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Archive for the ‘military’ category: Page 263

Oct 2, 2016

World War 3 Warning: Space War ‘Challenge’ Looming With China And Russia, U.S. Strategic Command General States

Posted by in categories: existential risks, government, military, robotics/AI, satellites

A top U.S. general has issued a sobering warning that both China and Russia, given their years of emphasis on upgrading and renovating their space war arsenals, could, in the future, place the United States in a position of weakness if matters were to degenerate into a state of war between the countries. Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten believes that China and Russia have been attempting to outpace the U.S. in military matters with regard to space and that the Pentagon is now moving to counter the foreseen “challenge” of possibly being outmaneuvered and outgunned in space. If a World War 3 scenario were to actualize, he thinks the U.S. should be prepared to meet said challenge.

The Washington Times reported last week that Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, who has been chosen as the next commander of Strategic Command, told Congress’ Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is moving to counter the threat of a space war disadvantage with China and Russia. He said China and Russia are currently in the process of developing anti-satellite missiles, laser guns, and maneuvering killer space robots that could, once deployed, knock out or incapacitate strategic U.S. communications, navigation and intelligence satellites. As military experts know, these craft are crucial to the maintenance and actionability of America’s high-technology warfare systems.

“The Department of Defense has aggressively moved out to develop responses to the threats that we see coming from China and Russia. I believe it’s essential that we go faster in our responses.”

Continue reading “World War 3 Warning: Space War ‘Challenge’ Looming With China And Russia, U.S. Strategic Command General States” »

Oct 2, 2016

EXCLUSIVE: AI will be TEN TIMES more destructive than nuclear bombs, warns expert

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

I was interviewed by The Express on AI:


WHICHEVER nation develops AI first will completely control the military landscape as the machine has the potential to be ten times as devastating as the nuclear bomb, an expert has warned.

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Oct 2, 2016

Report: Weapons AI Increasingly Replacing, Not Augmenting, Human Decision Making

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, military, robotics/AI

A new survey of existing and planned smart weapons finds that AI is increasingly used to replace humans, not help them.

The Pentagon’s oft-repeated line on artificial intelligence is this: we need much more of it, and quickly, in order to help humans and machines work better alongside one another. But a survey of existing weapons finds that the U.S. military more commonly uses AI not to help but to replace human operators, and, increasingly, human decision making.

The report from the Elon Musk-funded Future of Life Institute does not forecast Terminators capable of high-level reasoning. At their smartest, our most advanced artificially intelligent weapons are still operating at the level of insects … armed with very real and dangerous stingers.

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Sep 30, 2016

DARPA Ramps Up Defenses Against Russia’s Electro-Attacks on the Battlefield

Posted by in category: military

Posts about DARPA Ramps Up Defenses Against Russia’s Electro-Attacks on the Battlefield written by Nwo Report.

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Sep 26, 2016

Ghosts in the Machine: Female Computers in Science Fiction and History

Posted by in categories: computing, military, robotics/AI

When the computer is addressed in many science fiction shows, it often replies in a female-coded voice. From Majel Roddenberry’s Federation computer voice in the Star Trek series to the sentient ship AIs in Andromeda, Killjoys, Dark Matter, Outlaw Star, and Mass Effect, artificial intelligence has been a science fiction regular since at least the 1960’s. There are male-coded AIs as well—J.A.R.V.I.S., Hal, that weird Haley Joel Osment-bot from A.I.—but women have been part of humanity’s relationship with electric computers since the very beginning.

Jennifer S. Light’s article “When Computers Were Women” discusses the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) project during World War II, and how the people doing the actual computational tasks were a group of civilian and military women. The women were actually the “computers,” and were creating a machine that would someday replace them. The concept of the women as the actual computers made me think about how many artificial intelligences, whether in android form or integrated into actual ships, are coded female.

Light’s article also pointed out that history buried these early female computers. Their work was made light of, devalued, and all credit was given to the male inventors of ENIAC, reducing them practically to “ghost in the machine” status. This is where my mind made the connection. So many computer and AI characters are coded female because even layers of sexism and inequality still can’t erase the connection between the first “computers” being women and the task of computing. You can take the woman out of the workplace, but you can’t take the woman out of the machine she helped create.

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Sep 24, 2016

China’s Micius Military Quantum Satellite Reports Important Progress

Posted by in categories: encryption, military, quantum physics, satellites

Quantum encryption uses the principle of “quantum entanglement” to foster communication that’s totally safe against eavesdropping and decryption by others.

The satellite’s true military nature is being disguised under the civilian name, Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, or QUESS. Publicly, QUESS is being billed as an international research project in the field of quantum physics.

Micius or Mozi is operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) while the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences run the satellite’s European receiving stations. The quantum satellite was launched last Aug. 16 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert.

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Sep 24, 2016

The robot bodyguard is coming — and you’ll want one

Posted by in categories: business, law enforcement, military, robotics/AI, security, transhumanism

My new story for VentureBeat on the coming of robot bodyguards. I’ll be speaking about this next week at RoboBusiness 2016, a major robotics conference in San Jose:


I recently consulted with the US Navy on all things “transhuman.” In those conversations about how science and technology can help the human race evolve beyond its natural limits, it was clear that military is keen on replacing human soldiers with both fighting and peacekeeping machines so American military lives never have to come under fire or be in harm’s way.

However, it’s the peacekeeping technology that is particularly interesting for many civilians. While you wouldn’t want an armed Terminator in your home, you might like a robot that travels with you and offers personal protection, like a bodyguard. In a survey by Travelzoo of 6,000 participants, nearly 80 percent of people said they expect robots to be a significant part of their lives by 2020 — and that those robots might even join them on holidays.

Continue reading “The robot bodyguard is coming — and you’ll want one” »

Sep 23, 2016

Russian radar can see $4.4 billion stealth destroyer Zumwalt

Posted by in category: military

The Russian media revealed that the newest stealth technology produced by the US is not as efficient as it is believed.

The newest U.S. Navy destroyer Zumwalt was not only one of the most expensive in history, but also the most inefficient. New faults were found in its design, reports USNI News. The lubrication system is not working, responsible for the maintenance of the propeller shaft of the ship. It has taken in water, when the destroyer went to sea at the naval base in Norfolk during the current stage of testing. Repairs are expected to take no less than two weeks.

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Sep 23, 2016

Someone is learning how to take down the Internet

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet, military

This is definitely something that we should all be aware of, and watching for.


Submarine cables map (credit: Teleography)

“Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet,” according to a blog post by security expert Bruce Schneier.

Continue reading “Someone is learning how to take down the Internet” »

Sep 22, 2016

DARPA perfects hacker-proof computer code

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, drones, internet, mathematics, military

When the project started, a “Red Team” of hackers could have taken over the helicopter almost as easily as it could break into your home Wi-Fi. But in the intervening months, engineers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had implemented a new kind of security mechanism — a software system that couldn’t be commandeered. Key parts of Little Bird’s computer system were unhackable with existing technology, its code as trustworthy as a mathematical proof. Even though the Red Team was given six weeks with the drone and more access to its computing network than genuine bad actors could ever expect to attain, they failed to crack Little Bird’s defenses.

“They were not able to break out and disrupt the operation in any way,” said Kathleen Fisher, a professor of computer science at Tufts University and the founding program manager of the High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) project. “That result made all of DARPA stand up and say, oh my goodness, we can actually use this technology in systems we care about.”

The technology that repelled the hackers was a style of software programming known as formal verification. Unlike most computer code, which is written informally and evaluated based mainly on whether it works, formally verified software reads like a mathematical proof: Each statement follows logically from the next. An entire program can be tested with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems.

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