Tag: Artificial Intelligence

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182. “Tenth Man” – Challenging our Assumptions about the Operational Environment and Warfare (Part 2)

[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to publish our latest “Tenth Man” post. This Devil’s Advocate or contrarian approach serves as a form of alternative analysis and is a check against group think and mirror imaging. The Mad Scientist Laboratory offers it as a platform for the contrarians in our network to share their alternative perspectives and analyses regarding the Operational Environment (OE). We continue our series of “Tenth Man” posts examining the foundational assumptions of The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare, challenging them, reviewing the associated implications, and identifying potential signals and/or indicators of change. Enjoy!]

Assumption:  The character of warfare will change but the nature of war will remain human-centric.

The character of warfare will change in the future OE as it inexorably has since the advent of flint hand axes; iron blades; stirrups; longbows; gunpowder; breech loading, rifled, and automatic guns; mechanized armor; precision-guided munitions; and the Internet of Things. Speed, automation, extended ranges, broad and narrow weapons effects, and increasingly integrated multi-domain conduct, in addition to the complexity of the terrain and social structures in which it occurs, will make mid Twenty-first Century warfare both familiar and utterly alien.

The nature of warfare, however, is assumed to remain human-centric in the future. While humans will increasingly be removed from processes, cycles, and perhaps even decision-making, nearly all content regarding the future OE assumes that humans will remain central to the rationale for war and its most essential elements of execution. The nature of war has remained relatively constant from Thucydides through Clausewitz, and forward to the present. War is still waged because of fear, honor, and interest, and remains an expression of politics by other means. While machines are becoming ever more prevalent across the battlefield – C5ISR, maneuver, and logistics – we cling to the belief that parties will still go to war over human interests; that war will be decided, executed, and controlled by humans.

Implications:  If these assumptions prove false, then the Army’s fundamental understanding of war in the future may be inherently flawed, calling into question established strategies, force structuring, and decision-making models. A changed or changing nature of war brings about a number of implications:

– Humans may not be aware of the outset of war. As algorithmic warfare evolves, might wars be fought unintentionally, with humans not recognizing what has occurred until effects are felt?

– Wars may be fought due to AI-calculated opportunities or threats – economic, political, or even ideological – that are largely imperceptible to human judgement. Imagine that a machine recognizes a strategic opportunity or impetus to engage a nation-state actor that is conventionally (read that humanly) viewed as weak or in a presumed disadvantaged state. The machine launches offensive operations to achieve a favorable outcome or objective that it deemed too advantageous to pass up.

  • – Infliction of human loss, suffering, and disruption to induce coercion and influence may not be conducive to victory. Victory may be simply a calculated or algorithmic outcome that causes an adversary’s machine to decide their own victory is unattainable.

– The actor (nation-state or otherwise) with the most robust kairosthenic power and/or most talented humans may not achieve victory. Even powers enjoying the greatest materiel advantages could see this once reliable measure of dominion mitigated. Winning may be achieved by the actor with the best algorithms or machines.

  • These implications in turn raise several questions for the Army:

– How much and how should the Army recruit and cultivate human talent if war is no longer human-centric?

– How should forces be structured – what is the “right” mix of humans to machines if war is no longer human-centric?

– Will current ethical considerations in kinetic operations be weighed more or less heavily if humans are further removed from the equation? And what even constitutes kinetic operations in such a future?

– Should the U.S. military divest from platforms and materiel solutions (hardware) and re-focus on becoming algorithmically and digitally-centric (software)?

 

– What is the role for the armed forces in such a world? Will competition and armed conflict increasingly fall within the sphere of cyber forces in the Departments of the Treasury, State, and other non-DoD organizations?

– Will warfare become the default condition if fewer humans get hurt?

– Could an adversary (human or machine) trick us (or our machines) to miscalculate our response?

Signposts / Indicators of Change:

– Proliferation of AI use in the OE, with increasingly less human involvement in autonomous or semi-autonomous systems’ critical functions and decision-making; the development of human-out-of-the-loop systems

– Technology advances to the point of near or actual machine sentience, with commensurate machine speed accelerating the potential for escalated competition and armed conflict beyond transparency and human comprehension.

– Nation-state governments approve the use of lethal autonomy, and this capability is democratized to non-state actors.

– Cyber operations have the same political and economic effects as traditional kinetic warfare, reducing or eliminating the need for physical combat.

– Smaller, less-capable states or actors begin achieving surprising or unexpected victories in warfare.

– Kinetic war becomes less lethal as robots replace human tasks.

– Other departments or agencies stand up quasi-military capabilities, have more active military-liaison organizations, or begin actively engaging in competition and conflict.

If you enjoyed this post, please see:

    • “Second/Third Order, and Evil Effects” – The Dark Side of Technology (Parts I & II) by Dr. Nick Marsella.

… as well as our previous “Tenth Man” blog posts:

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

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175. “I Know the Sound it Makes When It Lies” AI-Powered Tech to Improve Engagement in the Human Domain

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to publish today’s post by guest bloggers LTC Arnel P. David, LTC (Ret) Patrick James Christian, PhD, and Dr. Aleksandra Nesic, who use storytelling to illustrate how the convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing, big data, augmented and enhanced reality, and deception detection algorithms could complement decision-making in future specialized engagements.  Enjoy this first in a series of three posts exploring how game changing tech will enhance operations in the Human Domain!]

RAF A400 Atlas / Source:  Flickr, UK MoD, by Andrew Linnett

It is 2028. Lt Col Archie Burton steps off the British A400-M Atlas plane onto the hard pan desert runway of Banku Airfield, Nigeria. This is his third visit to Nigeria, but this time he is the commander of the Engagement Operations Group – Bravo (EOG-B). This group of bespoke, specialized capabilities is the British Army’s agile and highly-trained force for specialized engagement. It operates amongst the people and builds indigenous mass with host nation security forces. Members of this outfit operate in civilian clothes and speak multiple languages with academic degrees ranging from anthropology to computational science.

Source:  Flickr, Com Salud

Archie donned his Viz glasses on the drive to a meeting with local leadership of the town of Banku. Speaking to his AI assistant, “Jarvis,” Archie cycles through past engagement data to prep for the meeting and learn the latest about the local town and its leaders. Jarvis is connected to a cloud-computing environment, referred to as “HDM” for “Human Doman Matrix,” where scientifically collected and curated population data is stored, maintained, and integrated with a host of applications to support operations in the human domain in both training and deployed settings.

Several private organizations that utilize integrated interdisciplinary social science have helped NATO, the U.K. MoD, and the U.S. DoD develop CGI-enabled virtual reality experiences to accelerate learning for operators who work in challenging conflict settings laden with complex psycho-social and emotional dynamics that drive the behaviour and interactions of the populations on the ground. Together with NGOs and civil society groups, they collected ethnographic data and combined it with phenomenological qualitative inquiry using psychology and sociology to curate anthropological stories that reflect specific cultural audiences.

EOG-Bravo’s mission letter from Field Army Headquarters states that they must leverage the extensive and complex human network dynamic to aid in the recovery of 11 females kidnapped by the Islamic Revolutionary Brotherhood (IRB) terrorist group. Two of the females are British citizens, who were supporting a humanitarian mission with the ‘Save the Kids’ NGO prior to being abducted.

At the meeting in Banku, the mayor, police chief, and representative from Save the Kids were present. Archie was welcomed by handshakes and hugs by the police chief who was a former student at Sandhurst and knows Archie from past deployments. The discussion leaped immediately into the kidnapping situation.

“The girls were last seen transiting a jungle area North of Oyero. Our organization is in contact by email with one of the IRB facilitators. He is asking for £2 million and we are ready to make that payment,” said Simon Moore of Save the Kids.

Archie’s Viz glasses scanned the facial expressions of those present and Jarvis cautioned him regarding the behaviour of the police chief whose micro facial expressions and eyes revealed a biological response of excitement at the mention of the £2M.

Archie asks “Chief Adesola, what do you think? Should we facilitate payment?”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure. We don’t know what the IRB will do. We should definitely consider it though,” said Police Chief Adesola.

The Viz glasses continued to feed the facial expressions into HDM, where the recurrent AI neural network recognition algorithm, HOMINID-AI, detected a lie. The AI system and human analysts at the Land Information Manoeuvre Centre (LIMOC) back in the U.K. estimate with a high-level of confidence that Chief Adesola was lying.

At the LIMOC, a 24-hour operation under 77th Brigade, Sgt Richards, determines that the Police Chief is worthy of surveillance by EOG-Alpha, Archie’s sister battlegroup. EOG-Alpha informs local teams in Lagos to deploy unmanned ground sensors and collection assets to monitor the police chief.

Small teams of 3-4 soldiers depart from Lagos in the middle of the night to link up with host nation counterparts. Together, the team of operators and Nigerian national-level security forces deploy sensors to monitor the police chief’s movements and conversations around his office and home.

The next morning, Chief Adesola is picked up by a sensor meeting with an unknown associate. The sensor scanned this associate and the LIMOC processed an immediate hit — he was a leader of the IRB; number three in their chain of command. EOG-A’s operational element is alerted and ordered to work with local security forces to detain this terrorist leader.  Intelligence collected from him and the Chief will hopefully lead them to the missing females…

If you enjoyed this post, stay tuned for Part 2 on the Human Domain Matrix, Part 3 on Emotional Warfare in Yemen, and check out the following links to other works by today’s blog post authors:

– Operationalizing the Science of the Human Domain by Aleks Nesic and Arnel P. David

– A Psycho-Emotional Human Security Analytical Framework by Patrick J. Christian, Aleksandra Nesic, David Sniffen, Tasneem Aljehani, Khaled Al Sumairi, Narayan B. Khadka, Basimah Hallawy, and Binamin Konlan

– Military Strategy in the 21st Century:  People, Connectivity, and Competition by Charles T. Cleveland, Benjamin Jensen, Susan Bryant, and Arnel P. David

… and see the following MadSci Lab blog posts on how AI can augment our Leaders’ decision-making on the battlefield:

– Takeaways Learned about the Future of the AI Battlefield

– The Guy Behind the Guy: AI as the Indispensable Marshal, by Mr. Brady Moore and Mr. Chris Sauceda

LTC Arnel P. David is an Army Strategist serving in the United Kingdom as the U.S. Special Assistant for the Chief of the General Staff. He recently completed an Artificial Intelligence Program from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.

LTC (Ret) Patrick James Christian, PhD is co-founder of Valka-Mir and a Psychoanalytical Anthropologist focused on the psychopathology of violent ethnic and cultural conflict. He a retired Special Forces officer serving as a social scientist for the Psychological Operations Task Forces in the Arabian Peninsula and Afghanistan, where he constructs psychological profiles of designated target audiences.

Aleksandra Nesic, PhD is co-founder of Valka-Mir and Visiting Faculty for the Countering Violent Extremism and Countering Terrorism Fellowship Program at the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), USSOCOM. She is also Visiting Faculty, U.S. Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School, and a Co-Founder and Senior Researcher of Complex Communal Conflicts at Valka-Mir Human Security, LLC.

Acknowledgements:  Special Thanks to the British Army Future Force Development Team for their help in creating the British characters depicted in this first story.

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

 

 

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138. “The Monolith”

The Monolith set from the dawn of man sequence, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1968) / Source: Wikimedia Commons

[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to introduce a new, quarterly feature, entitled “The Monolith.” Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick fans alike will recognize and appreciate our allusion to the alien artifact responsible for “uplifting” mankind from primitive, defenseless hominids into tool using killers — destined for the stars — from their respective short story, “The Sentinel,” and movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” We hope that you will similarly benefit from this post (although perhaps in not quite so evolutionary a manner!), reflecting the Mad Scientist Teams’ collective book and movie recommendations — Enjoy!]

Originally published by PublicAffairs on 5 October 2017

The Future of War by Sir Lawrence Freedman. The evolution of warfare has taken some turns that were quite unexpected and were heavily influenced by disruptive technologies of the day. Sir Lawrence examines the changing character of warfare over the last several centuries, how it has been influenced by society and technology, the ways in which science fiction got it wrong and right, and how it might take shape in the future. This overarching look at warfare causes one to pause and consider whether we may be asking the right questions about future warfare.

 

Royal Scots Guardsmen engaging the enemy with a Lewis Machine Gun / Source:  Flickr

They Shall Not Grow Old directed by Sir Peter Jackson. This lauded 2018 documentary utilizes original film footage from World War I (much of it unseen for the past century) that has been digitized, colorized, upscaled, and overlaid with audio recordings from British servicemen who fought in the war. The divide between civilians untouched by the war and service members, the destructive impact of new disruptive technologies, and the change they wrought on the character of war resonate to this day and provide an excellent historical analogy from which to explore future warfare.

Gene Simmons plays a nefarious super empowered individual in Runaway

Runaway directed by Michael Crichton. This film, released in 1984, is set in the near future, where a police officer (Tom Selleck) and his partner (Cynthia Rhodes) specialize in neutralizing malfunctioning robots. A rogue killer robot – programmed to kill by the bad guy (Gene Simmons) – goes on homicidal rampage. Alas, the savvy officers begin to uncover a wider, nefarious plan to proliferate killer robots. This offbeat Sci-Fi thriller illustrates how dual-use technologies in the hands of super-empowered individuals could be employed innovatively in the Future Operational Environment. Personalized warfare is also featured, as a software developer’s family is targeted by the ‘bad guy,’ using a corrupted version of the very software he helped create. This movie illustrates the potential for everyday commercial products to be adapted maliciously by adversaries, who, unconstrained ethically, can out-innovate us with convergent, game changing technologies (robotics, CRISPR, etc.).

Originally published by Macmillan on 1 May 2018

The Military Science of Star Wars by George Beahm. Storytelling is a powerful tool used to visualize the future, and Science Fiction often offers the best trove of ideas. The Military Science of Star Wars by George Beahm dissects and analyzes the entirety of the Star Wars Universe to mine for information that reflects the real world and the future of armed conflict. Beahm tackles the personnel, weapons, technology, tactics, strategy, resources, and lessons learned from key battles and authoritatively links them to past, current, and future Army challenges. Beahm proves that storytelling, and even fantasy (Star Wars is more a fantasy story than a Science Fiction story), can teach us about the real world and help evolve our thinking to confront problems in new and novel ways. He connects the story to the past, present, and future Army and asks important questions, like “What makes Han Solo a great military Leader?”, “How can a military use robots (Droids) effectively?”, and most importantly, “What, in the universe, qualified Jar Jar Binks to be promoted to Bombad General?”.

Ex Machina, Universal Pictures (2014) / Source: Vimeo

Ex Machina directed by Alex Garland. This film, released in 2014, moves beyond the traditional questions surrounding the feasibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Turing test to explore the darker side of synthetic beings, knowing that it is achievable and that the test can be passed. The film is a cautionary tale of what might be possible at the extreme edge of AI computing and innovation where control may be fleeting or even an illusion. The Army may never face the same consequences that the characters in the film face, but it can learn from their lessons. AI is a hotly debated topic with some saying it will bring about the end of days, and others saying generalized AI will never exist. With a future this muddy, one must be cautious of exploring new and undefined technology spaces that carry so much risk. As more robotic entities are operationalized, and AI further permeates the battlefield, future Soldiers and Leaders would do well to stay abreast of the potential for volatility in an already chaotic environment. If Military AI progresses substantially, what will happen when we try to turn it off?

Astronaut and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin is pictured during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity on the moon / Source: NASA

Apollo 11 directed by Todd Douglas Miller. As the United States prepares to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned mission to the lunar surface later this summer, this inspiring documentary reminds audiences of just how audacious an achievement this was. Using restored archival audio recordings and video footage (complemented by simple line animations illustrating each of the spacecrafts’ maneuver sequences), Todd Miller skillfully re-captures the momentousness of this historic event, successfully weaving together a comprehensive point-of-view of the mission. Watching NASA and its legion of aerospace contractors realize the dream envisioned by President Kennedy eight years before serves to remind contemporary America that we once dared and dreamed big, and that we can do so again, harnessing the energy of insightful and focused leadership with the innovation of private enterprise. This uniquely American attribute may well tip the balance in our favor, given current competition and potential future conflicts with our near-peer adversaries in the Future Operational Environment.

Originally published by Penguin Random House on 3 July 2018

Artemis by Andy Weir. In his latest novel, following on the heels of his wildly successful The Martian, Andy Weir envisions an established lunar city in 2080 through the eyes of Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara, one of its citizen-hustlers, who becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy to control the tremendous wealth generated from the space and lunar mineral resources refined in the Moon’s low-G environment. His suspenseful plot, replete with descriptions of the science and technologies necessary to survive (and thrive!) in the hostile lunar environment, posits a late 21st century rush to exploit space commodities. The resultant economic boom has empowered non-state actors as new competitors on the global — er, extraterrestrial stage — from the Kenya Space Corporation (blessed by its equatorial location and reduced earth to orbit launch costs) to the Sanchez Aluminum mining and refining conglomerate, controlled by a Brazilian crime syndicate scheming to take control of the lunar city. Readers are reminded that the economic hegemony currently enjoyed by the U.S., China, and the E.U. may well be eclipsed by visionary non-state actors who dare and dream big enough to exploit the wealth that lies beyond the Earth’s gravity well.

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137. What’s in a Touch? Lessons from the Edge of Electronic Interface

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present today’s guest blog post by Dr. Brian Holmes, exploring the threats associated with adaptive technologies and how nefarious actors can morph benign technological innovations into new, more sinister applications.  The three technological trends of democratization, convergence, and asymmetrical ethics portend a plethora of dystopian scenarios for the Future Operational Environment.  Dr. Holmes imagines how advances in prosthetic R&D could be manipulated to augment advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, providing a sense of touch to realize more lifelike lethal autonomous weapons systems — Enjoy!]

Somewhere in a near parallel, fictional universe –

Parallel Universes / Source:  Max Pixel

Dr. Sandy Votel is an Associate Professor and researcher at a military defense school in the U.S.  She has a diverse career that includes experience in defense and private laboratories researching bleeding edge biological science. For eight years, she served as an intelligence officer in the military reserves. Ten years ago she decided to join a defense school as a graduate research professor.

Dr. Mark Smith is a new Assistant Professor at her School. He just graduated with his Ph.D. before accepting his academic position. Sandy, Mark’s mentor, is explaining the finer details of her team’s research during Mark’s first week on the job.

Sandy began by explaining to Mark what her post-doc was investigating –

“He’s researching the fundamental materials required for electronic skin,” she said.

“Cyborg” / Source: R.E. Barber Photography via Flickr

After a pause, Sandy followed up by posing this hackneyed question, “Is it wrong that I am helping to create one small slice of a yet to be made front line cyborg, or, a bioengineered replicant spy of the kind played out in popular Hollywood movies?” Her smirk quickly followed. Westerners were practically conditioned to make comments like that.

 

The Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) / Source: U.S. Navy via Flickr

Her colleague Mark immediately replied, “It’s more likely this kind of technology could someday help battlefield soldiers or civilians who have lost fingers, toes, or limbs. They might be able to touch or feel again in some new manner through the interface. The material could be embedded into some sort of artificial prosthetic, and electronically connected to receptors feeding the information to and from your brain. Imagine the possibilities! Any interest in collaborating? We should push the boundaries here!”

Sandy knew that the early stage research was intended for the most benevolent of reasons – personalized health care and disposable electronic sensors to name a few – but the creative futurist in her, heavily influenced by years evaluating the more disturbing side of humanity as an intelligence officer, suddenly made her pause. After all, she saw the realized threat from adaptive technologies daily when she logged into her computer system each drill weekend.

A drawing of the character Deckard by Canosard, from the film Blade Runner (Warner Bros., 1982) / Source: DeviantArt

She’d also seen wildly creative science fiction writers’ draft ideas into reality. Sandy loved reading science fiction novels and watched every movie or show that resulted. As a child, she was amazed when Rick Deckard, from the movie Blade Runner, inserted a photograph into a machine that scanned it and allowed him to enhance the resolution enough to observe finite details embedded in thousands of pixels. Like most of the general public, she used to think that was impossible! Oh, how times have changed.

Sandy walked back into her office, scanned her email and focused on an article her department chair had sent to the entire workforce to evaluate. She suddenly stood back in shock, and immediately connected the disturbing news with elements she recalled from history.

Dr. Josef Mengele / Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Decades before Blade Runner came out in the cinema, the modern boundaries of science and human subject experimentation were torn asunder by the likes of Dr. Josef Mengele in the 1940’s. The “Angel of Death” was a German anthropologist and medical doctor who researched genetics in school and conducted horrific experiments on humans in Auschwitz as an SS officer.

Dr. He Jiankui / Source:  Wikimedia Commons

According to the article she just read, China’s Dr. He Jiankui, a biophysicist educated in China and the United States, shocked the world by pushing the limits of ethical genetic research by editing the genes of human embryos.

In each case, conflict or culture induced them to perform world changing science, resulting in not only global condemnation, but also the re-birth of knowledge with dual purpose. Sandy knew that history dictates a repetition of bad activities like these, performed in unpredictable scenarios set in a deep, dark, dystopian future.

Sandy’s realization hastened further reflection.

Cyborgs / Source: Pixabay

A significant number of studies have documented the emotional and physical benefits derived from touch. The research suggests that touch is fundamental to human communication, health, and bonding. If this is true, not only will advanced levels of artificial intelligence, or “AI”, require coding enabling learning and empathy, but the bioengineered system the AI is directing will necessitate a sense of touch to mimic a more lifelike cyborg. Passive sensors are only as good as physics allows them to be, or as great as the signal to noise levels dictate in a dirty environment. Touch, however, conveys something different… something far more real.

AI mimicking human visage / Source: Max Pixel

Sandy knew that most futuristic battlefield articles now center on today’s technology du jour, artificial intelligence. There’s no question that AI will serve as the brain center for individual or centralized networks of future machines; but to make them more human and adaptable to the battlefield of tomorrow as indistinguishable soldiers or undetectable HUMINT assets — subtler pieces are required to complete the puzzle.

“Imagine hundreds or thousands of manufactured assets programmed for clandestine military operations, or covert activities that look, act, and feel like us?” she thought.

Weapons can be embedded into robotic systems, coding and software improved to the point of winning challenging board games, but it’s the bioengineers with duplicitous purposes and far too much imagination that hold the real key to the soldier of the future; specifically, the soldiers that replace, infiltrate, or battle us.

Nefarious actors adapting benign technological innovations into new, more sinister applications…

“It’s happened before, and it will happen again!” she said out loud, accidentally.

Mark, who happened to be walking past her door, asked if everything was alright. Sandy nodded, but finished this thought as soon as he left her view.

“Unfortunately, the key that unlocks the occurrence of these secrets exists in a faraway place, under duress, and without rules. If the military is worried about the Deep Future, we should be analyzing the scenarios that enable these kinds of creative paradigms.”

After all, it’s all in a touch. 

If you enjoyed this post, please:

– Read the Mad Scientist Bio Convergence and Soldier 2050 Conference Final Report.

– Review the following blog posts:

— Ethical Dilemmas of Future Warfare, and

— Envisioning Future Operational Environment Possibilities through Story Telling.

– See our compendium of 23 submissions from the 2017 Mad Scientist Science Fiction Contest at Science Fiction: Visioning the Future of Warfare 2030-2050.

– Crank up I Am Robot by The Phenomenauts (who?!?)

Dr. Brian Holmes is the Dean of the Anthony G. Oettinger School of Science and Technology Intelligence at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, MD.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are Dr. Holmes’ alone and do not imply endorsement by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the U.S. Army, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, its component organizations, or the U.S. Government.  This piece is meant to be thought-provoking and does not reflect the current position of the U.S. Army.

 

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133. “Back (and Forward) to the Future IV” and What We Have and Haven’t Learned

[Editor’s Note: Returning guest blogger Frank Prautzsch peers 34 years into the past to explore how the blockbuster film “Back to the Future” and its sequels portrayed a number of fantastic technologies that have since evolved from pure science fiction into reality in 2019; then looks forward a similar number of years to envision future technological possibilities in 2053. Enjoy Mr. Prautzsch’s post and dare to “live outside-of-the-box” and imagine the true edge cases of the possible!]

On 3 July 1985, writer/producers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale first brought Marty McFly and Doc Brown to the big screen in the amazing hit “Back to the Future.” Younger generations will need to stream this motion picture for themselves to learn about technological vision in the Reagan era, while taking a glimpse at social norms and life in 1955. With all the thrills of science fiction and time travel, we munched on popcorn, witnessing nothing short of the bizarre in fictional technology and science. This motion picture was such a success that two sequels followed in 1989 and 1990.

Such motion pictures were more than entertainment; they pulled on our technical imagination and eventually on our goals to attain these technologies. As Mad Scientists, we often don’t want to profess a deep or incisive long shot at futuristic technology for fear of ridicule… of being wrong… or of disbelief in ourselves… and we continue to second guess our imagination, rather than offer our vision of the future. Are the visionaries confined to Hollywood? It is important for planners and strategic thinkers alike to not just “think out-of-the-box” but to “LIVE there.” Every Mad Scientist’s artwork should get an “F” for staying inside the lines!

As we look in the rear-view mirror at “Back to the Future” from 2019, 34 years have passed. As we look “Ahead to the Future,” 34 years from now, today’s chronological apex places us at the controls and gadgets of the 2053 warfighter.  2019 is a dividing and divining point between the past and the future. Why all this build up? Notably, all of the technologies from “Back the Future” either exist or are in the progress of existing… including “time” travel.

Here are some tangible examples today which were irrational in 1985:

a. The Flying DeLorean. While it looks positively nothing like the original, DeLorean Aerospace LLC developed the DLC-7 flying car. At nearly 20 ft. long and 18 ft. wide, this craft has auto-stow wings that allow the car to occupy the family garage.

 

b. The Hoverboard. The Arca Aerospace Corporation‘s ArcaBoard harnesses ducted electric fans generating 272 horsepower to carry a 180 lb. pilot at 12.5 mph.

 

c. Self-Lacing Sneakers. Motivated by both this subject motion picture and the needs of the handicapped, Nike Corporation developed self-lacing sneakers. Albeit pricey, such sneakers were magical 34 years ago, and now they are a commodity.

 

 

d. Time Travel. While the ability to conduct time reversal in nature is still unattained, a team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory explored this question in a first-of-its-kind experiment, managing to return a computer briefly to the past. The results, published March 13 of this year in the journal Nature‘s Scientific Reports, suggests new paths for exploring the backward flow of time in quantum systems. They also open new possibilities for quantum computer program testing and error correction. Additional work at IBM verifies that photons in a quantum state can occupy two realities at the same time.

 

e. The Cubs Winning the World’s Series. After beating the Cleveland Indians 8-7 and winning three straight games, the Chicago Cubs officially put an end to their 108-year title drought during Game 7 of the 2016 MLB World Series.

From Nov 8-11, 2018, an independent survey of 2,201 adults, found that 71 percent said that they’d be likely to watch another outing of Marty McFly and Doc Brown, ahead of other franchises such as Pixar’s Toy Story (69 percent), Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones (68 percent), and Universal’s Jurassic Park (67 percent).1 There is a visionary technology nerd trapped in all of us. So why not a Tetralogy? With the same angst of the future, the producers and writers of the previous trilogy series don’t desire to mess with success.

While the Mad Scientist community remains visionary regarding warfare and weapons systems, by 2054, virtually any platform or system will be of commercial origin. In his bestselling book, Norman Augustine (the former President and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation) highlights his “Laws” about business management and government procurements. Similar cost growth ramps will likely apply to Army platforms. From the beginnings of tactical aircraft until today, the cost of an aircraft has increased four-fold every 10 years.

Augustine professes that LAW NUMBER XVI applies:

“In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. The aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy. 3 ½ days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.”2

As we stand in 2019 and gaze forward to 2053, the following point technologies may be more than the script for “Back to the Future IV.” Should Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale elect to change their minds and write “Back to the Future IV…The Tetralogy,” the following are just some (but by no means all) of the key commercial technical attributes of our 2053 world:

a. 8G in-situ, ultra-high speed, real time mobile connectivity and all sensory immersion at the edge.

b. Wireless high capacity, high efficiency, medium and high tension power distribution using Zenneck waves.

c. Green 100 mAh to 5 MW Batteries, energy harvesting, and mass storage that require little or no recharge and last until load device obsolescence.

d. Personal, Service-based, and Business Flying Cars and Jetpacks.

e. “Supersonic-plus” intercontinental flight.

f. Night vision eyeglasses, lasik-like night vision implants and contact lenses.

g. Quantum and organic computer augmentation and Quantum networks for Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence, Cyber, and Cyborg functions.

h. Robotic Cyber and counter-Cyber Operations.

i. Quantum Entanglement algorithms for prediction, interaction, and discovery management for new materials, chemicals, medicines, sensing, encryption, communications, information teleportation, and hybrid periodic elements.

j. Multi-domain unmanned and collaborative AI systems that fly, loiter, swim, drive, submerge, and multi-sense persistently (with some that do all of these functions).

k. Printed and stem cell vacuum grown replaceable bones, organs, muscles and skin.

l. Tailored immunotherapy pathogen disease treatment and recovery (including cancer).

m. Tailored-dose printed medicines with robotic dose delivery.

n. Ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) and sensor environments, with human privacy only achieved through electronic cloaking using e-nanofabrics.

o. Expanded use of graphene and carbon for light and resilient structural and micro-electronic/quantum markets.

p. Expanded use of nuclear, hydrogen, and fusion-based power to combat runaway climate change and end oil-dependence.

q. A major pep rally for the Cleveland Indians who, after a 104-year drought, win the World Series.

While there are millions of other technical discoveries that have yet to occur, “living out-of-the-box” requires Mad Scientists to accept a risky vision, open the lid on the top of the military’s reality box, and wave to all the inventors and innovators that are inside looking at you.

If you enjoyed this post, please also:

Read Frank Prautzsch’s previous MadSci blog posts: Auto Immune Disease Treatment in a New Age of Bio Convergence and Our Arctic—The World’s Pink Flamingo and Black Swan Bird Sanctuary; as well as his Speaker Series presentation on Advancing Armor on our APAN site.

See similar posts assessing future disruptive technological trends: Potential Game Changers, Black Swans and Pink Flamingos, and Emergent Global Trends Impacting on the Future Operational Environment; and

Crank up Huey Lewis and the News’ hit The Power of Love from Back to the Future!

In his current role as President of Velocity Technology Partners LLC, Mr. Frank Prautzsch (LTC, Ret. Signal Corps) is recognized as a technology and business leader supporting the government and is known for exposing or crafting innovative technology solutions for the DoD, SOF, DHS and Intelligence community. He also provides consult to the MEDSTAR Institute for Innovation. His focus is upon innovation and not invention. Mr. Prautzsch holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, is a distinguished graduate of the Marine Corps Signal Advanced Course, Army Airborne School, Ranger School, and Command and General Staff College. He also holds a Master of Science Degree from Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California with a degree in Systems Technology (C3) and Space.

1 “Which Movie Franchise should Return? “Back to the Future” Tops New Poll” (The Hollywood Reporter Magazine, Nov 20, 2018) pg. 1.

2 Norman R. Augustine, Augustine’s Laws (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., 1986.) pg. 106-7.

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