Aug 24, 2016
Hybrid Wars - [WG Labs]Ashes
PART 1/3
The past several thousand years have witnessed great leaps in technology, from the invention of the wagon to the first automobile. It's been less than two hundred years since those first automobiles and the rise of powered flight. And only a few decades have passed from the first space rockets to the Moon landing.
In the future, the time intervals between technical innovations will take no longer than an ordinary coffee break.
That age is still to come, but it is rapidly approaching. The year 2060 is within sight and with it will come a brave new world.
3-D printing and automated technologies are being rapidly developed and they have become cost effective in the recent decades. Automated factories not only work without operators in all phases of raw material acquisition and transportation, they can also repair themselves—with robots producing spare parts and replacing worn parts with newly fabricated.
Of course, this would never have occurred without breakthroughs in energy engineering. What happens when safe, clean nuclear power plants are combined with the wireless transfer of electric power? A world full of cheap energy! In such a world, the risk of losing electric energy only occurs when someone deliberately takes it away from you.
With large-scale and cheap production you minimize the risk of experimentation. Once unprofitable projects could now be made efficient through the use of serial production. Among the first such projects was the creation of cargo walkers that could traverse uneven terrain without a human operator. These evolved into the first combat walkers for the battlefield. Inevitably—since humans are emotionally wired to be more empathetic (and comfortable) with other humans—they created human-like robots, walking fortresses, and even artificial intelligences capable of simulating human thought patterns.
However, advanced breakthroughs in the field of human-like AI have not occurred. Analysts continue to predict major advances year after year, but so far machine AI have remained at the level of "smart helpers." These computer systems can, for example, help a single pilot navigate a combat vehicle that once required a full crew. Computer systems can now help an engineer design a combat vehicle without the need for a whole department of engineers. And computers can now assist a gunner in destroying enemy vehicles without deploying several artillery crews.
Currently, battles are fought by semi-autonomous "smart machines" accompanied by a small number of professional soldiers. Machines that cannot fight autonomously are controlled remotely. Combat vehicles are assembled near or on the battlefield. If the enemy destroys these vehicles, their parts can be used to create new machines. Wounded pilots and commanders also get a second chance thanks to the use of cybernetic prosthetics. Even machines can "rehab" themselves: self-restoring "smart" armor was one of the first significant advances in the field of military nanotechnologies. However, it was found that replacing armor on combat machines was not mission critical, since existing models go out of date after a few years and it's actually more cost efficient to replace them with more advanced variants.
What's next? A major advancement was the introduction of mobile assembly plants that can quickly change their operational profiles within the rapidly fluid environments of any battlefield. They are still rare, but they are touted as the future of modern warfare. With the modernization of armament delivery capabilities, military engineers can now focus on developing weapons utilizing lasers, plasma, and electromagnetic measures.
There are some within the scientific-military industry who feel that the ultimate goal is to have these semi-perfect machines replaced by perfect soldiers, who will be endowed with cybernetically improved intelligence. These people are convinced that if the creation of a perfect artificial intelligence, as it seems now, is not possible, an alternative would be to remove all restrictions imposed by the nature onto human intelligence.
TO BE CONTINUED...
The past several thousand years have witnessed great leaps in technology, from the invention of the wagon to the first automobile. It's been less than two hundred years since those first automobiles and the rise of powered flight. And only a few decades have passed from the first space rockets to the Moon landing.
In the future, the time intervals between technical innovations will take no longer than an ordinary coffee break.
That age is still to come, but it is rapidly approaching. The year 2060 is within sight and with it will come a brave new world.
3-D printing and automated technologies are being rapidly developed and they have become cost effective in the recent decades. Automated factories not only work without operators in all phases of raw material acquisition and transportation, they can also repair themselves—with robots producing spare parts and replacing worn parts with newly fabricated.
Of course, this would never have occurred without breakthroughs in energy engineering. What happens when safe, clean nuclear power plants are combined with the wireless transfer of electric power? A world full of cheap energy! In such a world, the risk of losing electric energy only occurs when someone deliberately takes it away from you.
With large-scale and cheap production you minimize the risk of experimentation. Once unprofitable projects could now be made efficient through the use of serial production. Among the first such projects was the creation of cargo walkers that could traverse uneven terrain without a human operator. These evolved into the first combat walkers for the battlefield. Inevitably—since humans are emotionally wired to be more empathetic (and comfortable) with other humans—they created human-like robots, walking fortresses, and even artificial intelligences capable of simulating human thought patterns.
However, advanced breakthroughs in the field of human-like AI have not occurred. Analysts continue to predict major advances year after year, but so far machine AI have remained at the level of "smart helpers." These computer systems can, for example, help a single pilot navigate a combat vehicle that once required a full crew. Computer systems can now help an engineer design a combat vehicle without the need for a whole department of engineers. And computers can now assist a gunner in destroying enemy vehicles without deploying several artillery crews.
Currently, battles are fought by semi-autonomous "smart machines" accompanied by a small number of professional soldiers. Machines that cannot fight autonomously are controlled remotely. Combat vehicles are assembled near or on the battlefield. If the enemy destroys these vehicles, their parts can be used to create new machines. Wounded pilots and commanders also get a second chance thanks to the use of cybernetic prosthetics. Even machines can "rehab" themselves: self-restoring "smart" armor was one of the first significant advances in the field of military nanotechnologies. However, it was found that replacing armor on combat machines was not mission critical, since existing models go out of date after a few years and it's actually more cost efficient to replace them with more advanced variants.
What's next? A major advancement was the introduction of mobile assembly plants that can quickly change their operational profiles within the rapidly fluid environments of any battlefield. They are still rare, but they are touted as the future of modern warfare. With the modernization of armament delivery capabilities, military engineers can now focus on developing weapons utilizing lasers, plasma, and electromagnetic measures.
There are some within the scientific-military industry who feel that the ultimate goal is to have these semi-perfect machines replaced by perfect soldiers, who will be endowed with cybernetically improved intelligence. These people are convinced that if the creation of a perfect artificial intelligence, as it seems now, is not possible, an alternative would be to remove all restrictions imposed by the nature onto human intelligence.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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