A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2020 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[https://torontosun.com/news/world/u-s-military-funds-study-of-video-gamers-brains-to-create-killer-air-robots
U.S. military funds study of video gamers' brains to create killer air robots
Postmedia News
Published: February 22, 2020
The future of military attacks could be heading towards an apocalyptic nightmare.
The U.S. army is funding a team of artificial intelligence researchers to create swarms of killer air robots that can communicate with land robots to complete deadly military missions.
And the success of this potential military tactic rests on the brain waves and eye movements of around 25 people playing video games.
The University of Buffalo’s Artificial Intelligence Institute announced last month it received $316,000 (C$417,800) from the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to study the decisions people make and apply it to AI robots.
Souma Chowdhury, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the university, explains what the grant will investigate.
“The idea is to eventually scale up to 250 aerial and ground robots, working in highly complex situations,” he told school publication UBNow. “For example, there may be a sudden loss of visibility due to smoke during an emergency. The robots need to be able to effectively communicate and adapt to challenges like that.”
Inspiration for swarm robotics comes from ant colonies and schooling fish, but the potential information breakthroughs humans can provide is enormous, Chowdhury said.
While students are playing real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, Stellaris and Company of Heroes, researchers will record their eye movements with high-speed cameras and watch their brain waves using electroencephalograms.
Researchers will then analyze the data to create artificial intelligence algorithms that will help them improve the robot’s organization and strategy.
“We don’t want the AI system just to mimic human behaviour; we want it to form a deeper understanding of what motivates human actions,” Chowdhury said. “That’s what will lead to more advanced AI.”
However, late last year, Russian academics and aerospace engineers gave a sneak peek to the terrifying future of kamikaze-like drone swarms, reports Pupular Mechanics.
The Flock-93 concept envisions more than a hundred drones, each armed with an explosive charge, that could attack targets on the ground like vehicle convoys.
Although it would be hard to pull off for Russia as of now, the science continues to improve.
Even if some drones are shot down, the sheer numbers that could get through and hit their targets would be considered a success.
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 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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