Customer Reviews

Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I work as an engineering psychologist in a U.S. Army organization that is in the forefront of R&D on military robotics and automated command and control systems. Hence, I read P.J. Sanger's Wired for War with considerable interest. I can relate to much of his discussion on an experiential basis. We routinely encounter and try to provide solutions for many of the problems Sanger discusses. As a point of interest, I was the technical lead on an Army effort looking at human performance contributors to the fratricides by the Patriot air defense missile system during the recent Gulf War mentioned on page 125. As is usually the case in a casual summary of complex events, Sanger's description of these events is superficially accurate, but there is a lot more to the story. Also, I've been told that his remark on page 197 about the radar on the DIVAD gun locking onto the exhaust fan of a port-a-potty is an urban legend. I've heard about this alleged incident, but I've never been able to find anyone in the Army air defense community who ever witnessed it personally. We work tests on that class of systems all the time, so we know the players.
Overall, I thought Sanger did a good job of describing the state of the art in robotic military systems and addressing the potential sociological and psychological impact of using these systems in current and future military operations. From my perspective, the central operational issue in using armed robotic systems in combat is balancing autonomy with effective human control (the focus of Sanger's Chapter 6.). In my view, he correctly refers to this topic as the "Issue-That-Must-Not-Be-Discussed." I was particularly struck by the difference between the attitude of those having the most on-the-ground experience with these systems (e.g. Robert Quinn's remark on page 124 that he can't even imagine how unmanned systems would "ever be able to autonomously fire their weapons.") and the almost casual attitude on this subject expressed by many of the decision makers we deal with daily. Their attitude is best summarized by the remark attributed to an unnamed former secretary of the army who responded "No" when asked if he could identify any challenges that the greater use of unmanned systems would bring to the military.
The reality associated with greater autonomy on the part of armed robotic systems is that there will likely be many more "oops moments" (Sanger's page 196) than are politically and operationally tolerable. Based on our assessment of the Patriot fratricides during the recent Gulf War, these incidents were an example of an oops moment on the part of an armed robotic system. If the past is any indicator of the future, such incidents will result in initial "surprise" and "shock" on the part of the leadership that these advanced systems behaved thusly, followed by the imposition of restrictive rules of engagements that effectively take the offending system out of the fight. Sanger is correct that we need a more realistic assessment by those in policy-making jobs of the potential problems associated with the use of armed, autonomous robotic systems in actual combat--but I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.
Armed robotic systems will be fielded. They will be allowed to operate autonomously. Oops moments will occur. And unpleasant fallout and scapegoating will take place in the aftermath of such incidents. The issue of control in accord with human intent versus the illusion of control is complex and will not easily be solved. Software glitches aside, oops moments will mostly result from what Dave Woods of Ohio State University terms the "brittleness problem of automata:" An inability to satisfactorily handle unusual or ambiguous situations. I fear that the "Strong AI" necessary to satisfactorily address the brittleness problem will remain tantalizingly just over the technical horizon for some time to come.

I first heard the author talking on NPR about this topic, and both that interview and the first chapter of this book show his excitement and deep interest and understanding of this subject. For such a weighty hardback, it's remarkably hard to put down, and each section evolves intelligently from the last. I particularly enjoyed the references to modern culture, given that robotics has largely been a subject of science fiction in the last few decades rather than yielding anything practical in reality.

Well, at least so I thought - it turns out that over 12,000 robots are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan as we speak. The companies producing these machines were spurred by the very real necessities of dealing with guerrilla warfare, and avoiding the human toll associated with such difficult environments. Through a combination of human-controlled and artificially-intelligent hardware, these robots back up our soldiers and provide a super-human level of robustness and accuracy.

The author raises the complex moral questions associated with having machines killing people on the frontline, and the issues that arise when mistakes occur. There's also a fascinating discussion of stress disorders that remote pilots are suffering from - these men and women sit in offices in the US, controlling machines on the battleground far away, and return home for dinner every day after "a day's fighting".

It's also interesting to look at the design of some of the machines and their control interfaces, many of which look like Wall-E with a machine gun. Weapons companies have copied controllers from the Playstation and Xbox, taking advantage of a generation that is comfortable using these devices without extensive retraining. The distance between shooting people on Halo and making real life-or-death decisions in operating a military robot is almost absurdly non-existent.

I don't want to steal the book's thunder at all since this is one of the most gripping reads I've found in a while, and would highly recommend to everyone. While not a robotics book or a war book, it falls somewhere in the middle, and the topic is enthusiastically presented. The most chilling part is clearly that the science fiction of movies such as The Terminator is really not too far away, and we're on a cusp of a robotics revolution that will be as profound as the domination of the PC.

Singer paints a picture of vastly capable robots and software that are fielded right now. As someone working in the robotics field and trying to provide autonomous behaviors for government applications, I see how far this is from reality. As is often the case, however, reality doesn't create much buzz or sell many books.

This book feeds the popular misconception that robots are smart and getting smarter. I have a brother-in-law that was asking me about my work and how I'd done some simple AI design for computer board games for fun a long time ago. He made the comment, "I bet all that is coming in handy in your current job". I had to tell him that no, creating strategy-based behaviors for Risk has almost zero relevance to modern robotics -- we're nowhere close to a strategic level of thinking. As an industry, we're still at the level of getting a robot to move from point A to point B consistently and without running into anything. The videos on YouTube posted by researchers show some incredible things, but research is almost always 10-15 years ahead of a solid, marketable solution (toy problems in the lab are comparatively easy, real-world complexity is HARD).

The reality is this: Most mobile robots in theater right now are glorified remote control cars, operated by soldiers less than a few hundred meters away via cameras mounted on the robots. Singer talks a great deal about the Foster-Miller Talon and iRobot Packbot, because they are far and away the most common and prominent platforms in theater. However, the examples of autonomy he gives never deal with those platforms. Why? Because they have almost no autonomy for the units in the field.

Autonomy for mobile robotics is HARD. Very hard. Singer glosses over this fact by talking about the "inevitable" Singularity that is supposed to happen somewhere around 2030. Basically, the premise is that robots are not smart because they can't think fast enough to process all of the data. This is wildly inaccurate. Mobile robots are not smart because humans have not managed to impart intelligent decision-making to them. It's not like the robotics field is bemoaning the slowness of today's processors as a reason for autonomy failings. "Oh it WOULD have worked if only I had 10x the computational power..."

Also the chapter on the "Singularity" bothered me because it shows a distinct lack of understanding of the current state of the art. Computers are not getting faster at the moment. Processor speeds have flat-lined at about 3.0 GHz for the past several years because any faster and heat dissipation becomes an intractable problem. Even the speed of super-computers is capping out for the same reasons (a little more complex -- heat dissipation is easier if processors are spread out, but higher speed requires physical closeness because of the time needed for current to travel. So high-speed computers need to be compact for speed, but spacious for heat dissipation...). New computers today are coming out with more cores, so computers technically have more raw computing power (though even this has near-term limitations that prevent us from the Singularity) but computers are awful at taking advantage of parallelism. Singer points out that our brains are massively parallel, and this is why we have an edge on computers. This is true, but even is we had a computer with the same amount of parallelism, we couldn't take advantage of it. Someone has to program the thing, and no algorithms exist that mimic the behavior of the human brain (contrary to the picture that tech bloggers paint). The fact of the matter is, we don't know how the human brains works. Singer's main argument here is pointing to the trend: compare what computers can do today with what they could do 30 years ago. The flaw is in assuming that the same trend will continue. Extrapolation is notoriously bad, even though it seems to have such predictive power. The reason for such growth can be explained by us tackling the "low-hanging fruit" as far as computers go, and we're fast approaching an era of more incremental improvement as the "easy" problems are solved. Futuristic technologies such as alternative processor architectures, Quantum computing, optical computing, etc. are nowhere near workable. But even if we had a full-fledged Quantum computer right now, we really wouldn't know what to do with it. The software algorithms don't exist for it, and many of those that do don't provide dramatic improvement over what we have today.

The most valuable part of the book (and the only reason it didn't get 1 star) was the first few chapters describing a historical view of robotics as an industry.

This is an eye-opening book but the title understates the breadth of its coverage. Yes, it is about the use of robots and automated systems in war but it goes far beyond that, discussing the many ways that computers and robots have entered our daily lives and the ways they are likely to do so in the future. The book is not just about robots and technology but also about human beings and how they related to their creations. Consequently, when the author makes the link between advances in robot design and science fiction it makes perfect sense, although it is an angle I hadn't previously considered. This book's strength is that it walks that fine line -- on the one hand it is carefully researched and documented but on the other is written in a highly readable style so that the reader is both informed and entertained. You know much more when you are finished and had fun in the process. Who could ask for more? I was drawn to this book having heard an interview with the author and having read his two previous books, "Corporate Warriors" and "Children at War." All three have a characteristic I particularly like in a nonfiction book -- the author is not dogmatic, raises concerns but doesn't cry that the sky is falling, doesn't shout at the reader, and doesn't offer easy solutions to complex problems. Instead, the author undertakes a reasoned and fair analysis of the issue, illustrating the complexities of what on the surface might seem a simple issue. As a result the author makes a more powerful statement than could ever be made by a sensationalist approach.Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated Edition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs); Children at War

This frightening and funny book helped me understand the future of war in all its technological splendor. What was once the stuff of science fiction, such as machines thinking for themselves, is now our military's reality.

Unfortunately, as Isaac Asimov quotes in Wired for War: "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

The military began using robots primarily to fill the "Three D" roles people were poor at: jobs that were Dull, Dirty or Dangerous. Unmanned systems "don't need to sleep, don't need to eat, and find monitoring empty desert sands as exciting as partying at the Playboy mansion." The use of unmanned systems has exploded, especially since the attacks of September 11. As one U.S. Navy researcher puts it: "The robot is our answer to the suicide bomber."

I heard an NPR interview with the author, and what struck me most was his description of how impersonal war has become. Almost like playing video games, people here in the states can launch missiles and cause all kinds of mayhem on battlefields overseas, untouched by all the messiness of being on site. Singer reveals the disdain combat troops sometimes have for these faraway operators, even though they are on the same side.

All sorts of pop culture references are woven through the book, including The Iron Giant, The Matrix, Night of the Living Dead, Predator, Star Wars, The Terminator, Total Recall, Wall-E and the Nintendo Wii. There is also a glossy-page insert of 32 black and white photographs.

The book poses provocative ethical questions about the new trend of one-step-removed killing. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Here's the chapter list:

Author's Note: Why a Book on Robots and War?

Part One: The Change We Are Creating
1. Introduction: Scenes from a Robot War
2. Smart Bombs, Norma Jeane, and Defecating Ducks: A Short History of Robotics
3. Robotics for Dummies
4. To Infinity and Beyond: The Power of Exponential Trends
5. Coming Soon to a Battlefield Near You: The Next Wave of Warbots
6. Always in the Loop? The Arming and Autonomy of Robots
7. Robotic Gods: Our Machine Creators
8. What Inspires Them: Science Fiction's Impact on Science Reality
9. The Refuseniks: The Roboticists Who Just Say No

Part Two: What Change is Creating For Us
10. The Big Cebrowski and the Real RMA: Thinking About Revolutionary Techniques
11. "Advanced" Warfare: How We Might Fight With Robots
12. Robots That Don't Like Apple Pi: How the U.S. Could Lose the Unmanned Revolution
13. Open-Source Warfare: College Kids, Terrorists, and Other New Users of Robots at War
14. Losers and Luddites: The Changing Battlefields Robots Will Fight On and the New Electronic Sparks of War
15. The Psychology of Warbots
16. YouTube War: The Public and Its Unmanned Wars
17. Changing the Experience of War and the Warrior
18. Command and Control... Alt-Delete: New Technologies and Their Effect on Leadership
19. Who Let You in the War? Technology and the New Demographics of Conflict
20. Digitizing the Laws of War and Other Issues of (Un)Human Rights
21. A Robot Revolt? Talking About Robot Ethics
22. Conclusion: The Duality of Robots and Humans

P.W. Singer's work is always interesting. This book is no exception--it offers enormous insights into the robotics revolution in the military, the use of drones, unmanned vehicles, etc. Singer details both the current use and function of this technology and charts a course of where the robots might go in the next 20-30 years. He argues that insufficient attention is paid to the ways in which robotics reshapes warfare. The book lays out an impressive panorama showcasing the breadth of robotic technology, the actors, the companies that make robots, the government agencies that finance research into robotics, the science fiction writers that inspire it and most importantly the current and future uses on the battlefield. The first part of the book makes the argument that robotics is the most important and game-changing shift in contemporary warfare. The second part looks at some of the consequences and implications for war and society.

If robotics is still in its infancy and if it follows the trajectory of other technological changes (automobile, computer), in 20-25 years, there will be robots that are thousands if not millions of times more powerful than the ones today. Despite assurances by the military and robotic makers that humans will always be "in the loop," it is very likely that robotic systems will be given more and more autonomy over the next years

While perhaps a bit too techy and geeky for some readers, the book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in where military technology is going and what the wars of the future might look like.

This book is eminently readable (more so than Corporate Soldiers), and at times it is perhaps even too readable. There are many anecdotes and asides, some more interesting and pertinent than others. It's a long book and could certainly have been cut down by about 20-25% by a good editor. Some chapters--on the role of science fiction in robotics--seem unpersuasive and unnecessary to the core argument.

In 1998, Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski and retired air force pilot John Garstka published what they believed to be a revolutionary war article in "Proceedings", the navy's official journal. In the article, they argued for a shift to an entirely new type of warfare that was "Network-centric", modeled after how the Wal-Marts and Ciscos of the world crushed their competition by harnessing the power of information technology. Using IT and networks, Cebrowski believed the U.S. military would achieve a state of "total information awareness" with a perfect picture of the battlefield to lift the fog of war that had, throughout the history of warfare, plagued large scale military operations. Mr. Cebrowski perceived his idea to be an RMA (revolution in military affairs), the equivalent of "disruptive technology" in business jargon, transforming an entire industry and changing the rules of how the game is played. From here on, wars would be fought and won differently. According to Mr. Peter Singer (author of this book), "historians have identified at least 10 revolutions in military affair since 1300."

With Mr. Donald Rumsfeld as the new secretary of defense under President Bush, and as a part of the organizational shakeup he initiated, a new Office of Force Transformation was created and Mr. Cebrowski was designated as the director. With Network-Centric Warfare, "speed and agility and precision can take the place of mass," Mr. Rumsfeld touted. Early successes seemed to have bolstered the ideology behind this new type of warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, until insurgents begged to differ. Mr. Milan Vego, a U.S. Naval War College professor assessed the U.S. military effort in Iraq as follows: "There is probably no conflict in which U.S. forces have fought in such ignorance of the enemy's purpose, strength, and leadership."

According to Mr. Singer, Mr. Cebrowski and his supporters of network-centric crusaders were correct in their assessment of big changes in the conduct of warfare, but "they were wrong on everything else." The network-centric idea is an enabler, not an RMA. Mr. Singer believes top thinkers and leaders in American security policy are oblivious to the true RMA on the horizon: Robotics and other unmanned technologies. "Today's major codes of international law in war, the Geneva Conventions, are so old that they almost qualify for Medicare." No other major international war policy organization such as the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) has addressed the rules surrounding the use of warbots either, perhaps because the most advanced robot today "has a hard time even distinguishing an apple from a tomato" (p. 402 of hardcopy). Nevertheless, the use of unmanned technologies such as drones and robots armed with weapons has become pervasive in the U.S. military, particularly in Iraq. As advances in technology continue to enhance their use, they will dominate every aspect of war, and the military culture will experience a profound transformation on numerous levels as a result.

In a comprehensive and well researched book, Mr. Singer, a noted visionary in military matters, discusses the forces that drive advancements in military technology and the implications of their widespread use. Mr. John Pike of the Global Security organization put it succinctly when he said, "First, you had human beings without machines. Then, you had human beings with machines. And finally, you have machines without human beings."

"Wired for War" should have been more focused with fewer topics covered. This book reminds me of Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World; another excellent futuristic book with rich content but without sufficient editing. If you're interested in how the wars of the future are fought, Mr. Singer's "Wired for War" will explain it to you in a marathon session. You need some endurance to get through it (or comprehension enhancing vitamins).

Wired For War is a fascinating exploration of the current, near term, and long term technological advances in war. Since many technological advances quickly shift from defense applications to civilian ones, it is really a sneak peak at future mainstream technologies. The book gives some technical information, but is really about the stories and societal questions surrounding this technology.

What makes Wired for War so fascinating is not its discussion about the future, but its discussion of the world today. When Singer talks about robots, he is not talking about humanoid looking bionic beings that can overpower and overthink us (though those may be in the pipeline), but about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles currently flying over Afghanistan, remote controlled robots defusing IEDs, and computer programs already being used.

These existing technologies, and their near term successors, raise lots of interesting questions that Singer discusses. For example, will we always keep a human in the loop? Do we start work on a mothership model or a network model (or a network of motherships)? How do we treat troops who never actually deploy, but fight wars by remote control? Do they get the same services as vets? Can they receive military decorations? What does increased technology do to our threshold for war? How do our enemies view this use of technology? Will the rise of asymmetric warfare demonstrate a misplaced faith in advanced technology? Do we need a military robotics doctrine? Do we start blacklisting certain robotics research the way we do certain nuclear weapons research? In the longer term, do we need to create legal rights for robotics?

The impact of these technological advances will probably be felt in two ways. The first way is their expected effect. For example, a UAV is built for recon or weaponry, and it can carry out those tasks. The second way is the societal effect. For example, as discussed above what does the use of UAVs mean for those fighting the wars?

The latter societal effects may not be as impactful as proponents of the "singularity" believe. From the first day back in elementary school I picked up a calculator, I have used a machine smarter than me. Does it matter that some day soon all the machines on earth will be smarter than all the people, or will that be as little noticed as the impact of the calculator?

Singer's comparison of the current use of robotics with the network-centric approach pioneered by Admiral Cebrowski and championed in the early years of the Bush Administration was also fascinating. These two "Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMAs)" are probably closer related than Singer admits. But what is fascinating is his discussion of over-command arising out of them. Those in the field may now have access to big picture, whole battlespace intelligence. But that also means those in the rear have access to ground level information. The urge, and ability, for those in the rear to get too closely involved in tactics on the ground will far outweigh those on the ground.

Singer's quick tour of current robotics technology and the questions it is raising, as well as the longer term discussion, is a fascinating read. In many cases, what I thought were distant questions when I picked up the book I now realize are historical discussions I already missed or are fast approaching. This is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in national security or technology.

There has been a good deal written about how the advances in Information Technology (IT) would affect the transformation of the U.S. Military from a Cold War force to a force better able to deal with the realities of the 21st Century World. Yet very little has been written on an important branch of IT, namely the science of robotics and its effect on military operations.
Yet, as this admirable book makes clear, the military use of robotics has grown exponentially. Singer essentially provides a catalogue of weapons systems, reconnaissance systems, and other military support systems that are unmanned and are capable of varying degrees of autonomy. His catalogue includes remotely controlled systems like the Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), programmable `smart' bombs, sensor drive devices (e.g. heat seeking missiles) and other devices requiring minimum human direction to do their jobs. He also observes that the robotics field is moving towards that holy grail of robotics, artificial intelligence and fully autonomous weapons systems.
In the second half of this book, Singer addresses issues that the use of robots in war naturally calls up. In this half he discusses the best kind soldiers to serve as remote operators, the numerous ethical issues concerning the use of robots in war, and the broad impact such use will have on both the military and civil societies.
Singer goes astray however when denigrates the concept of Network Centric Warfare (NSW) and its principal military proponent the late Admiral Arthur Cebrowski. In point of fact, NSW is a command and control concept (command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, sensors, reconnaissance (C4ISR) that has been successfully integrated into both naval and air force command systems. U.S. ground forces have had more difficulty because they lack the controlled, clean, and relatively secure environments provided for example by the U.S. Navy Shipboard Combat Information Centers. Properly implemented and used the NSW concept can be as effective as the robotic systems that Singer discusses so eloquently.
This is a book well worth reading and pondering by anyone.

Wired for War is an interesting albeit time-consuming read about how technology is forever changing the way we and our enemies fight.

I first heard about this book on a video game podcast, and I was so impressed with the free sample that I sprang for the full book -- my first Kindle book purchase that cost me over $10. P.W. Singer introduces himself as a lifelong student of military history. He has a keen interest in the way that wars are fought, not just from a tactical standpoint but in terms of the impact that war has on society.

Singer's style is quotable and fairly accessible, with a few pop-culture references sprinkled in throughout. If you were to read the last sentence of every paragraph, you would have an extremely punchy, exciting, and sensational summary. Some of the technologies described seem more powerful and scary because of their accessibility: with tiny budgets, Iraqi insurgents can make simple weapons capable of disrupting American military operations. It's also easy to understand, for example, why fighter jet pilots feel threatened by drone pilots who effectively need only to use a PlayStation controller to carry out their missions. There were also interesting discussions on how war fought by robots can actually galvanize popular support against the side using robots by painting the tech-savvy nation as too cowardly to risk their own soldiers' lives.

I wish that Wired for War were more compact. Two technologies that are referenced frequently are completely autonomous robots (ones that need no guidance to move and even no guidance to fire at a target) and remotely-piloted robots (e.g. drones in Iraq controlled by pilots working in Nevada). Singer makes many references of the possible transition from manned to unmanned combat using robots, but the point is belabored without any evidence that it has been tried. In fact, when Singer describes how the military has trusted unmanned systems to decide where to drop a bomb, the results are tragic too often for there to be a tolerable risk level. Too much time is spent on hypotheses that might not be proven true for some time yet. The discussions include many interviews with military men past and present, but technical details are limited -- often because the most auspicious ideas are still fantasy in 2009.