General Sir Nick Carter, the UK’s Chief of Defence last week suggested the British Army may one day fill its ranks with “robot soldiers”. This may seem like a daunting prospect, and one that will never come to fruition – but a military expert has now predicted such highly-intelligent military robots are actually a mere 15 years away from “changing the face” of warfare.
The high-tech machines will employ cutting-edge AI to inform strategy concerning the “layout of the land and possible threats” in real-time, Charles Glar has revealed.
Mr Glar, an expert in robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence, believes the US military is on course to create these “deadly and highly effective” machines by 2035 if current spending rates of more than £4 billion a year continue.
But the AI expert, who has helped develop spying robots and worked at America’s highly-controversial Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), said the robots will not be humanoid creations resembling hollywood creation The Terminator – at least for now.
Mr Glar, owner of AI firm CYBUR, said: “These robots are most likely going to be terrain focused and not like a drone.
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“Having information about your environment and having it be precise and quick will be an enormous advantage in any conflict.
“Being able to make decisions much faster without having to use instinct or educated guessing to make massive decisions is huge.
“This will make warfare a lot less messy, believe it or not many decisions in combat are made via educated assumptions and sometimes intel may not be as accurate as the decision maker believes it to be.
“Using these devices will help to mitigate the consequences of acting on bad intel.
“This means helping troops become more effective while reducing the chances of losing soldiers and civilians.
“The main features of devices like these will be to scan the environment and locate threats in real time allowing air support to accurately deploy defences on the ground correctly.
“This includes detecting humans, projectiles and hidden items that might catch units off guard.”
Mr Glar previously revealed Britain’s top brass are “deluded” if they think their current budget can fund the creation of 30,000 effective fighting robots by 2030.
He spoke after General Sir Nick Carter recently warned the UK’s Army could consist of 80,000 humans and 30,000 robots by the end of the decade.