Are we actually, at the tail-end of 2021, looking at the early stages in the development of a robot army for the UK?
Over on Flote, I came across this post from Gareth Icke in my feed. Gareth asks 'what is it?' and the title of the document 'Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE) Urban: Sustain and Protect' more than sparked my curiosity, too:
Click the link in Gareth's post and you are taken to a UK Government Contracts Finder website featuring a page by the same title, published on 17th December 2021.
The buyer is listed at the bottom of the page, Future Capability Group (DE&S). This is the procurement arm for the MoD (Ministry of Defence).
When I looked them up, I came across this article from May 2021. In that, they refer to Human-Machine Teams, which relates to the joined-up working between human personnel and AI in a military setting.
DE&S-led expertise set to revolutionise development of UK military robotics
So, it seems they are involved with the development of robotics to give military advancement and, if I'm comprehending it correctly, this is born out in the original document Gareth was asking about. See the Description section on that contracts page.
My understanding is that they aim to secure the provision of tech that is capable of efficiently meeting the hypotheses set out. I also noted that they use the word 'autonomously' several times here.
Now, I don't have a military background or much knowledge in that field, so I would find it useful to know, what is Urban CSS and what is Urban FEs? I can't seem to find anything about those terms online. Are they referring, for want of a better term, to robots?
From my interpretation of these two sections from the contract description, I have assumed they are some form of robotics or autonomous systems:
- Sustainment 5. If Urban FEs have the organic means to generate, store, manage and distribute electrical power then they will be able to sustain their own electrical power requirements to increase tempo and mass.
and
- Protection 3. If Urban FEs have the ability to conceal their own physical and non-physical (EMS and Cyber) signatures, then they will improve their survivability to increase mass.
I have some other questions, too.
- Protection 5. If Urban FEs have autonomous means to FIND emplaced threats, then they will have increased freedom of movement to increase tempo.
What or who are the threats likely to be? If these robots or autonomous systems are programmed to perceive what a threat is, how can there be any guarantee at all that they will function accurately? And another thing that seems quite important - will they be armed?
We know that facial recognition technology is far from perfect. So, what happens when they make a mistake?
On to Personnel. Maybe I'm wrong to assume, but I take it this refers to actual humans.
- Personnel 1. If personnel have their performance optimised (cognitive, physical, psychological and social) then they will be capable of performing at a higher standard to increase operational advantage.
Erm, optimised how, exactly? Are we talking genetically-enhanced, cyborgs with transhuman enhancements that wouldn't seem at all out of place in some dystopian sci-fi film?
The contract has a start date of 1 April 2022 (April Fools? Haha, hilarious, guys) and ends 31 March 2023.
Can anyone shed any more light on this, such as what is it for, where, and how it might be implemented?