Multipurpose Unmanned Tactical Transport (MUTT) Robot used by the U.S. Marine Corps.

Multipurpose Unmanned Tactical Transport (MUTT) Robot used by the U.S. Marine Corps. General Dynamics Land Systems

US Military Changing ‘Killing Machine’ Robo-tank Program After Controversy

The Army is moving quickly to adopt new technologies. That comes with public relations pitfalls.

It was a frightening and dramatic headline: “The US Army Wants to Turn Tanks Into AI-Powered Killing Machines.” The story, published this week in Quartz, details the new Advanced Targeting and Lethality Automated System, or ATLAS, which seeks to give ground combat vehicles the ability to “acquire, identify, and engage targets at least 3X faster than the current manual process.”

The response seems to have spooked the Army, which is now changing its request for information to better emphasize that the program will follow Defense Department policy on human control of lethal robots. They are also drafting talking points to further the new emphasis.

The robot’s ability to identify, target, and engage doesn’t mean “we’re putting the machine in a position to kill anybody,” one Army official told Defense One.

A second Army official said the changes had been “suggested” by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the AI task force of the Army’s Futures Command. The official didn’t know whether the changes had been made, but said they’d likely be made before the program’s March 12 industry day.

A Defense Department official said the language change might be followed by other unspecified ones.

The ATLAS program shows how much has changed since 2014 when the idea of armed ground robots was anathema to the U.S. military. The idea has seen ups and downs. In 2003, the Defense Department began to experiment with a small, machine-gun tank robot called SWORDS. In 2007, it was sent to Iraq. But the military ended the program after the robot began to behave unpredictably, moving its gun chaotically.

The military abandoned research on armed ground robots for years. A half-decade later, there had been more progress on doctrine governing battlefield robots than the machines themselves. In 2012, the Defense Department issued directive 3000.09, which says humans must have veto power over the actions of armed robots. (There can be special, limited exceptions.) That directive remains in force.

In 2014, there was still “no focused, near-term dialogue on this type of topic,” said Chris Jones, then director of strategic technology for iRobot, the company behind the famous PackBot A particular technical sticking point was the difficulty of building targeting systems for ground robots.

But technology progressed. By 2017, the military was more comfortable with the idea, and integrated some armed ground robots into some training exercises.

“The controversy over ATLAS demonstrates that there are continuing technological and ethical issues surrounding the integration of autonomy into weapon systems,” said Michael C. Horowitz,  associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior adjunct fellow at the Center for New American Security.

“Lack of clarity concerning what would truly constitute an autonomous weapon system, even under the existing DoD directive, means it is not entirely clear the ATLAS program would be fully autonomous.”

Horowitz said the wording change sounded like a good step. “It is critical that any revisions to the ATLAS program not only clarify the degree of autonomy and the level of human involvement in the use of force, but also ensure that any incorporation of AI occurs in a way that ensures safety and reliability,” he said.

The incident comes after a separate controversy involving the Army’s relationship with Microsoft. On Feb. 22, a group of employees sent a letter to Microsoft leaders protesting the work that the company was doing with the Army on the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVUS, a helmet display technology based on the Microsoft HoloLens video game headset.

“While the company has previously licensed tech to the U.S. Military, it has never crossed the line into weapons development,” the letter says.

Since IVUS was to be the signature product of the Army’s new Futures Command, and since the protest involved a major, name-brand company, the protest scored ink.

But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was quick to squash speculation that the protest would affect on the company’s partnership with the military.

On Tuesday, Army Undersecretary Ryan D. McCarthy noted that the IVUS is a training aid, not a weapon. “If you have a system where you can pipe in synthetic training, you could wear this same piece of equipment into combat. You could train with it at home and you could also collect data. So if you’re coming in to do the room clear, what’s the individual [meaning the wearer’s] heart rate? The marksmanship of the shots they took? So you can get performance data on the individual.”  

A key area of controversy is over what is sometimes called Rapid Target Acquisition, or RTA — a method of finding targets, putting little red digital boxes around them on a screen, and putting a bullet, missile, or bomb into that box. It’s an emerging capability fraught with difficult ethical considerations and complexity: Is the data that goes into the process of box-drawing correct? Is the intelligence collection behind that data good or was it gleaned from unreliable sources? Where was human supervision during the process? It’s not clear what role RTA plays in either IVUS or ATLAS.

What these two incidents illustrate is the public concern about military use of AI is so high that it will occasionally manifest in protests or statements of objection that are based more in speculation about what the military is doing than actual fact. The incident with Microsoft, in particular, shows that the opinion of the mainstream tech community is sometimes unfairly rooted against the military community.

How leaders of companies like Microsoft and Amazon navigate that space is an open question.

On its face, the ATLAS controversy represents a public relations setback in the military’s efforts to reach out to the tech community. But the Army’s final response might also show that military leaders are sensitive to the issue and are capable of responding quickly to criticism.

“While outside groups will undoubtedly have concerns about the ATLAS program, even if the requirements are altered, the U.S. military is attempting to take the challenge of AI seriously across several dimensions,” said Horowitz.

As military adoption of AI moves from the air domain to land, from drones and fighter jets to helmets and tanks, it will also enter a foggier phase. It’s one thing to apply artificial intelligence to aerial surveillance and very much another to put it alongside troops, soldiers tasked with bursting through the door with limited understanding of what’s on the other side, especially in confusing urban-warfare scenarios.

Directive 3000.09 is a poor guide for what to do all of those instances. The Department knows this and has begun a process of drafting its own list of ethical principles for the use of artificial intelligence in war in the future.

“Between the efforts of the Defensive Innovation Board, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the new National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, and others, now is the time to have these important conversations,” said Horowitz.

Artificial intelligence in the hands of ground troops has the potential to make the task of charging through the door not only safer for the soldier but potentially for the people on the other side of the M4, if, in fact, soldiers can use it to rapidly differentiate real threats from fake ones in confusing, high-energy situations. But questions about design and implementation will persist. Some will be more valid than others.

Military leaders, in explaining their perspective on arming and equipping soldiers, are fond of saying that they never want their troops to face a fair fight. Translation: achieving overmatch is not optional. But as new capabilities come online, capabilities like those outlined in the ATLAS proposal, commanders and officials will have to make hard choices about how much speed, firepower, and lethality, how much unfairness, are they willing to part with.

However much, it will likely be more than the adversaries they are facing.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.