen Lok, “Navies Look for Ways to Tackle the Ever-Changing Close-in Threat,” Jane’s International Defence Review 37 (2004).
225 “we are just beginning to understand” F. W. LaCroix and Irving N. Blickstein, Forks in the Road for the U.S. Navy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), ix.
225 “is like playing” The Military Channel, Creating the X Craft, broadcast on June 13, 2006.
225 “Sometimes computers are better” Ibid.
225 sitting at control module stations Scott Truver, “Mix and Match,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 16, 2005, 24.
226 “spot on, almost visionary” Bill Sweetman, “US Finally Looks Beyond the B-2 for Long-Range Strike Capability,” Jane’s International Defence Review 39 (2006): 44.
226 “can sit at the bottom” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
227 “the under-sea fiber-optic cables” Bill Sweetman, “Exposing the Spy Sub of the Future,” Popular Science 267, no. 2 (2005): 81.
227 the navy is developing a plan Michael Fetsch, Chris Mailey, and Sara Wallace, “UV Sentry,” paper presented at the Unmanned Systems North America, AUVSI’s 34th Annual Symposium and Exhibition, Washington, DC, August 6-9, 2007.
227 Similar plans are being developed Lok, “Navies Look for Ways to Tackle the Ever-Changing Close-in Threat.”
227 The drones fly in and out David Pugliese, “Launch and Recover UAV System Tested,” Defense News, February 19, 2007, 14.
227 “fork in the road” LaCroix and Blickstein, Forks in the Road for the U.S. Navy, ix.
228 “cataclysmic clashes” Ibid.
228 “the touchstone for U.S. naval force planning” Frank Hoffman, “The Fleet We Need,” Armed Forces Journal, August 2006, 29.
228 “a truism—no one would dispute it” “Julian Corbett,” Wikipedia, January 13, 2007 (cited January 15, 2008); available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Corbett. Quote from Williamson Murray in “Corbett, Julian,”
Reader’s Companion to Military History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
229 “Well before it was fashionable” Hoffman, “The Fleet We Need,” 49.
230 “An [enemy] air defense system” David A. Fulghum and Michael J. Fabey, “F-22: Unseen and Lethal,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 166, no. 2 (2007): 46.
230 “If you look at nature’s most efficient predators” Noah Shachtman, as quoted in Warbots, History Channel, broadcast on August 8, 2006.
231 40 percent of these victories Sean J. A. Edwards, “Swarming and the Future of Warfare” (doctoral thesis, Pardee Rand Graduate School, 2005), 83.
231 “an influence, a thing invulnerable, intangible” Ibid., 64.
231 “Obviously the birds lack” Thomas K. Adams, “The Real Military Revolution,” Parameters 30, no. 3 (2000).
231 “boids,” artificial birds Craig W. Reynolds, “An Evolved, Vision-Based Model of Obstacle Avoidance Behavior,” in Proceedings, ed. C. Langton (Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1994).
231 follow three simple rules Adams, “The Real Military Revolution.”
232 “the wisdom of crowds” James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations, 1st ed. (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
232 “We don’t want to copy” Tobey Grumet, “Robots Clean House,” Popular Mechanics 180, no. 11 (2003): 30.
232 “They should just go ahead” Scientist, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 17, 2006.
233 PRAWNs might also carry different weapons Dave Frelinger et al., Proliferated Autonomous Weapons: An Example of Cooperative Behavior, Documented Briefing (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1998), 6.
234 “a dark and menacing cloud” Carl von Clausewitz, Michael Eliot Howard, and Peter Paret, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 581.
234 “My vision of the future” History Channel, Warbots.
234 They might even draw inspiration Edwards, “Swarming and the Future of Warfare,” 99.
234 “zillions and zillions of robots” As quoted in James D. McLurkin, “Stupid Robot Tricks: A Behavior-Based Distributed Algorithm Library for Programming Swarms of Robots” (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004); available at
http://people.csail.mit.edu/jamesm/McLurkin-SM-MIT-2004 (72dpi).pdf.
235 “not all novelty is desirable” Adams, “The Real Military Revolution.”
235 “There go my people” Gregory A. Jackson, “‘ Follow the Money’ and Other Unsolicited Advice for CIOs,” Cause and Effect 22, no. 1 (1999).
235 “Basically stay the hell out of the way” As quoted in Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 217.
236 “decentralized decision making” United States Marine Corps general, interview, January 16, 2007.
12. ROBOTS THAT DON’T LIKE APPLE PI: HOW THE U.S. COULD LOSE THE UNMANNED REVOLUTION
237 “Technology is a double-edged sword” George Michael Casey, “Maintaining Quality in the Force” (presentation, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, December 4, 2007).
237 “Sorry, sir, but we can’t export” Peter Pae, “Arms Dealers Fight It Out for Sales in Booming Asia,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2006.
238 “[Air] shows are nice” Stayne Hoff, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 5, 2006.
238 “knowledge, more than ever before” Joseph S. Nye Jr. and William A. Owens, “America’s Information Edge,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 2 (1996).
238 “The ability to accept and capitalize” Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-modern Warfare (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2000), xviii.
238 “America is by its nature” George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century, 1st ed. (New York: Crown, 1996), 1.
239 “Technology is part of how Americans” Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century, 69.
239 the first to invent or take advantage Richard R. Nelson, Technology, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
239 “The longer you are on top” Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 455.
239 video games and computers made the point U.S. Naval Academy, interviews, Peter W. Singer, November 20, 2007.
240 “most of the things we do” James Lasswell, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 7, 2006.
240 “These major advances” Talat Masood, “Shackling Shock and Awe: American and Muslim World Views on the Laws of High Tech Warfare,” presentation, U.S. Islamic World Forum, Doha, January 10-12, 2004.
240 “We have not abolished” Orson Scott Card, interview by e-mail, Peter W. Singer, January 24, 2007.
240 “We will see if not identical technologies” Steven Metz, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 19, 2006.
241 fourteen hundred corporate members in fifty nations See Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s Web site, available at
http://www.auvsi.org/about/.
241 forty-two countries were at work David Hughes, “A Second Kitty Hawk,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 12, 2007: 49.
241 “The small U.S. humanoid robot community” Robert Finkelstein and James Albus, “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Intelligent Bipedal and Other Legged Robots” (DARPA, 2004), 11.
241 “failed in its assigned mission” Ibid., 52.
241 Dave Sonntag’s job is David Sonntag, e-mail interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 28, 2006.
242 a third of all the world’s industrial robots Tim Kelly, “Rise of the Cyborg,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006): 94.
242 Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1st ed. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986), 75; “Robots Enter Japan’s Daily Life,” Associated Press, March 3, 2008.
243 “My choice may be” Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Airspace Integration Plan for Unmanned Aviation” (Department of Defense, 2004), 40.
244 “The two cities” “Robot Love: South Korea to Build Robot Theme Parks.”
244 “much of the momentum” Ibid.
245 China’s growing Internet presence Wendell Minnick, “Taiwan: Chinese Virus Stole Secret Files,” Defense News, April 16, 2007, 1.
245 “retired fighter aircraft” Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Annual Report on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China” (Department of Defense, 2005), 4.
246 “the U.S. and its military” Roger Cliff, The Military Potential of China’s Commercial Technology (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), xv.
246 “Technology is like ‘magic shoes’” Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, 1999).
247 “The new concept of weapons” Ibid.
247 “We believe that some morning” Qiao and Wang, Unrestricted Warfare.
247 the United States only has 4 percent of the world’s population Boot, War Made New, 322.
247 “the United States is headed” Robert Kavetsky and Christopher J. R. McCook, “The Technological Perfect Storm,” Proceedings, October 2006.
248 “The longer students are exposed” Norman R. Augustine, “Learning to Compete,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, March 7, 2007, 36.
248 “When I compare our high schools” Ibid.
248 create a “futile cycle” Tilghman, “‘Rising Above the Gathering Storm’ Through Science and Engineering Education.”
248 “In the past four years” As quoted in Augustine, “Learning to Compete.”
249 “If action is not taken” National Science Board, “A Companion to Science and Engineering Indicators 2004: An Emerging and Critical Problem of the Science and Engineering Labor Force” (National Science Board, 2004).
249 In India, six engineers Augustine, “Learning to Compete.”
249 Starbucks has to spend more Ibid., 35.
249 America’s trade balance in high-tech goods Ibid.
249 three-fourths of the new R&D facilities Ibid.
249 “There is massive industrial espionage” Richard Clarke, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, August 8, 2007.
250 angrily confronted a group Peter W. Singer, “Research Visit to iRobot Corporation,” 2006.
250 “when they only want to buy one” Stayne Hoff, interview, Peter W. Singer, December 5, 2007.
250 “If the U.S. doesn’t wake up” Tina Hesman, “Stephen Thaler’s Computer Creativity Machine Simulates the Human Brain,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 24, 2004.
251 new ideas still have trouble Credit goes to James Surowiecki for this insight.
251 QWERTY is the way Jared M. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1997), 248.
251 “In no profession” Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 2.
252 good enough for their heroes J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
252 “foolish and unjustified discarding of horses” David E. Johnson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 136.
252 “The greatest hurdle” U.S. Joint Forces Command, “Military Robots of the Future” (U.S. Joint Forces Command, 2003).
252 “no fighter pilot is ever” Charles Duhigg, “The Pilotless Plane That Only Looks Like Child’s Play,” New York Times, April 15, 2007.
253 “It’s like being a pilot for nerds” Sig Christenson, “Cutting Edge of Military Aviation Has Steep Price Tag,” San Antonio Express-News, September 18, 2007.
253 “I was happy when drones came in” Greg Lengyel, interview, Peter W. Singer, April 13, 2006.
253 “Today’s Air Force clings” Ralph Peters, Never Quit the Fight, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), 61.
253 “It’s seen as this geeky thing to do” Interview at U.S. military facility, Peter W. Singer, February 19, 2008.
254 “perform high-speed aerobatics” George C. Wilson, “A Chairman Pushes Unmanned Warfare,” National Journal 32, no. 10 (2000): 718.
254 “If you dislike change” As quoted in P. H. Liotta, “Chaos as Strategy,” Parameters 32, no. 2 (2002): 55.
254 “cavorting with headhunters” Christopher Palmeri, “A Predator That Preys on Hawks,” BusinessWeek , no. 3820 (2003).
255 “It’s like a California speed shop” Ibid.
255 “The development of the smaller, cheaper plane” Ibid.
256 “We’re number 1 in the world” Boot, War Made New, 435.
256 “routinely broken” William Matthews, “Pentagon Inspector General: Procurement Laws Are Routinely Broken,” Defense News, January 22, 2007, 4.
256 being “hierarchical and top down” Former army colonel, interview, Peter W. Singer, April 11, 2007.
256 “The thing is 30 pounds and electric!” Bruce Jette, “Robotics Development: An Overview of the Work of the Rapid Equipping Force,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
257 “We become prisoners” Peters, Never Quit the Fight, 36.
257 “quantitative incompetence” Ralph Peters, “COIN of the Realm,” presentation, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, October 22, 2007.
257 “In the year 2054” Friedman and Friedman, The Future of War, 248.
257 the number of Pentagon prime contractors Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project, “Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment” (Washington, DC, 2006).
257 “Only the dinosaurs were allowed” Scientist, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 17, 2006.
258 “The future belongs to those people” “Interview: Neal Blue Chairman-CEO, General Atomics,” Defense News, February 11, 2008, p. 26.
258 “We just work on what the Pentagon” Defense executive, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 4, 2007.
258 a combined $295 billion over budget GAO Report, “Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs,” March 2008.
258 91 percent of the performance bonus This is not an isolated incident. Contractors for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter also received their full bonus of nearly $500 million from 1999 to 2003, despite the fact that it overran the budget by $10 billion and was almost a year behind schedule.
258 “Larger companies trend towards larger vehicles” Mark Barber, “Force Protection Robotics,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006. Interview with author.
259 “There is no comparison” Bing West, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 23, 2006.
259 “more often smart than stupid” Richard Szafranski, “When Waves Collide: Future Conflict,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 7 (1995): 82.
260 “The ability to learn faster” As quoted in Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 257.
260 “While learning from experience” As quoted in Thomas Ricks, “America’s Adventure,” Armed Forces Journal, August (2006): 19.
13. OPEN-SOURCE WARFARE: COLLEGE KIDS, TERRORISTS, AND OTHER NEW USERS OF ROBOTS AT WAR
261 “If I can imagine it” Greg Bear, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 4, 2006.
261 “It was an unusual shopping expedition” Jason Zengerle, “Raising Money to Save Darfur,” New Republic, March 20, 2006.
263 “There are many who belittled” Barbara Opall-Rome, “Combating the Hizbollah Network: Israel Army Lessons from War in Lebanon,” Defense News, October 9, 2006, 6.
264 Hezbollah also flew at least three Alon Ben-David, “Israel Shoots Down Hezbollah UAV,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, August 16, 2006, 6.
264 “In the cyberterrorism trade” Ibid.
265 The group even infiltrated Opall-Rome, “Combating the Hizbollah Network: Israel Army Lessons from War in Lebanon.”
265 “The intelligence data provided” David A. Fulghum, “Insurgents’ New Tools,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 165, no. 16 (2006).
265 “All contempt for terrorists” Ralph Peters, “Lessons from Lebanon,” Armed Forces Journal, October 2006, 43.
265 “robot mercenaries” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 7, 2006.
265 “I read an article in Popular Science” Lee Gomes, “Team of Amateurs Cuts Ahead of Experts in Computer-Car Race,” Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2005, B1.
266 “It’s a beautiful thing” Ibid.
266 “War made the state” Charles Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. Charles Tilly (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Unviersity Press, 1975), 42.
266 past RMAs were associated Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 464.
267 “The actual physical hardware” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 25, 2006.
267 “There are no friends” Al J. Venter, War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars—The Modern Mercenary in Combat, 1st ed. (Philadelphia: Casemate, 2006), 230.
267 “A robot out of sight” Bruce Jette, “Robotics Development: An Overview of the Work of the Rapid Equipping Force,” paper presented at the Military Robotics Conference, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Washington, DC, April 10-12, 2006.
268 the tiny country had hired “Des Combats terrestres ont opposé l’armée ivoirienne et les militaires français,”
Le Monde, November 15, 2004,
www.lemonde.fr.
268 “State, nonstate, air, land, sea” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 25, 2006.
268 “One of the reasons” Logan Ward et al., “America 2025,” Popular Mechanics 182, no. 5 (2005).
268 “High-Tech Terror: Al-Qaeda’s Use of New Technology” Jarret M. Brachman, “High-Tech Terror: Al-Qaeda’s Use of New Technology,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 30, no. 2 (2006).
268 “offer news on Iraq” Anton LaGuardia, “Al-Qaeda Places Recruiting Ads,” Telegraph London, August 10, 2005.
269 “killer robots” As quoted in Brachman, “High-Tech Terror: Al-Qaeda’s Use of New Technology,” 157.
269 “intersection of robotics and terrorist groups” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
269 “You can be a wimp” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, July 2, 2007.
270 “a suicide bomber on steroids” Ibid.
270 “Robots could be very attractive” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
270 “an ideal platform” USAF Scientific Advisory Board, Air Defense Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) (2006).
271 “They can make a lone actor” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
271 “a few amateurs” Ibid.
271 “One bright but embittered loner” Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—and What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 139.
271 “The obligation of subjects” Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare (London, New York: Routledge, 2001), 18. Coker is quoting Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford: J. Thornton, 1881), 170.
272 Information on how to build Ray Kurzweil, interview via phone, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, December 7, 2006.
272 “It feels like all ten billion of us” Garreau, Radical Evolution, 101.
272 “It is no exaggeration” Ibid., 207.
272 “The future is manhunting” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 7, 2006.
273 Skyshield, an automated machine-gun system Alon Ben-David, “New Model Army,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 11, 2006, 26.
273 as many as three hundred times a day Daniel H. Wilson, How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion, 1st U.S. ed. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005), 88.
274 “They could only use” Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
274 They can even scan crowds Ibid.
275 One of the biggest data-mining efforts Constance L. Hays, “What They Know About You,” New York Times, November 14, 2004.
276 can then be matched against Ibid.
276 “identifying that it is a needle” As quoted in Giles Ebbutt, “Knowledge Is Power,” Jane’s International Defence Review 40 (2007): 33.
276 “track leads, form hypotheses” Duncan Graham-Rowe, “Intelligence Analysis Software to Predict Terrorist Attacks in the Future,”
New Scientist, July 14, 2001,
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1368; Michael P. Tremoglie, “Terrorist Tracking Technology,”
American Daily, September 3, 2004,
http://www.americandaily.com/article/2048.
277 “cannot guarantee the software” Graham-Rowe, “Intelligence Analysis Software to Predict Terrorist Attacks in the Future”; Applied Systems Intelligence, ASI Continues Growth by Putting Brains in Army’s Robots; Eng, Digital Warriors Artificial Intelligence May Help Spot Future Terrorism Attacks; Tremoglie, “Terrorist Tracking Technology.”
277 “is more terrifying than losing one’s privacy” Graham-Rowe, “Intelligence Analysis Software to Predict Terrorist Attacks in the Future”; “Orwellian” quote from Wikipedia, “Information Awareness Office,” December 25, 2007 (cited January 11, 2008); available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office.
14. LOSERS AND LUDDITES: THE CHANGING BATTLEFIELDS ROBOTS WILL FIGHT ON AND THE NEW ELECTRONIC SPARKS OF WAR
279 “Increasingly, we live in a world” Ralph Peters, “The Culture of Future Conflict,” Parameters 25, no. 4 (1995).
280 “simply one of the most creative” Ralph Peters, Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003), back cover quote.
280 “Ours is the age of barbarians” Ralph Peters, Never Quit the Fight, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), xv.
280 “The soldiers of the United States Army” Ralph Peters, “The New Warrior Class,” Parameters 24, no. 2 (1994).
281 “Unlike soldiers, warriors do not play” Ibid.
281 “postmodern warriors” As quoted in Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict, IISS Studies in International Security (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 9.
281 “These are people” As quoted in Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-modern Warfare (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2000), 48.
281 “The archetype of the new warrior” Ibid.
281 “The longer the fighting continues” Peters, “The New Warrior Class.”
282 “rightful place in the sun” Peters, “The Culture of Future Conflict.”
282 “We live in the most dynamic age” Ralph Peters, e-mail, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 9, 2007.
282 “The Internet is the greatest tool” Ibid.
282 “The root causes of conflict” Ibid.
283 Americans spend over half a trillion dollars Emily Lambert, “The Odd Couple,” Forbes 178, no. 4 (2006).
283 1.3 billion people in the developing world Figures from United Nations Human Settlements Programme, The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements (London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2003); Paul Collier, “A Worldwide Scourge—How to Stem Civil Wars: It’s the Economy, Stupid,” International Herald Tribune , May 21, 2003; Michael Renner, “The Global Divide: Socioeconomic Disparities and International Security,” in World Security: Challenges for a New Century, ed. Michael Klare and Yogesh Chandrani (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 275.
283 One hundred twenty-seven million Americans are “obese” Lambert, “The Odd Couple.”
284 90 percent of the world’s youth Petersen, “A Strategy for the Future of Humanity.”
284 99 percent of the world’s population growth Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, “The Defense Implications of Demographic Trends,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 48 (2008): 121.
284 too many young males Christian Mesquida and Neil I. Warner, “Male Age Composition and Severity of Conflicts,”
Politics and Life Sciences 18, no. 2 (1999); Richard Morin, “Boy Trouble,”
Washington Post, June 24, 2001; “Natural Born Killers: Does Biology Drive Our Need to Wage War,”
Profile, May 1999,
http://www.yorku.ca/ycom/profiles/past/may/99current/dept/dispatch/dsp6.htm
284 the trend is particularly pronounced Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Worldwide Threat 2004: Challenges in a Changing Global Context, Testimony by George J. Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, February 24, 2004.
285 As many as 250 million children Figures from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Affairs (2003), and Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, “State of World Population 2003: Making 1 Billion Count” (New York: United Nations Population Fund, 2003).
285 “These poor, young billions” Petersen, “A Strategy for the Future of Humanity.”
285 “the century of ‘not enough’ ” Peters, “The Culture of Future Conflict.”
285 “Unchecked climate change” Ibid.
286 “Now the ignorant know” Ralph Peters, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 29, 2007.
286 the more people are connected Richard O. Hundley and RAND Corporation, The Global Course of the Information Revolution: Recurring Themes and Regional Variations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003).
286 fifty countries that have “stateless zones” George J. Tenet, The Worldwide Threat 2004: Challenges in a Changing Global Context.
286 “Extreme losers in the information revolution” Hundley and RAND Corporation, The Global Course of the Information Revolution.
287 Al-Qaeda’s movement of its training camps George J. Tenet, The Worldwide Threat 2004.
287 “It has become increasingly difficult” Syed Hamid Albar, “Remarks at the U.S. and Islamic World Forum” (presentation, Doha, Qatar, February 17, 2006).
287 over half of humankind Tom Standage, A History of the World in 6 Glasses (Walker & Company, 2006), 93; David Oliver, “Training Street Fighters,” Military Technology 31, no. 4 (2007): 39.
287 “The city—capstone of human organization” Ralph Peters, “Our Soldiers, Their Cities,” Parameters 26, no. 2 (1996): 45.
287 “the new forests” Ralph Peters, e-mail, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 9, 2007.
287 “Cities are now the center of rebellion” Ibid.
288 “Habituated to violence” As quoted in Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict, 10.
288 “The future of warfare” Peters, “Our Soldiers, Their Cities,” 43.
288 “shanty-towns and squatter communities” Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006).
288 “the diverse religious” Ibid.
288 “stinking mountains of shit” Ibid.
289 “American Terminators” Turse, “Baghdad 2025: The Pentagon Solution to a Planet of Slums.”
289 “where the fight” Ibid.
289 “The array of threats” As quoted in Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century, 44.
289 “gallant struggles in green fields” Peters, “Our Soldiers, Their Cities,” 43.
290 “it’s a no-brainer for the enemy” Ralph Peters, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 29, 2007.
290 “A host of unmanned vehicles” Turse, “Baghdad 2025: The Pentagon Solution to a Planet of Slums.”
290 “to make the foreign city” Ibid.
290 A similar program David Hughes, “Street-Smart Maps,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 165, no. 21 (2006): 77.
290 “pressing need in urban warfare” As quoted in Turse, “Baghdad 2025: The Pentagon Solution to a Planet of Slums.”
291 “You have continuous coverage” Graham, “America’s Robot Army.”
291 “unprecedented awareness” Ibid.
291 “There is a uniquely American pursuit” Ralph Peters, interview, Peter W. Singer, March 29, 2007.
292 “Something very fundamental” Richard Clarke, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, August 8, 2007.
294 “It goes to the last frontier” Tom Erhard, interview, Peter W. Singer, January 31, 2007.
294 “will be a moral battlefield” Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Pantheon, 2002), x.
295 neo-Luddites will also see Antón, Silberglitt, and Schneider, The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/ Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015.
295 “We therefore advocate a revolution” Ibid.
296 “huge potential for strange bedfellows” Richard Clarke, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 8, 2007.
296 “The great paradox” Ralph Peters, e-mail, Peter W. Singer, March 9, 2007.
15. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WARBOTS
297 “Warfare is about changing” Ralph Peters, Never Quit the Fight, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), 39.
297 “Human versus robot?” Eliot Cohen, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, November 15, 2006.
297 the book for civilian leaders Ahmad Faruqui, “The Apocalyptic Vision of the Neo-Conservative Ideologues,”
CounterPunch, November 26, 2002, http://
www.counterpunch.org/faruqui1126.html
298 “at which a majority” John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976), 276.
298 “while soldiers will fight” Fred Reed, “Robotic Warfare Drawing Nearer,” Washington Times, February 10, 2005.
298 “an almost helpless feeling” Edward Godere, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 17, 2006.
298 “without even having to fire” Discovery Channel Pictures, “Smart Weapons,” in Future Weapons, Discovery Channel, broadcast on May 17, 2006.
300 But after these strange, fearsome men Jared M. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1997), 68 and 75.
300 “Any sufficiently advanced technology” Christopher Coker, The Future of War: The Re-enchantment of War in the Twenty-first Century, Blackwell Manifestos (Malden, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2004), 130.
300 how American air power Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “America’s Asymmetric Advantage,” Armed Forces Journal, September 2006.
300 “With all the dust” Bing West, “Nowhere to Hide,” Popular Mechanics 182, no. 2 (2005).
300 While the hostage takers gathered Peter W. Singer, “Research Visit to Foster-Miller,” 2006.
302 “market forces will shape things” David Hanson, interview via phone, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 12, 2007.
302 influence the “attitudes, feelings” United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-35, Doctrine for Joint Psychological Operations, September 5, 2003, 102.
302 evokes a state of terror From Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), as discussed in Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors? The Changing Culture of Military Conflict, IISS Studies in International Security (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 19.
303 “That’s not funny anymore” Francis J. West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah (New York: Bantam, 2005), 273.
304 “might even be a profession” Robert Finkelstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, July 7, 2006.
304 “an object acting as a human” David Hanson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 12, 2007.
304 “The keyboard and the monitor” Robert Epstein, “My Date with a Robot,” Scientific American, June-July 2006, 68-73.
304 “People’s empathy increases” Mark Jacob, “Japan’s Robots Stride into Future,” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2006.
305 “It’s not just that” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 25, 2006.
305 “The more familiar with technology” Ibid.
305 “If they are not used to robots” David Hanson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 12, 2007.
305 “When my daughter first saw” Epstein, “My Date with a Robot.”
305 “The uncanny valley is” Andrew Bennett, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 16, 2006.
305 The raids killed hundreds of thousands Anthony D’Amato, “International Law, Cybernetics, and Cyberspace,” Naval War College International Law Studies 76 (2006): 66.
305 proved “fundamentally flawed” H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, 1st ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 327.
306 “I think that it will discourage” U.S. Army UAV pilot, interview, Peter W. Singer, November 8, 2007.
306 “It must be daunting” Interview at U.S. military facility, Peter W. Singer, February 19, 2008.
306 “I didn’t really imagine” Yousif Basil, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 15, 2006.
307 “you have to remember” Nir Rosen, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 11, 2006.
307 Showing personal bravery United States Marine Corps general, interview, Peter W. Singer, January 16, 2007.
308 “Victory comes from human beings” Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “How We Lost the High-Tech War of 2007: A Warning from the Future,” Weekly Standard 1, no. 19 (1996): 96.
308 The future hotbed of rebellion LTC Todd Megill, intelligence officer with 4th Infantry Division, in Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 401.
308 Khouri is also the editor-at-large Rami Khouri, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 22, 2006.
310 “The optics of the situation” Noah Shachtman, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, March 25, 2006.
310 “encourages heresy” For a transcript see “Samir Ubeid, an Iraqi Researcher Living in Europe: The Nobel Prize Is Racist and Stems from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Middle East Media Research Institute, October 31, 2006 (cited August 14, 2007); available at
http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1313.htm.
310 lacks “a cultural base” Ibid.
310 “This type of warfare” Talat Masood, “Shackling Shock and Awe: American and Muslim World Views on the Laws of High Tech Warfare” (presentation, U.S. Islamic World Forum, Doha, January 10-12, 2004).
311 “distance warfare” Ibid.
311 “Overreliance on the military” Ibid.
311 “The concept of ‘shock and awe’” Ibid.
311 “The mythology surrounding” Mansoor Ijaz, “An Alliance Too Vital to Jeopardize with Poor Intelligence,” Financial Times, January 17, 2006, 13.
311 “America’s heartless terrorism” Munish Puri, e-mail, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, July 20, 2006.
311 give credence to the unintended psychological consequences Mubashar Jawed Akbar, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 12, 2006.
312 Using robots in war Ibid., 65.
313 “The insurgents are defending” Nir Rosen, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 11, 2006.
313 “If they play by these rules” Rami Khouri, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 22, 2006.
313 “Against them make ready” Koran, sura 8, verse 60.
314 “the study of battle” Keegan, The Face of Battle, 298.
314 “vision, a dream, a nightmare” Ibid., 294.
16. YOUTUBE WAR: THE PUBLIC AND ITS UNMANNED WARS
315 “Wars are a human phenomenon” Thomas K. Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking,” Parameters 31, no. 4 (2001): 57.
315 “Robotics and all this unmanned stuff” Larry Korb, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 30, 2006.
316 “There will be more marketing” Ibid.
317 “The Army belongs” Stephen J. Cimbala, “Transformation in Concept and Policy,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 38 (2005): 28.
317 “War is much more than strategy” R. D. Hooker Jr., “Beyond Vom Kriege: The Character and Conduct of Modern War,” Parameters 35, no. 2 (2005): 8.
317 “Society is an intimate participant” Ibid.
318 Josiah Bunting is a former major general Josiah Bunting, “What Determines Why People Support the Next War?,” Imagining the Next War, Guggenheim conference, New York, March 25, 2006.
319 “They [unmanned systems] lower” Tom Malinowsky, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, January 29, 2007.
319 “Anything that makes it morally” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 7, 2006.
320 entertainment, or “war porn” Interview with U.S. Army War College officer, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, February 8, 2008.
320 “A global spectator sport” “Notes, 8 June 2004,” in National Security in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Principles of War (Arlington, VA: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, 2004).
321 “the pleasure of a spectacle” Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare (London, New York: Routledge, 2001), 150.
321 Nations often go to war Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: Free Press, 1973).
321 “if we believe the hype” Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
321 “lower the threshold for violence” James Der Derian, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 20, 2006.
321 “If one can argue that such new technologies” Ibid.
322 “option of last resort” A. J. Bacevich and Lawrence F. Kaplan, “The Clinton Doctrine,” Weekly Standard 215, no. 14 (1996): 16.
322 cruise missile diplomacy of the 1990s John A. Gentry, “Doomed to Fail: America’s Blind Faith in Military Technology,” Parameters 32, no. 4 (2002): 100.
322 “feel good for a time” Ibid.
322 “The military thinks” Daniel Wilson, interview, Peter W. Singer, October 19, 2006.
323 One private military company executive Robert Young Pelton, “Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror,” presentation, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, October 5, 2006.
323 “a reflection of the moral character” Ibid.
324 “The life of one NATO soldier” Ibid.
324 “become so intoxicated by the idea” Coker, Humane Warfare, 150.
324 “making war is the act of killing” Francis J. West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah (New York: Bantam, 2005), 323.
324 “is forced travel, no good food” Paul Fussell, “What Determines Why People Support the Next War?” (paper presented at the Imagining the Next War, Guggenheim Conference, New York City, March 25, 2006).
325 “If darkness had mercifully hidden” Ibid.
325 “If there is no risk” Fussell, “What Determines Why People Support the Next War?”
325 “people will support the next war” Ibid.
17. CHANGING THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR AND THE WARRIOR
326 “The introduction of every new technology” Illah Nourbakhsh, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 31, 2006.
328 Colonel Gary Fabricius graduated from Gary Fabricius, interview, Peter W. Singer, Pentagon, August 29, 2006.
328 “kicking, screaming, clawing, and scratching” Ibid.
328 “But after a month, I became a believer” Ibid.
329 “You could see him climbing out of the hole” Ibid.
329 “If you want to pull the trigger” Robert D. Kaplan, “Hunting the Taliban in Las Vegas,” Atlantic Monthly 298, no. 2 (2006).
329 the action felt so intense Joel Garreau, “Bots on the Ground: In the Field of Battle (Or Even Above It), Robots Are a Soldier’s Best Friend,” Washington Post, May 6, 2007, D1.
330 Marshall Harrison tells Marshall Harrison, A Lonely Kind of War: Forward Air Controller, Vietnam (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1989), 27.
330 “a wife, three children, and a well-mortgaged home” Ibid., 43.
330 “At the end of the duty day” Kaplan, “Hunting the Taliban in Las Vegas.”
330 “YOU’LL BE SCARED” Nancy Sherman, Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 101.
330 getting home in time Predator pilot, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 28, 2006.
331 “No, he doesn’t meet my definition” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 7, 2006.
331 “If you see it through their eyes” Ibid.
331 “so many brave and valiant men” Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 22.
331 “fighting by remote” Robert Epstein, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, October 25, 2006.
331 “passive disdain” Boot, War Made New, 86.
331 “Three men and a machine gun” Ibid., 167.
332 “The real function of an army” T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History, 1st Brassey’s ed. (Washington: Brassey’s, 1994), 66.
332 “The mysterious quality” As quoted in Henry G. Gole, “Reflections of Courage,” Parameters 27, no. 4 (1997): 147. See also Charles McMoran Wilson Moran, The Anatomy of Courage, 1st American ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967).
332 “It ’s like a video game” Shachtman, “Drone School, a Ground’s-Eye View.”
332 “Every now and then” Hart Seely, “Robot Plane Pilots Have Bird’s Eye View of Iraq War,” New-house News Service, November 4, 2005.
332 “You’ve got to be thankful” Ibid.
332 “Yeah, war is hell” Ibid.
332 “I won the last game” Ibid.
332 move toward “virtueless war” Andrew White, “Uninhabited Military Vehicles as ‘Virtueless’ War: A Psycho-Social Exploration of Behavioural Responses” (NATO, 2006). Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge cited on p. 11-1 and later pp. 11-8.
333 “war is not just in transition” Chris Gray, Post-modern War: The New Politics of Conflict (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 3.
333 “From this day to the ending of the world” William Shakespeare, Henry V, 4.3.58-62.
333 “We’re a family” Robert D. Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (New York: Random House, 2005), 281.
334 “Cohesion requires trusting” Ralph E. McDonald, “Cohesion: The Key to Special Operations Teamwork, Research Report No. AU-ARI-94-2” (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, October 1994).
334 the new experiences of warriors Bing West, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 23, 2006.
334 “Make no mistake” Interview at U.S. military facility, Peter W. Singer, February 19, 2008.
334 “founding father of the study” Josh Hyatt, “The SOUL of a New Team,” Fortune 153, no. 11 (2006): 134-43.
335 “The only sound” Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Health: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” (National Science Foundation, 2002), 164.
335 “Computers by their nature” Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 313.
335 “skittering like water bugs” Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 219.
335 “op-con [operational control] isn’t real” United States Marine Corps general, interview, Peter W. Singer, January 16, 2007.
336 “Ninety percent of the time” Gary Fabricius, interview, Peter W. Singer, Pentagon, August 29, 2006.
336 “Staff Sergeant Smithy” Ibid.
336 “I hate it” Ibid.
336 “Yipee-ki-aye! Motherfucker” Interview at U.S. military facility, Peter W. Singer, February 19, 2008.
336 “everyone thinks they have a vote” Predator pilot, interview, Peter W. Singer, August 28, 2006.
336 “Textual communications accounts” Michael Downs, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 13, 2006.
337 “and confusion led the UAV” Special forces officer, interview, Peter W. Singer, September 7, 2006.
337 “Can you fix it?” Garreau, “Bots on the Ground: In the Field of Battle (Or Even Above It), Robots Are a Soldier’s Best Friend,” Washington Post, May 6, 2006, D1.
337 “This has been a really great robot” Ibid.
338 “wanted Scooby-Doo back” Peter W. Singer, “Research Visit to iRobot Corporation,” 2006.
338 “I don’t get happy about robots” As quoted in Lee Gutkind, Almost Human: Making Robots Think, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006), 36.
338 “You start to associate personalities” Preston Lerner, “Robots Go to War: Within 10 Years, Infantry Soldiers Will Go into Battle with Autonomous Robots Close Behind Them,” Popular Science 268, no. 1 (2006).
338 “award ‘battlefield promotions’ ” Garreau, “Bots on the Ground.”
339 “It was a big deal” Ibid.
339 an EOD soldier ran fifty meters Peter W. Singer, “Research Visit to Foster-Miller,” 2006.
340 “The Colonel could not stand” Garreau, “Bots on the Ground.”
340 the people had much the same brain activity Robin Marantz Henig, “The Real Transformers,” New York Times Magazine, July 29, 2007.
340 describe their computers as having “agency” Betya Friedman, Peter H. Kahn, and Jennifer Hagman, “Hardware Companions? What Online AIBO Discussion Forums Reveal About the Human-Robotic Relationship,” in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Fort Lauderdale: ACM Press, 2003), 274.
340 “Oh yeah, I love Spaz” Peter H. Kahn et al., “Social and Moral Relationships with Robotics Others?,” paper presented at the IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interaction, Okayama, Japan, September 20-22, 2004, 548.
341 this line of what is alive or not Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Health: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” (National Science Foundation, 2002).
341 “Robots will need to work” Hiroko Tabuchi, “Japan Looks to a Robot Future,” Associated Press, March 2, 2008.
342 “Hey [whatever their name was]” Jennie J. Gallimore and Sasanka Prabhala, “Creating Collaborative Agents with Personality for Supervisory Control of Multiple UCAVs,” paper presented at the Symposium on Human Factors of Uninhabited Military Vehicles as Force Multipliers, Biarritz, France, October 9-11, 2006, 14.
342 The other would say Ibid.
342 “Here is the last known target” Ibid., 16.
342 “Let’s say you design robots” Peter H. Kahn, “Social and Moral Relationships with Personified Robots” (presentation, Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence, March 12, 2007).
342 “But he was somebody” Paul Fussell, “What Determines Why People Support the Next War?,” paper presented at the Imagining the Next War, Guggenheim Conference, New York City, March 25, 2006.
342 “Being a Marine” Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 17.
343 “We joined the military” United States Marine, interview, Peter W. Singer, May 15, 2007.
18. COMMAND AND CONTROL...ALT-DELETE: NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THEIR EFFECT ON LEADERSHIP
344 “You are watching the most violent actions” LTC Michael Downs, interview, Peter W. Singer, Washington, DC, September 13, 2006.
346 “What angers me” Interview at U.S. military facility, Peter W. Singer, February 19, 2008.
348 his role in the operation Interview, Peter W. Singer, Brookings Institution, December 17, 2007.