French army gets ethical go-ahead for bionic soldiers
The French armed forces now have permission to develop "augmented soldiers" following a report from a military ethics committee. The report, released to the public on Tuesday, considers medical treatments, prosthetics and implants that improve "physical, cognitive, perceptive and psychological capacities," and could allow for location tracking or connectivity with weapons systems and other soldiers.
[...] The committee said that France needs to maintain "operational superiority of its armed forces in a challenging strategic context" while respecting the rules governing the military, humanitarian law and the "fundamental values of our society." As a result, it has forbidden any modification that would affect a soldier's ability to manage the use of force or affect their sense of "humanity." Further examples of banned modifications include cognitive implants that would affect the exercise of a soldier's free will, or changes that would affect their reintegration into civilian life.
Armed forces minister Florence Parly said "invasive" augmentations such as implants are not currently part of military plans. "But we have to be clear, not everyone has the same scruples as us and we have to prepare ourselves for such a future," she said in a press release published Tuesday.
PDF here (8.1 MB, in French). Round table discussion (1h18m35s, also in French).
Also at BBC, IFLScience, and The Defense Post.
Related: U.S. Director of National Intelligence Claims China is Testing on Humans to Create Super Soldiers
Related Stories
China conducting biological tests to create super soldiers, US spy chief says
China has conducted testing on its army in the hope of creating biologically enhanced soldiers, according to the top intelligence official in the US.
John Ratcliffe, who has served as Donald Trump's director of national intelligence since May, made the claims in a newspaper editorial, where he warned that China "poses the greatest threat to America today".
[...] "US intelligence shows that China has even conducted human testing on members of the People's Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities," Ratcliffe wrote. "There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power."
Also at The Wall Street Journal (archive), BioSpace and Interesting Engineering:
In a report published last year in Jamestown, the authors Elsa Kania and Wilson VornDick offer insight into China's interest in gene editing.
"While the potential leveraging of CRISPR to increase human capabilities on the future battlefield remains only a hypothetical possibility at the present, there are indications that Chinese military researchers are starting to explore its potential," state the scholars, Elsa Kania, an expert on Chinese defense technology at the Center for a New American Security, and Wilson VornDick, a consultant on China matters and former Navy officer.
See also: State Dept. terminates five exchange programs with China, calling them 'propaganda'
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday December 12 2020, @04:31AM (14 children)
I wonder if legionaries are a ethical loophole, they are not considered to be french -- they can chose to become citizens after years of service.
I like how they hold themselves up, noting they wont do it but they suspect others will. Eventually if the edge offered is big enough I gather said scruples will soften.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:05AM (13 children)
> or affect their sense of "humanity."
I thought that was the whole point of basic training, to break down any sense of humanity and instill the ability to follow orders (almost) without question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @01:28PM (3 children)
This is a myth.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @02:34PM (2 children)
> This is a myth.
Not so much a myth as an exaggeration. There is definitely a reprogramming aspect to Basic Training, changing reflex responses to authority figures and attenuating natural and learned social responses to negative stimuli. It's not possible to take a normal, socialized individual and make them part of a cohesive and effective fighting unit without making some changes to the software. If you take all the pompt and polish off of it, the point of Basic Training is to get you in shape, teach you to follow orders, and ultimately - teach you how to kill another human.
Some of that can be rationally "unlearned" later, but it definitely leaves a mark. 30 years later, I still remember what makes the grass grow.
Source: I was a soldier in the United States Army.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:48PM (1 child)
We're about the same vintage, I was in a reserves support unit
One aspect is you take a motivated, excited, delayed entry program fanboy who's always wanted to serve and let him in and basic is just kinda adult guidance like having the boy scout leader subtly keep the group on track and safe. That's what all volunteer reserves basic training was like 30 yrs ago. Holy shit I was so excited to get to do a genuine US Army confidence/obstacle course and they paid me for weeks AND gave me infinite free ammo to practice shooting out at the range; I was in teen boy heaven! There was pointless lack of sleep and nonsense extra exercise, but overall not a bad time. Honestly if I could be guaranteed a good nights sleep, I'd do it over again at my current age! AIT was going to be boring computer sysadmin stuff I already mostly knew so basic was my time to have "fun". Kids who did delayed entry program and were proud of already having joined their reserve unit and memorized most of the training smartbook before going to basic, like I did, didn't get yelled at very much and I didn't care if everyone was doing pushups for something. Other than lack of sleep, basic was pretty fun.
A generation earlier imagine a literal San Francisco dirty weed smoking war protesting hippie getting a draft notice; They're going to have to pound really hard to get that square peg to fit in the round hole and the draft means there's no "no" as an option and its gonna get rough for everyone involved. Kid don't want to be there, don't want the job, never picked the job, its basically two months of attitude adjustment.
Its like the difference between a recreational hiking meetup vs soldiers prodding unwilling war refugees along the same trail.
I don't know what OSUT is like for combat arms. The army runs all combat arms thru OSUT which is like tougher basic merged with AIT; I've heard it sucks worse at the start but is less TRADOC bullshit at the end. I had a sgt who reclassed out of some NBC tank thing MOS; he said something like they really messed with people for about two weeks and then it was pretty chill, whereas regular basic for support MOSes and AIT was tons of low level tradoc BS for the entire time, nothing bad individually, just endless.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:29AM
All fun and games until you get sent to defend oil wells in former Iraq.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @02:59PM (8 children)
A luftwaffe commander once told his pilots: "If I ever learn that one of you has shot a parachute, he better not show his face here ever again, because I'll shoot him myself. This is not something you do for the ennemy, this is something you do for yourself, so you don't completely lose your humanity."
And this guy was a fucking nazi. So no, I don't think the french army, or any army for that matter, is any worse than the nazis.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday December 12 2020, @03:34PM (4 children)
There might be other reasons to, if you shot down people in parachutes then the enemy is going to shot down people in parachutes. So if you don't want it to happen to you, then you don't do it to them. It's like the Golden Rule of War.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:11PM (3 children)
The German invasion of Russia was pretty brutal; during the Russian invasion of Germany, the Russians took the opportunity to exact revenge...
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:50PM
Sure, there is always the exception to the rule I guess -- if you think you are going to wipe them all out you might not care much how its done. But I guess there are reasons why we, as a death cult species, are not super big on gas; biological warfare and flamethrowers etc. Dying from bullets, bomb and shrapnel is bad enough. Nobody wants to suffocate on your own fluids, bleed from every orifice or be burned to death. There are limits to/on our own fuckupedness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:07PM (1 child)
The Bolshevik Jew controlled slave state of Russia was gearing up for their invasion of Germany. Hitler was forced to invade them first to have any chance of protecting his people, even though he was already fighting the rest of the Jew slave states. Hitler is a racial hero and ignorant Whites have been brainwashed against the truth of their own history so the Jews can finish the destruction of the White race they started long ago. Stop consuming Jew propaganda and use the internet to learn while you still can.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:08PM
ROFL
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @07:00PM
"And this guy was a fucking nazi. So no, I don't think the french army, or any army for that matter, is any worse than the nazis."
The "nazis" were the (relative) good guys. Your history is nothing but Jew lies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @08:30PM
I read somewhere about one asshole who was shooting people in their chutes. The other pilots took a note of it and ganged up on him. Once he had ejected, the other pilots turned him into ground meat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2020, @10:46AM
Not sure if he really was a Nazi though: https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Gustav_R%C3%B6del [wikia.org]
From what I gather not all the people in the German military were Nazis. It's like if the US goes to war, not all the people in the US military are necessarily Republicans/Democrats or Trump/Biden supporters.
As for modifications and humanity, seems like the wordings allow quite a fair bit of wiggle room.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @05:00AM (2 children)
In WW2, soldiers were on meth so they had energy without sleep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @09:09PM (1 child)
The US Air Force still uses "go pills", generally dextroamphetamine on long missions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2020, @04:48AM
I think it was that british doctor guy, but they were using dextroamphetamines during the Korean War too, I assume probably long before that as well.
(Score: 2, Touché) by aristarchus on Saturday December 12 2020, @05:02AM (15 children)
As I suggested, in regard to the Chinese, the greatest augmentation to a warrior is a liberal arts education. Of course, and education in the arts of a free person mitigates against the role of a Universal Soldier. Paradox! Runaway as an example of failure to augment.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @05:44AM (1 child)
You Athenian boylovers never did know what a soldier was. You should have learned from Sparta.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @07:54AM
That was more what The Sacred Band of Thebes was about, or the "Special Forces" in the American Vietnam era. (Falngers?) But you have to admit, that if the guy next to to you in the "foxhole" is your own special Runaway, whose anal orifice is dear to you, you may be inclined to fight to keep his ass from the ravages of the enemy? Gay soldiers are the Best!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:17AM (2 children)
Why would any country want soldiers with bigger hooters?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @07:04PM (1 child)
They should have some women soldiers who are bred/modified/trained to bone all the other soldiers and genetically enhance them for the job. Nympho-maniacal personality, physical horniness, super nice bodies, immune to STDs, etc. This is what happens a lot already, but in a much darker way now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:35AM
I saw this movie - forget the name. Great tits.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Saturday December 12 2020, @01:02PM (9 children)
There's nothing quite like a good education to put people off fighting. It eventually leads to thought such as "all men are brothers" and "perhaps Johnny Foreigner isn't so different to us after all." Before you know it you have decades of peace, trade, political collaboration, scientific collaboration and intermarrying.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @07:46PM
This is what Lefty thinks, but it makes him incapable of seeing and then fighting illiberal, uncouth countries that see they can just take Little Lord Fauntleroy's marbles without him putting up a fight.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:37AM (6 children)
When you say "good" you mean Eton/Oxford? Like Boris Johnson.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday December 13 2020, @12:15PM (5 children)
No, I mean like the Scottish state comprehensive education system that gave me such a good start in life :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:10PM (4 children)
if by "good start in life" you mean brainwashed into a neo-bolsheviks' useful idiot.
(Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:24PM (3 children)
No, I mean taught critical thinking skills having been made to study the likes of Orwell.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2020, @04:56AM (2 children)
And you don't see how the Left in Western "democracies" is right now carrying out verbatim the tactics described in Orwell's 1984? Recall Orwell was a Leftist who felt disillusioned by the reality he experienced of how the Left operates in real life. If 1984 is too difficult a read, then Animal Farm with its lesson of how Communists present themselves and how they end up governing is enlightening.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday December 14 2020, @09:38AM
Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch... all well-known Leftists?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday December 14 2020, @09:55AM
By the way, in the case of Brexit, the windmill is being built and Sugarcandy Mountain is in sight.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2020, @09:46AM
The better educated are more likely to figure out that some wars are based on too much bullshit.
Yeah some wars are justifiable but plenty aren't - some are because some bastard at the top wants to shore up his position, or other BS reasons.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:13AM (11 children)
Non sequitur much? These are the same people who gave us the guillotine, after all. "Off with their heads! Off with their heads!"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday December 12 2020, @10:11AM (4 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2020, @05:05AM (2 children)
The most humane modern method of execution is a gunshot to the head.
Instantaneous, works every time, little executioner skill required. It's unbelievably cheap, no elaborate machinery required, and is safer for the prison staff too.
So why don't we do it? Because it looks like what it is: killing. I have no problem with that. As a matter of fact, if I had to pick my execution method, I prefer to be shot.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday December 14 2020, @05:43AM (1 child)
Instantaneous, works every time, little executioner skill required."
Not quite.
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/09/national-suicide-prevention-month-i-shot-myself-in-the-head-and-survived/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 16 2020, @07:20AM
I said execution method. You brought up suicide. I guarantee the executioner will have received a little training ("Aim here") and will line the gun up better. It's easier to do to someone else. Less physically awkward and you can see where the pistol is pointing. Plus if he fucks up, he can get off another shot.
I stand by my statement that it is the most humane. Poison gas and electrocution are recognized as cruel and are out. Hanging is gruesome and sometimes induces suffocation rather than a neck break. Death by injection... well... nobody has told us what it felt like, probably because one of the drugs paralyzes you first to spare the prison staff's feelings. Plus the staff has to find a vein and all that crap and they have managed to eff that up. Bullet to the head for the win. It's essentially what we do to cattle before we slaughter them--except religious Jews and Muslims who partially decapitate the animal so it dies of blood loss instead.
(Score: 2) by nishi.b on Monday December 14 2020, @10:05AM
Yes, it is an interesting bit of history (still remember building a mock-up guillotine as a kid for a play when we marked the 200th anniversary of the french revolution).
Guillotin, the (distinguished) doctor whose name was attached to this device, did not invent it and was mortified that he would be remembered for this because he wanted to make executions less painful if death penalty could not be abolished. Using one method for every criminal and not a different one according to your position in society was also about equality before the law.
See wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for more detail.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Saturday December 12 2020, @12:58PM
Meanwhile, in the USA, in the 21st century, they still have the Death Penalty [theguardian.com] and a president highly enthusiastic about it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Touché) by VLM on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:52PM (2 children)
The original mob justice cancel culture.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:47AM (1 child)
Let's get this straight - you are on the side of King Louis XVI and Melania Antoinette? Or the militia guys showing up at Governors' home addresses?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @01:21PM
Which is the side with cookies again?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday December 12 2020, @09:45PM (1 child)
The guillotine was a kindness compared to the then current practice of hacking away at the neck with a sword until the head fell off.
This was at the same time period as the debter's prison. You go to prison untyil you pay your debt, but you can't earn any money to pay your debt because you're in prison.
A practice that went away until it was revived in some states in the case of court imposed fines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2020, @08:49AM
Bear in mind prison in those days was a hole in the ground. None of the modern luxuries - so at least you could be sure of getting your investment income. Filthy peasants these days file for bankruptcy.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @07:46AM (1 child)
penis
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @07:56AM
Ignorant Moron, missing penis, Nigerian witchcraft! Runaway now worried he did not respond to the Nigerian scam, because, his penis might fall off.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @10:16AM
"Augmented" Cheese-eating Surrendering Monkeys :)
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Saturday December 12 2020, @10:24AM
...Van Damme?
Oh, he was Cajun? N'oh, Belgian? And Universal Soldier wasn't a real-life story? Oh OK, this committee's deliberations aren't exactly based on reality either.
Not to forget, their sense of liberty, equality and fraternity. :-)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zoward on Saturday December 12 2020, @11:14AM
Oxymoron much?
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Saturday December 12 2020, @02:25PM (2 children)
>Related: U.S. Director of National Intelligence Claims China is Testing on Humans to Create Super Soldiers
The Reason: U.S. Director of National Intelligence Claims China is Testing on Humans to Create Super Soldiers
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @04:48PM (1 child)
The U.S. is working on Super Bone Spurs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2020, @05:02PM
Removal, that is.
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Saturday December 12 2020, @05:29PM (1 child)
How do you scream "KHAAAANNNNN!!!!!" in French?
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:19PM
Seriously?
Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannes Film Festival?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:18PM (1 child)
A bigger thing they need to be clear about is there's no obvious net gain right now and may never be one, but as a policy they're willing to think about it.
There's a huge fixation on "high tech" like bionic legs and shit.
However, for better part of a century, consider something like a tank, where since 1915-ish there would clearly be a mechanical engineering advantage to chopping off every armored soldier's legs to store a little more ammo in the tank or a little more armor or just simply be that much smaller target. But nobody bothers AFAIK.
Ditto aircraft, where weight and volume are even more precious AFAIK nobody has tried leg amputation as a strategic advantage.
Another even more obvious solution is instead of packing a squad into a armored infantry vehicle, you could pack maybe two squads of cute little child soldiers for the same mass/volume.
Even some of the "obvious" solutions are not great. Superficially implanting veterinarian style microchips SEEMS a win for medical care and graves registration. However you immediately invoke the old RFID passport problem where you don't need privacy busting access to every bit, you merely need to sense a person with the tech is nearby to set off the IED detonator on the correct convoy. All you need to know is only american targets respond to the RFID query, not locals, and you don't need full protocol decode either. Also for counterintel someone wearing afganistani clothes but implanted with a chip is a US immigrant working for the USA so behead anyone who physically has a chip implantation scar. See its not an obvious win, is it?
It seems like an obvious "win" that humvee's could be upgraded to only start if the drivers seat has a chipped soldier in it. With the obvious problem that now the enemy is going to steal soldiers bodies or use prisoners to put in drivers chairs to activate starter motors, and the enemy is now going to steal humvees and wire the starter motor into IED detonators. And after a couple fails like that, we're back to the best "ignition key" for a humvee is no key at all LOL.
Another thing not often considered is we're really not that shitty at being predators. Yes the human eyeball quantum efficiency is only 20% or so. Yes you can boost that to 60% or so with silicon. But thats only three times higher and takes huge power and doesn't repair or replicate itself by untrained technicians and frankly isn't as reliable (any digicams over 80 years old working out there? Plenty of eyeballs working "okish" at 80 yrs). Also your eyeball lenses are not entirely shit and given the same volume it would be very tricky to come up with an optical system the size of an eyeball that works. Of course you could completely mess with the skull and give people huge IR capable anime style eyeballs but that's a shitload of work and time and expense compared to cheaply issuing COTS "cheap" NVGs and IR flares. I mean, yeah you could have one special forces soldier go all rambo deep behind enemy lines in the dark, but a dude like that would be expensive medically and financially and frankly a maverick missile OR an entire squad instead of one dude will be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Its kind of like the argument of why we have a huge infantry force and small special forces instead of no infantry force and medium size special forces... It just doesn't scale the tasks to the people. You could make ALIEN movie exoskeleton for one soldier to load ammo on and off ammo trucks, but fuck it its cheaper faster more reliable lower MTBF shorter repair time to just send a squad of grunts to manhandle crates of ammo, or a COTS forklift.
Not to be too much of a smartass, but the US Army will already pay for boob implants, and its a short step to think of some military intel "Janette Bond 007, I mean, 44D" getting ordered to surgery to install a nice rack to tempt yet another member of Biden's family again into sex or whoever else is an enemy of the state this week. The US army already has a e-sports team of cringy proportions and behavior, not hard to imagine some girl soldier getting ordered to get ginormous boob implants to get on some theoretical future army tik tok recruiting team. I was in the army, so I know they've done stupider things historically.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by VLM on Saturday December 12 2020, @06:22PM
Oh and before anyone brings it up, I've played Fortnite and the only way large squads of untrained 8 year olds beat small squads of trained 18 year olds is zerg rush and the kids are too young to even know what a zerg rush is, so...
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 13 2020, @12:51AM
"Monsieur President, ve cannot allow ze mineshaft^W super-soldier gap!"
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...