Scy-Fy Fighter

Discussion in 'SciFi & Fantasy' started by George1, May 9, 2011.

  1. siphra Registered Senior Member

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    344
    Dude seriously, no. The controller programs in target selections, then hits launch, that is how it works. There are NO systems in existance that currently allow an onboard computer to Select the target it wants to hit. IF you think there is, your just plain wrong. Fact is, the targets are preselected by controllers before launch, programmed in, and the device is sent on its way.

    More to the point, name one current generation weapon that works the way your describing.

    Let me in fact explain EXACTLY how these weapons work.

    Military command authorizes the use of a weapon against targets in an area.
    Ground controller programs in the main target (Primary if you will), as well as a recon image of the location the target is in.
    Ground controller repeats this for additional targets.
    Device is launched.
    It looks for the primary target, if it find it it deploys its payload as programmed on to the target. If not it searches for the next target on the list of priority.

    It is so bad, that you can cause the missiles to miss, just by changing the orientation on the ground of your system. (actually new generation ones use more detail than just the target, to help with edge recognition problems, and you do actually have to move the target now to avoid being hit.) In the case of independant warheads each warhead is programmed with its own target sequences.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2011
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  3. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong.


    And you're still thinking of drones. I stated warhead/ weapon.

    Ah shit. Do you wanna tell Textron?
    Or the Swedes?
    Hell, maybe even us Brits.

    Don't bother. Since you've already shown your ignorance then I doubt you'd tell me anything I haven't already come across.

    Oh wait! Are you saying that the weapon recognises what's in the area and selects its own target? In order of priority? Wow, I wonder where I saw that before? Could it have been post #13?

    Move the target? Oh right, because moving the target will do... what? Take it out of the IR/ millimetric/ laser seeker area?

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  5. siphra Registered Senior Member

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    Ok, since my friend actually work in this industry... Here it is: Did you notice something very important ---> The weapons are programmed to seek out specific targets.


    No, moving the target changes the edges that the computers see, and since computer edge recognition is significantly less than human, moving the target even a few dozen feet can change the way the image looks to the computer, and make it see 'no target' instead of target. But I guess your a weapons expert, and apparently know more than anyone who actually builds the things.

    As I have said, you can not launch a weapon and have it decide what targets it will hit, ALL you can do, is program it to LOOK for certain targets, and select those that it finds.

    Not launch a warhead and let it fly and select any target it wants on its way, that is simply not how it works. And there appears to be a fine point in the way your brain isn't working that is not getting that through you head. Your insisting that the weapon gets to make the choice, when NO, a ground operater has made the choice BEFORE the weapon was deployed. Missile, Drone, Warhead, etc. doesn't matter.


    From your FIRST Link
    Hm, Pattern matching, odd, thats EXACTLY what I said, a target pattern is PROGRAMMED INTO THE WEAPON by a controller on the ground, it then looks for that target.

    Your second link is an IR guided weapon, not even close to what we are discussing here.
     
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  7. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    And? Who doesn't?

    Er yes. And your point?

    Ah right. So Javelin doesn't work either then?

    Close.

    Good guess.

    Um, what's the difference? It will select the correct target from a multiplicity of available ones.

    Try to read what I actually wrote, please. That way you won't get so confused.

    The weapon chooses its target from the potential ones on the ground. Truck? Nope. Tank? Nope. AA vehicle? Yes!

    See my earlier comment about reading what I wrote.

    You think not? Ever actually seen the discrimination of imaging infra-red? Basic IR, for example, can pick a tank from a truck.
     
  8. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    6,231
    This is stupid. Skynet, the Cylons, and those computer dudes who ran the Matrix were cool and all, but the whole "computers suddenly becoming sentient and deciding not to do stuff" is just an overused plot device that has f*ck all to do with the real world. Unless the drone programmers do something inexplicably stupid like design their programs to be self-modifying and evolving, there is zero reason to think that your drones would decide they didn't want to fight, or turn on you, or whatever. If you want to know exactly how your software's decision-making algorithms will perform in the field, just run it through a few thousand combat scenarios on your desktop computer before you deploy it. Your software won't be able to tell the difference.
     
  9. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    6,231
    So it's a problem that all my drones will be good for is going out and blowing up stuff that I tell them to blow up? This is a problem? Because I was thinking that would be pretty much their one-and-only purpose.

    I imagine that even with human pilots, you don't generally want them just making their orders up as they go. You probably brief them on exactly what you want them to do before they launch and then expect them to just go do it. If they decide to do something else - which is an actual possibility with human pilots, unlike with a computer that just does whatever you programmed it to - someone is probably going to be super pissed about it. You don't have to worry about the drone getting scared and disengaging, or deciding that it wouldn't be able to live with itself if it blows up that ship full of orphans that you told it to blow up, or that your side sucks and it's just going to go fly over to the enemy and defect, or whatever.
     
  10. Believe Happy medium Valued Senior Member

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    1,194
    A question for this thread. Why not just use fly by wire? You get the best of both worlds. Before you start with the jamming argument, you could use directed tight band communications (i.e. line of site like microwave or laser) to avoid this. This would require a small amount of intelligence from the computer when LOS cannot be established (i.e. physically blocked by something) but it would only continue doing the last action (fire at X target, bank 40 degrees, go straight, ext...) until comms were reestablished.

    What may also work is launching probes to facilitate getting better LOS. Direct comms with the probes into direct comms with the fighters allowing you to get better angles on the action and allowing you to attack around the other side of planet from where you are (i.e. sort of like our satellites)
     
  11. Believe Happy medium Valued Senior Member

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    1,194
    However, if the people that you are fighting have perfected the completely unmanned fighter you will get stomped (unless your tech is way better) because the computer pilot is going to have much, much faster reactions then any human. Also, it will be more "jacked in" to the sensor systems of the ships. This could be useful since many weapon systems may give off some kind of power signature before they fire (think of beam weapon warming up) allowing it to dodge way better then you could ever hope to.
     
  12. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    6,231
    Lightspeed lag
    Also the drone won't mind pulling accelerations that would squish a human pilot. Unless you want to suppose that someone invents a magical technology that lets people ignore G forces...
     
  13. siphra Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    344
    I could say the same thing about you. Once again, your reply initially was to my comment that current software can only select targets from a pre-programmed list. Whereas a human pilot can notice other things, make relevant connections, and choose to target something else, or at the very least request permission to do so. Current technology CAN NOT do that, which is what I have been saying from the start. Period. It can only select from the targets that have been programmed into it. It can not make its own decisions other than selecting from the availible list. IE if you forget to program in a command and control object, (Say a tank for example) it may recognize an entire tank group below it, But ALL tanks are selected as equal. Where a human pilot might just notice the 1 or 2 extra antennae on an officers tank. (Bad Example I know, I am trying to use it to illustrate a point.) Or more to the point, you program it to hit any of a list of targets, say AA, Tanks, Trucks but the command tent is 50 feet to the left of the tank it sees. Well it gets to kill the tank, but it wasn't able to select the command tent, which would probably make more of an impact. The targeting is limited to only what the ground controller allows.

    Yup, and your a programmer? See the thing is, if you want human like decision making from a computer, you need to give it human like range of decision. Now for us, and for computers for the forseeable future, this just isn't going to happen. Human data is stored via both chemical and mechanical means, with the data nodes actually changing physically to meet the requirements. Current computers can not do that. But eventually, why not?

    The difference here is in flexibility, military commanders contrary to what some appear to believe here, are not morons. They will disguise things, or hide them in ways that you can not currently program a computer to see, but that a human pilot could.
     
  14. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    6,231
    I'm not expecting them to write me an essay on ethics, or any of the other stuff that people need their mighty intelligent human brains for. I just want them to go where I tell them and blow up the stuff that I tell them to blow up.
    That a human pilot could "see" with what, his eyes? Most likely your human pilot will be relying more or less entirely on the computer to process all the sensor data and tell him what's what anyway. It's not like the pilot is going to be looking out the window for stuff to shoot at.
     
  15. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    19,252
    Uh, no;
    You: To a drone, all enemy targets are the same value.
    Me: Not even true today. Etc.

    Right because a pilot can distinguish a command tent from a any other type..

    Decisions.
     
  16. sniffy Banned Banned

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    2,945
    Whatever you do make sure the drones don't press the big red button marked 'don't press'!
     
  17. siphra Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    344
    Actually a command tent is easy to spot, I used to work in one. HQ tents have a distinguishing mark outside them. (At least ours, russian, chinese, british, french, german, N. Korean. ...) So yes a pilot CAN tell the difference, sorry if you can not.

    And dude, you seriously need to read the conversation again. You seem to be blocking out the point I was making. Targets are preselected and priority given to them by someone on the ground, no current system can select targets other than those programmed in. Which is what I have been saying right along, and you have been insisting they can, that no ground controller tells them what to do. READ the conversation.


    And to the last point your making, yes we have machine code that can act like a simple neural network, but due to actual construction differences, it will never act like a more complex human one without very large (impractical) current computers OR new technologies that don't yet exist. Personally I like the idea of intelligent machines, and I am not a programmer, my wife who is however could inform you of the exact differences and how what your referring to will still never do what a human can. (It's the hardware, not the software.)

    Even funnier, is when asked to describe any weapon that works the way you stated, you linked only weapons that worked the way I stated, the exact way I stated, in that someone (who I have been calling a controller) inputs targeting information, and priority and then the weapon is released.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2011
  18. siphra Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    344
    Thats the thing, if you just want the device to go out and kill what you tell it, yes that is easy, we do that today. But if you want it to replace people on site looking at things, it has to be much much more complex. Having a person there will likely always be required.
     
  19. sniffy Banned Banned

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    Perhaps you should use propensity for 'friendly fire' as the measuring stick for any programmable killing machine, human or otherwise and don't forget to build in the over-ride option just in case the ancestors of Lord Cardigan are in command of the control centre.


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  20. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah right. In a shooting ware everyone marks the high-value targets for the bad guys to spot.

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    I see you failed to understand: again.

    Unfortunately for you I have been a programmer. And your claim that it's the hardware is specious.

    Yup, still not quite getting the point are you?
     
  21. siphra Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    344
    Dude, I was an Intel Analyst for the US Army, I won't give you my unit number as that would be too much information. My job, was to take intel from photos, and scouts, etc. And put togather maps of the current battlefield. I assure you, it is simple to spot HQ units, they have certain tell tale markers, they are small, and not noticeable to many people I am certain. But they are there.

    I have not failed to understand anything, YOU have stated, several times, that the WEAPON SYSTEM is making its targeting selections. I have said 'no, this is done by someone on the ground who preprograms them'. When asked to link any single system that works the way you describe, you linked weapons that work the way I described. Honestly I think were having a semanitcs debate here, but the fact still remains someone programs them on the ground, and then they are sent into a certain area to hunt for targets. That is how they work, I am sorry if you realize that you are wrong, but are to egotistical to admit it now. But anyone reading the discussion with basic understanding of English can tell you that I am right here.

    Personally, I don't know about the hardware/software end of the issue, I can only tell you what my wife, who btw used to work for a major defense contractor, has told me. (Pratt and Whitney if your wondering.) Since she is the big time programmer, and I am just a lowley Chemical Engineer, I take her word for it, when it comes to computer crap.
     
  22. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Yup, intel analyst. Small and not noticeable. And the pilot gets how long, exactly, to look for and recognise these give-aways?

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    And once again you fail to understand.
    Try looking at Nasor's post #26.
     
  23. siphra Registered Senior Member

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    344
    It is easily noticeable, Often pilots will radio back for permission to hit these targets when they are seen. I have already responded to the above quoted post.

    The OP is about replacing pilots all togather with intelligent weapons systems, or drones.

    The point I have made is fairly simple, in order for a drone/intelligent weapon system to do what a human does, it needs a human level of intellect and thought. My point remains the same, and has since my first post. It seems you either did not understand what I was saying or just haven't gotten the point. You made the claim that weapons systems select targets and priority on thier own, I said they didn't, and that this was done by a ground controller before launch.

    Your next argument is that I don't understand what you said. I think, sir, perhaps you don't understand what you had said.

    Having a weapon that can go out and hit specific pre-determined targets is a wonderful thing, however today, and likely in the future, we will require human pilots to see the things that you cannot account for, which is a good 70% of combat.
     

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