Tom Finn heralds the rise of military robots:
After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look. Target confirmed. This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake and time travel.
Thomas P.M. Barnett comments:
The whole slog of counterinsurgency is about two sides trying to create a sense of strategic despair ("How can we possibly win?") in the minds of the other side. The more the US signals its usual historic approach ("We will win with technological stuff in large numbers that keeps our casualties low"), the more we create strategic despair on the other side. This sort of technology will go a long way toward creating such despair.
Previous coverage of drones and war bots here.
The Dish 