"Study paves way for personnel such as drone operators to have electrical pulses sent into their brains to improve effectiveness in high pressure situations"
US military scientists have used electrical brain stimulators to enhance mental skills of staff, in research that aims to boost the performance of air crews, drone operators and others in the armed forces' most demanding roles.
The successful tests of the devices pave the way for servicemen and women to be wired up at critical times of duty, so that electrical pulses can be beamed into their brains to improve their effectiveness in high pressure situations.
The brain stimulation kits use five electrodes to send weak electric currents through the skull and into specific parts of the cortex. Previous studies have found evidence that by helping neurons to fire, these minor brain zaps can boost cognitive ability.
The technology is seen as a safer alternative to prescription drugs, such as modafinil and ritalin, both of which have been used off-label as performance enhancing drugs in the armed forces.
But while electrical brain stimulation appears to have no harmful side effects, some experts say its long-term safety is unknown, and raise concerns about staff being forced to use the equipment if it is approved for military operations.
Others are worried about the broader implications of the science on the general workforce because of the advance of an unregulated technology.
[...] In 2014 another Oxford scientist, Roi Cohen Kadosh, warned that while brain stimulation could improve performance at some tasks, it made people worse at others. In light of the work, Kadosh urged people not to use brain stimulators at home.
Article:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/07/us-military-successfully-tests-electrical-brain-stimulation-to-enhance-staff-skills
https://web.archive.org/web/20161107205930/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/07/us-military-successfully-tests-electrical-brain-stimulation-to-enhance-staff-skills
Research Article:
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00589/abstract
https://web.archive.org/web/20161108040752/http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00589/abstract
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The U.S. is seeking bids to improve its "basic" killbot to the the point where it can "acquire, identify, and engage targets at least 3X faster than the current manual process."
U.S. Army Assures Public That Robot Tank System Adheres to AI Murder Policy
Why does any of this matter? The Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, requires that humans be able to "exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force," meaning that the U.S. won't toss a fully autonomous robot into a battlefield and allow it to decide independently whether to kill someone. This safeguard is sometimes called being "in the loop," meaning that a human is making the final decision about whether to kill someone.
Industry Day for the Advanced Targeting and Lethality Automated System (ATLAS) Program. Also at Boing Boing.
Surely these will never be hacked!
Will an operator feel more trepidatious about taking life, due to not being in direct peril themselves? Or less because of greater desensitization? Anyone have any insightful links about drone operator psych outcomes? (Ed: Don't worry about it.)
Related information to inform the philosophical background of why having a human in the loop is required (they don't specify this but e.g. without the human, land mine agreements might start to apply): https://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/media/capdev/capdev_02.pdf
HEY EDITORS! I suggest a new topic: "tech and society" for stuff like this. (Ed: It's Digital Liberty.)
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday November 09 2016, @11:09PM
I fully support Chancellor Trump in allowing anything that will make our forces stronger against any threats to the Republic, including increased coordination. [wikia.com]
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tisI on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:56AM
Yep
I've heard of this project.
They gave it an acronym of
Brain Optimization and Reprogramming Group or B.O.R.G. for short ..
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @11:11PM
Back during the vietnam war, we did the same thing to our soldiers, [theatlantic.com] but with chemicals instead of electricity. I'm sure this will work out much better.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:20PM
The Wehrmacht wrote the book on cranked-up troops. We copied it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Nazi_Germany [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday November 09 2016, @11:24PM
> Kadosh urged people not to use brain stimulators at home
I would have said: "do not use on non-legally-consenting parties".
I'm all for allowing people who believe in pseudo-science (or extrapolate tiny findings) to blow up their own brains in peace.
The home version of the machine should come with a discount for the closest ambulance and mortuary services. And an exponential control dial which goes to 11, with a clear warning and a safety to make it impossible to accidentally get past 7.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @11:27PM
> I would have said: "do not use on non-legally-consenting parties".
You can't consent if you don't know what the consequences are.
Its like asking someone which door they want to open without telling them that behind one of them is a homicidal maniac.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:31PM
> Kadosh urged people not to use brain stimulators at home
I would have said: "do not use on non-legally-consenting parties".
I'm all for allowing people who believe in pseudo-science (or extrapolate tiny findings) to blow up their own brains in peace.
The home version of the machine should come with a discount for the closest ambulance and mortuary services. And an exponential control dial which goes to 11, with a clear warning and a safety to make it impossible to accidentally get past 7.
This is advice, not legally binding. Kadosh is telling people that it would be really stupid to try something this without proper knowledge and safety protocols in place. However, his words do not have force of law, and if somebody wants to try things out on themselves, they of course can. As such, I have no problem with a scientist urging people to do whatever (so long as it had no negative impact to other people).
Second... are you really so callous that you wouldn't give people the best advice you can? To use your analogy, I think most people would happily "urge" other people to "not stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger." Obviously if somebody wants to commit suicide they can (give or take certain laws), but merely saying "do not shoot non-legally-consenting parties" seems somehow insufficient even for even the most libertarian-leaning people.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:38PM
> are you really so callous that you wouldn't give people the best advice you can?
Wrong week for that. People do stupid shit regardless of how many times they're told about consequences.
So you tell them not to hurt someone else who's unfit to consent, and you make sure to provide them the means to hurt themselves properly. What's the title again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @11:31PM
We can make him better than he was before. And he'll have a life full of action, and a hot chick to go home to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @12:29AM
For 6 mil, they couldn't give him a bionic pinky. Inflation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @04:06AM
It'll be a slashfic with Mad Max, where he travels the post-apocalyptic country bankrupted by constructing his body, doing what he can here and there to help his bankrupted constituents who paid for his newfound powers with the blood, sweat, and financial insolvency.
:)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @12:06AM
Hook it up to the workers' nuts and only use it if the worker slacks off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:14AM
Can't we get back to two armies meeting at the agreed hour in a battlefield, two different bright uniforms, killing each other and who survives wins all?
Because I am not sure it is better to be the drone pilot, or the target, anymore.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday November 10 2016, @07:03PM
On the drive home, Robert looked up "JITT." There were millions of hits, in medicine, in military affairs, in drug enforcement. He picked the Global-Security summary off the top of "respected contrarian" sources:
JITT, "just-in-time-training" (also, "just-in-time-trainee", when referring to a victim of the procedure). A treatment that combines addressin therapy and intense data exposure, capable of installing large skill sets in less than 100 hours. Most famous for its tragic use in the Sino-American Conflict, when 100,000 U.S. military recruits were trained in Mandarin, Cantonese.
and a list of specialties that Robert had never heard of. In less than ninety days the Americans had made up their military language gap. But then there were problems. Cram in such skills willy-nilly and you distort the underlying personality. A very few JITTs suffered no side effects. In rare cases, such people could undertake a second hit -- even a third -- before the damage caught up with them. The rejection process was a kind of internal war between the new viewpoints and the old, manifesting as seizures and altered mental states. Often the JITT was stuck in some diminished form of his/her new skill set. After the war, there was the legacy of the JITT-disabled veterans, and continuing abuse by foolish students everywhere.
-- Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End
Admittedly, it's science fiction, but I have to wonder if (I'm reaching here) there's a per-person safe threshold for the knowledge acquisition. On the other hand, maybe this could help the mentally retarded or otherwise impeded people acquire skills faster.