With the development and breakthroughs of artificial intelligence technology, various types of unmanned combat systems have emerged at the historic moment. It seems that future combat operations will increasingly require humans to "do it themselves". However, the US Department of Defense report "Mechanical Warriors 2050: Human-Machine Fusion and the Future of the Department of Defense" in November 2019 showed the investment, development and application plans of its "Super Soldier" human-machine fusion system. "Super Warrior" aims to greatly enhance the soldier's ability to perceive, exercise, and think through technical means such as enhanced perception, exoskeleton, brain-computer interface, and genetic engineering. So, with the rapid development of unmanned combat systems, do we need "super warriors" such as man-machine fusion systems? The author believes that the reason why the "Super Warrior" can exist and continue to develop is based on its irreplaceable role. Specifically, it has the following points:
"Super soldiers" can make up for the deficiencies of unmanned combat systems. As a human-machine fusion system, "Super Warrior" has changed the relationship between humans and weapons in the traditional sense, and realized "human weaponization" or "humanoid weaponization", which not only further extends human combat capabilities, but also fills The "combat power gap" left by the short board of the unmanned combat system. In recent years, despite the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, it is still difficult to overcome the weaknesses of a large number of unmanned combat systems, such as short communication distance, poor anti-jamming performance, insufficient reliability, and difficulty in defining authority and mutual relations. For example, in a dense feature environment, the recognition and tracking capabilities of the intelligent autonomous detection system are extremely limited, and it cannot even reach the level of human eye locking on the target; Japan, which has advanced civilian robot technology, had to hire volunteers after the Fukushima nuclear leak Clean up nuclear waste. The US military believes that the future battlefield may be an urban or underground urban environment. "Super soldiers" can rely on technologies such as visual enhancement, hearing enhancement, and smell enhancement to more sensitively acquire and share complex target data, and then through human-machine, human-human bidirectional Cognitive consensus is reached in the exchange of information, and each "super soldier" can become a command, control, and communication node, and real-time control of the unmanned equipment it belongs to within a certain range, to achieve real complementarity of human-machine advantages. In addition, compared to building an unmanned combat system collaboration mechanism, "super soldiers" can achieve interconnection and even interoperability between countries in joint operations without much time and economic cost, making the practice more feasible.
"Super warrior" helps to play the advantages of human intelligence. The phenomenon explained by the "Moravik Paradox" shows that machine intelligence can surpass humans in logic, reasoning, and calculation, such as the data processing speed, scientific decision-making, and precision of strikes of unmanned combat systems, but it is uncertain. Under the conditions of many factors, complicated human environment and the need for perceptual cognition and understanding, human intelligence's imagination, creativity, inspiration, intuition, and sense of responsibility have irreplaceable advantages. Such capabilities are difficult to interpret, describe, and edit into "machine language," and therefore cannot be copied into unmanned combat systems through data mining, intelligent algorithms, machine learning, and other technologies. "Super Warrior" can rely on the amplified perception function, relying on human intelligence for detailed identification, moral judgment and decision-making, to better complete special warfare, urban warfare, anti-terrorism warfare and other tasks in a complex battlefield environment. Not only that, "Super Warrior" can fully tap the subconscious effect, and even use various methods to stimulate the brain to play more "magic" functions. The "Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System" of the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency is an attempt to use the "intuitive" potential of the human brain to predict threats, analyze and process related brain waves, and enhance intelligence acquisition and crisis warning capabilities. With the continuous development and application of brain science, bionics, cognition, neurology and other sciences, the "Super Warrior" project is expected to release more human intelligence potential and expand practical application functions.
"Super soldiers" are better able to meet the needs of irregular operations. In the 21st century, major countries in the world have been subjected to various security challenges, and the frequency and status of informal combat operations have increased. Without the relevant capabilities, even if the initial military victory is achieved, it may fall into the dilemma encountered by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore, the military must have the ability to effectively respond to the mixed threats of terrorism, enemy reconnaissance and incitement, and riots, as well as "grey area" conflicts, and perform more complex tasks that require higher stability, control, reconstruction, and concealment outside the battlefield. Compared with unmanned combat systems, "Super Soldier" is easier to meet these needs. First of all, "Super Warrior" can use physical enhancement machinery to secretly and quickly move to a predetermined location. It can also wear a portable perception fusion device and be mixed in a noisy environment with high pressure and high density such as a hostile crowd to identify the riot maker and commander. Personnel, and quickly share the information with others on the team. Secondly, the hearing enhancement system can help soldiers on the battlefield to filter a lot of noise, improve the sensitivity of speech recognition, and collect and communicate intelligence in a timely manner. Third, relying on non-invasive brain-computer interface technology, "super soldiers" can use their brains to command a certain number of drones, unmanned combat vehicles, and bionic robots to form a "human-host-assisted" integrated combat system. The massive use of unmanned combat systems will be subject to many security, legal, moral, and ethical restrictions, and the identification of battlefield responsibilities will also face huge challenges. However, "super fighters" are still human combatants, and can better ensure that their combat operations comply with the rules of division and proportionality.
Therefore, as long as humans still rely on their own senses to recognize the surrounding environment, or artificial intelligence technology is not enough to make robots that can fully surpass humans, "super soldiers" have their irreplaceable battlefield value.
Reviews
Robot VS "Iron Man", who is stronger
■ Hou Yongbo
The classic character "Iron Man" in Marvel movies is a typical "super warrior" built using human body enhancement technology. Let him fight against ordinary robots, and the victory and defeat are clear at a glance. Of course, the existing technology can not create an "Iron Man" that can go to heaven and be invulnerable, but compared with robots, "Super Warrior" and "Iron Man" are essentially human, and are a kind of enhancement through various technologies. People who have physical strength, intelligence, striking power, and protective power. As the "Moravik Paradox" points out, machines are very good at imitating human reasoning ability, but it is difficult to imitate human intuition and subconscious behavior. In the foreseeable short period of time, unmanned combat systems, including robots, are difficult to have human thinking ability. Even if artificial intelligence develops to an advanced stage, so that the robot has a IQ level that exceeds humans, can it have human emotions? And reason is hard to say.
Comparing robots and "Iron Man", who is more powerful, is not the modern version of "Guan Gong vs. Qin Qiong". Is it the development of artificial intelligence technology to create an unmanned combat system, or the development of human body enhancement technology to create a "super warrior", representing two different directions . Is it the former or the latter, or two-pronged approach? In considering the time and economic cost of R & D, which direction is the key investment worth studying? As for the result of the choice, it will naturally be clear in the future battlefield.
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Human body enhancement technology. It is generally divided into four categories: physical enhancement, brain enhancement, memory enhancement, and audiovisual enhancement, including mechanical exoskeletons, brain-computer interfaces, retinal implants, hearing enhancement devices, and neuropsychic drugs to improve intelligence. In recent years, the foreign military has launched a number of polymerization technology exploration projects, including metabolic engineering, exoskeleton augmented warrior plan, brain-computer interface technology, biomedical condition monitoring project, augmented reality project, continuous assistance plan, etc. Strong physical and cognitive abilities to meet the challenges of complex battlefields in the future. Comprehensive analysis shows that in the future, "super fighters" will be comprehensively enhanced from physical strength, skills to intelligence, from physical strength, vision, hearing to protection, judgment, reaction, attention and other aspects. Currently, major countries in the world are developing "super fighter" projects, such as Russia's "Future Warrior" system, the United States' "Land Warrior" system, Germany's "Future Infantry" system, and Britain's "Fist" system.
"Moravik Paradox". A theory proposed by Hans Moravik and other experts in artificial intelligence and robotics in the 1980s. They found that the so-called "advanced wisdom" unique to humans requires very little computing power, such as chess, logical reasoning, and complex mathematical problems, but unconscious skills such as intuition, perception, and movement require great computing power. Moravik explained this paradox in this way: It is relatively easy to make a computer play chess like an adult, but it is quite difficult or impossible to make the computer perceive and act like a one-year-old child.
Li Mengyuan Yuan Yi Xu Jinhua