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AI robots used in France in military exercises with real fire. The drone war is approaching

"Spot" the robot dog of Boston Dynamics, leaves for the war.

On Tuesday, the Military Academy of Saint-Cyr, one of the best French military academies and known in all of Europe, posted images of a field exercise between 30 and 31 March on its Twitter account. Several robots were tested during the training session, including Spot from Boston Dynamics.

The field exercise was a two-day session with the aim of "measuring the added value of robots in combat action," said school commander Jean-Baptiste Cavalier.

Boston Dynamics vice president of business development Michael Perry told The Verge that a European distributor, Shark Robotics, delivered Spot to the military without the parent company in the US knowing anything about it.

“We learned that from you,” Perry said. "We do not know the extent of the commitment made.". The company said it had some information about the French government's use of its robots, including the military, but apparently not all.

The two-day exercise was offensive and defensive field training. Each exercise was with and without Spot or other robots. The idea is that the French government wanted to collect data on the impact robots would have on the modern battlefield.

It is still not entirely clear what role Spot played during the exercise as there was no evidence in the specific images, but it appears that the robot had additional optical sensors.

In addition to Spot, the French army included OPTIO-X20, a remote-controlled vehicle with tracks and automatic cannon built by the Estonian firm Milrem Robotics; ULTRO, a “mule robot” on wheels made for the transport of equipment produced by the French state military company Nexter; and Barakuda, a multipurpose wheeled drone that can protect soldiers from direct enemy fire.

Spot's terms and conditions prohibit the use of robot weaponry "to harm or intimidate any person or animal, such as a weapon or to activate any weapon". The use of robots as a reconnaissance element, however, creates a gray area: if Spot sees an enemy then killed by a soldier, is it a weapon or not? If a power reverse engineered “Spot”, it could use it without the limits imposed by the parent company.


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The article Robot AI used in France in military exercises with real fire. The drone war is approaching comes from ScenariEconomici.it .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/robot-ai-usati-in-francia-nelle-esercitazioni-militari-con-fuoco-reale-la-guerra-dei-droni-si-avvicina/ on Thu, 15 Apr 2021 08:48:09 +0000.