Army robots know what soldiers are feeling
Robot buddies alongside US soldiers will be able to tell from expressions whether humans are ready to fight or need a boost.
Robots serving in battle alongside American soldiers will be able to tell from their human comrades’ expressions whether they are ready for the fight or need some encouragement.
Artificial intelligence research by the US army into how humans and robots can best co-operate on the battlefield is focusing on whether emotions can be physically recognised. It is a different approach to robotic warfare that mirrors the famous line from the science fiction film Terminator 2, when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hero cyborg tells John Connor, the child he was sent to protect: “I know now why you cry but it’s something I could never do.”
The 1991 film presented a future in which machines would be capable of learning and understanding human emotion. Now the US army research laboratory is taking the concept seriously. Working with Gifu University in Japan, they recently published a paper that examined how robots could identify with soldiers in the field by their facial expressions such as joy, regret or anger or an absence of emotion.
“Autonomous machines that act on people’s behalf are poised to become pervasive in society but for these machines to succeed and be adopted it is essential that people are able to trust and co-operate with them,” the paper, published in the journal Scientific Reports, said.
“Designers cannot afford to ignore non-verbal communications, in particular emotion expressions,” said the paper, which was co-authored by Celso de Melo, a computer scientist at the army research laboratory in California, and Kazunori Terada of the University of Gifu.
The prospect of having understanding and collaborative robots is part of the US army’s modernisation strategy, aimed at producing an even more lethal and dominant land force by 2035. Combating stress on the battlefield is seen as key — if robots serving in army units can spot the signs on their comrade’s faces, the “socially intelligent” machine could step in to help face the dangers together.
The US military is already investing heavily in dumb robots, which follow instructions given by humans, such as aerial and underwater drones, unmanned equipment-carrying vehicles and crewless warships. The smart robot interacting with troops is seen as the inevitable next step.
The Times
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