Recently Hangzhou, Zhejiang based Unitree announced a humanoid robot that costs just 39,999 yuan, or 5,900 USD.
It is capable of doing complex movements like hand stands, cartwheels, punching, lying down prone, and standing up again on its own. It weighs 25 Kilos, and is about as tall as a smaller sized human.
I think this is an area we should be paying very special attention to. AI is getting all the hype, but it’s unlikely to have a big effect on the outcome of a war. Being able to mass produce soldiers though? That’s a game changer.
These robots would work in any terrain a human can once water proofed, and could be remotely piloted by human soldiers. Retrofitting them with weapons systems would be simple, and they could have armor plating added on so they could just stand under heavy fire and be fine. You’d need higher caliber rounds to take them out. (Exactly the things that the US is floundering to secure metals to make since China controls so much of the rare earth industry).
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that these could be the equivalent of the invention of the musket. If WW3 happens sometime in the next decade i expect the world to be shocked as it becomes clear war will never be the same again. It’s like a countdown has begun where everyday we get closer to the moment one of these is first used in a peer conflict, and an arms race begins. One China already seems to be winning before it even starts.
What benefit is there to having a soldier pilot a humanoid robot over a regular kind of drone? The drone is more mobile, can carry much heavier weaponry, and can be used for scouting as well as regular battlefield use. While having remote control Gundams would be the coolest thing ever, I just don’t think it would ever be practical enough compared to drones.
On the other hand, the larger payload and durability of a dirigible craft is far superior to a fixed wing aircraft like a plane, they can fly much further afield and carry a much heavier payload, and the act of controlling them is far less taxing than a biplane, or heaven forbid, a triplane. The Kaiser is a fool for investing in this new dead end technology.
You can read some of my other replies to people. By regular drone what exactly do you mean? Aerial drone? A drone tank? All of these have their uses as do humanoid robots. To compare where each is best suited i need to know exactly what you mean by normal drone.
Aerial drone, and I wasn’t being too serious, as you can probably tell by the second part of my comment.
Well if youre interested in the nuance on the Aerial drone(quad copters specifically in this case) vs Robot thing at all you can check this reply out i made to someone else https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8613971/6739358
I do think that if there is a use for them, it will become apparent, probably not replacing regular soldiers though, but augmenting their forces the same way tanks and planes and mechanised infantry didn’t “replace” infantry, but are used as part of larger combined arms forces. Hell, even stuff considered completely obsolete, like cavalry forces, still have their place occasionally in modern war.
sounds pretty cool…at least is kinda conforting knowing that this time that technology is not mostly in capitalist hands
Very interesting. Some thoughts:
A difference between drones and robot soldiers is that drones are really not new technology. Radio control of various types of flying machines has been around, in one form or another, since World War I; and drones have been used, albeit in a limited function, in World War II and most wars since. What makes them, in the 21st century, suddenly an important weapon is the miniaturization of camera technology (so the drone operator can guide the craft as if he were in the air), and the development of things like FPV control systems. But the remote-controlled flying machine is in fact old and tested technology. Fibre-optic drones are in some ways even simpler, though the system of relaying control signals is exotic; for the concept of a craft connected to its operator by a cable is a reversion to pre-radio technology.
A machine which can walk and balance like a human, on the other hand, is much more complex and “experimental” – the more so if it is equipped with machine learning. People have been trying to build such things since complex clockwork was developed, and probably before, and the result has always been unsatisfactory; simply because walking and balancing on two legs is a much more complicated matter than it appears. The human brain, as probably the world’s most complex and astonishing computer – and the only “machine” which makes tools in its own likeness – manages it all. Whether humanoid robot soldiers are possible depends on whether we have finally been able to turn the corner and make a machine with something like our own balance system and situational awareness, something that can’t easily be tripped or defeated. (I can imagine “tiger traps” of the kind used by the People’s Army of Vietnam during their war with the US imperialists being quite effective; maybe even being built into city streets). Otherwise, something like a small remote-controlled tracked vehicle seems to me more likely.
There is a race to develop swarm technology, so I think like AI robot locusts are more likely than human robots. Or they will just do cyborgs.
Weird how we are just now entering a kind of 1950s sci-fi level of battlefield tech.
I am of the opinion that AI controlled ones arent the way things will go. I think they’ll be remotely piloted by humans perhaps in a sort of VR setup where when the operator moves the machine mimics their movement. Atleast for now. Maybe with some machine learning for targetting assistance at most. But a fully software piloted one seems pretty far off to me. A mixed system could work fine though. Like the machine learning layer translates the human inputs into outputs for the robot making small adjustments where needed. But it wouldn’t have the tactical and combat ability of a human fighter so it doing it alone wouldnt be very effective i don’t think.
So that way most of the actual “thinking” is being done by a human brain somewhere else. Then the machine learning control mechanism just takes that and uses it to know what to do.
I am of the opinion that AI controlled ones arent the way things will go.
Maybe with some machine learning for targetting assistance at most. But a fully software piloted one seems pretty far off to me.
There are already drones with AI (mostly for final targeting and perhaps targeting acquisition) and I really doubt there won’t be a massive push for full automation of drones and humanoid bots as soon as it becomes feasible.
In the future, qnything less than fully automated resource extraction, production and war fighting seems like defeat to me.
There are already drones with AI (mostly for final targeting and perhaps targeting acquisition) and I really doubt there won’t be a massive push for full automation of drones and humanoid bots as soon as it becomes feasible.
fun fact, the algorithm used to target facebook ads is the exact same one used to determine targeting criteria for drone strikes during the gulf war - its how you had drone operators targeting civilians for shitting in a certain way as culturally sunnis/shi’ites shit in different ways.
examples of this in a modern context -
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes
So that way most of the actual “thinking” is being done by a human brain somewhere else. Then the machine learning control mechanism just takes that and uses it to know what to do.
Yes, I can see that too. The AI in that scenario would be kind of like the motions we perform “automatically” once we’ve learned some skill like playing the piano – while the conscious mind is focused on other things like “what interpretation do I want to give this passage,” etc.
I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that, but I hope I will be ready for the worst.
When I was a kid this is how we imagined war would be in the future. Instead of sending people you send mass-produced infantry robots. Except we never thought it would become real.
I def. think there will be novel usecases out of them, much like commercial drones have been. Nobody expected quadcopters to become so prevalent on the front and yet they did. To get an idea of how they could be used, imagine yourself as a soldier on the front line and you have one of these bots. What would you have it do? I think carry equipment is one (you could also get those robot dogs to do that, but it’s a possibility), maybe even give it some anti-drone equipment of some kind? These are basically vehicles that can follow you in any terrain. The size factor is also a huge point, you could send it to recon ahead while still retaining your entire team operable, or make a bunch of them dig your trenches before the infantry moves in. They can hide much better than any human could due to how small they are.
I don’t think you even need to wait for WW3, they’re gonna be rolled out as soon as the price goes down to under 2000 dollars.
I’m still not entirely sure how they perform tasks though, how much you need to manually program them to do that and reprogram them to do another thing. To be honest to this day I still haven’t found out anything about how they work, you usually just see the promo videos.
What I could really use one of those robots for is doing the chores around the house 😭
There is a developer on YouTube that got his hands on a $50k G1 (with working hands) and he has been showing how to make it do things. I found it very interesting.
The basic idea, from what I understand, is that these robots are just now getting the software needed to actually stand and move around without falling, and that’s basically all these robots are shipped with. Anything other than walking and running needs to be programmed to be done, but now that we have LLMs it’s just beginning to be possible to program the robots to automatically decide how to move around and how to interact with the environment.
So, because of that, money and effort are now increasingly being invested into developing these robots into fully automous, and consequently the the prices are now quickly falling because the production at scale is finally happening in anticipation of the software needed being developed soon.
Oh yeah, I expected that they would basically be a dev kit and you have to code everything in yourself. I didn’t expect that it would be so manual though, I thought their basic function was that they could stand up and walk by themselves, but apparently you even have to code that in before you make it do more advanced stuff. Interested to see how it handles actual tasks (like even just picking up an object) later on hopefully.
edit: I assume since this is a dev kit they are expecting a market to pop up around these robots, probably even other companies rebranding them with their own name and selling them for specific purposes out of the box (e.g. chores)
The first area i think they’ll show up related to military/security is in non-lethal take downs. A robot dog has to rely on something like a taser to restrain someone, but one of these has the ability to do things like put someone in a headlock. They can also ignore small arms fire, and melee weapons. If the police want to arrest an armed suspect who is holed up in a building one of these could just walk right in, smack them upside the head, and restrain them.
25 kilos I’ll be real I’m flipping that thing over if it gets near me 😢
Flipping it over wouldnt really do much lol. Plus keep in mind this is one that’s designed for domestic home use. One made for police would probably be kitted out with ballistic plating, and weigh a lot more.
Guerilla warfare will be reimagined.
The ability to hack/jam signals will make onboard AI very important. They have had to start using fiber optic cables to control suicide drones in Ukraine. You can’t do that with infantry for so many reasons.
I think the humanoid shape will be a novelty/specialty use case. Our frame is not the most efficient. We are tree dwellers who have adapted to life on the ground.
Hacking and jamming will be an issue for all warfare going forward yeah. As for the human shape i think its important to note WHERE we fight wars. Typically it is in areas designed around humans. Our infrastucture is all designed for human use. So having a robot shaped like a human means it can use all the same infrastucture we can. and the same tools. For example making something too wide and it cant fit through a door.
a small quad copter with a rifle caliber gun and good targeting software would be more effective and cheaper
I responded to your other comment already so read that too, but i want to add something. If quad copters were going to replace infantry they already would have. We see in Russia, and Ukraine that is not the case. They of course have their uses, but they supplement infantry not replace it. Robotic humanoids replace infantry. They are not competeing with quad copters for their role. It’s apples, and oranges.
Literally the only advantages to a humanoid robot design are 1) hands letting it swap to different tool sets (which isn’t really an advantage when you could design more mobile or robust frames with tools designed for them, this is only an advantage in the case of a robot being able to use the same tools as a human) and 2) looking friendly and nice in a customer service setting
all the fear mongering about drone warfare you need is that killbots video from like 10 years ago. Yes mass produced kill drones are terrifying. There is very little that can be done to stop a swarm of small quadcopter drones each carrying like, a grenade
Your not wrong for certain uses, but you need to keep in mind soldiers spend the vast majority of their time simply occupying places during a war. Quadcopters can be useful for surveilance in these cases but if that’s all you have your not gonna be able to hold a city. These can patrol indoor areas, engage in melee combat to detain people, stay at strategic locations long term in a low power mode, etc.
You also have to consider stealth. Drones that fly are loud. Ground robots could move entirely silently, and use terrain cover to approach enemy positions undetected.
If your goal is to blow something up flying drones are the way all day. If your goal is to infiltrate a populated city, find a target, and eliminate or capture them. Without being seen, and without killing a bunch of innocent people in the process. You need either human special forces, or a robotic equivalent. Once you can simply allow the human special forces to pilot a robotic drone instead of going in person there is no reason not to do it.
A special forces operator like Delta Force can cost 1-2.5 million dollars to train. If one dies on a mission that’s a huge time, and resource cost to replace them. Allowing them to still do their jobs without having to risk their lives. Potentially even performing suicide missions without dying. Is massive. You’d much rather lose a machine that costs under 50k to replace and can be mass produced than lose a specially trained multi-million dollar value human operator who takes much longer to train.
As for your point about tool use. War is economic more so than it is about peak efficiency. Sure you could make a robot that has weapons built in, but then you’d need seperate robots for each type of weapon/situation. We already have massive stockpiles of weapons made for human use, and factories to make more of them. Then for example lets say you can make 50k robots. if you make 25k as basic infantry, 10k as amphibious, 10k with anti-air, 5k with sniping capabilities. Your locked in to those configurations. If suddenly you need more anti air you have to make more. But if you make 50k robots that can simply switch loadouts for different situations by using tools you can easily move them between these roles depending on where they are needed. Even if they’re a little bit less effective in terms of pure combat the multi-role use, and economics of scale make up for that by far.
I don’t see the purpose, in a world where every major power has missiles and nuclear warheads. Even without that, armoured vehicles and air superiority are the next most significant in modern war, and infantry comes a distant third. I think we are long past the point that robotic infantry would serve any use.
armoured vehicles and air superiority are the next most significant in modern war, and infantry comes a distant third.
That’s not entirely true. To actually hold an area, you need infantry, hence why all warfare ultimately comes down to a ground assault. Bombing campaigns kill (murder) civilians and destroy infrastructure, but it’s harder to take out soldiers that way: since by the time your planes get there, most of the men and equipment will be dispersed and spread out. World War II proved this, and the lesson has been reiterated many times, notably in Korea and in Yugoslavia.
From what I understand, the idea of bombers and missiles coming out en masse and wiping out the enemy is largely a creation of Hollywood. In actual military tactics, air power is considered a “force multiplier,” i.e., it enables you to attack or defend as if with more men. Armor is also not nearly as invincible as often assumed. Its tracks are its weak point, and once immobilized it becomes very vulnerable – basically a standing artillerypiece. It is for this reason not very useful in urban fighting.
On the ground combat in gaza says otherwise. These will be used to infiltrate places a squadron would attempt to.
robotic infantry wouldnt have the same dynamics and implementation that meatbags would though, as for one humans really dont want to die but a human piloting a remote machine with a gun will not care if they live or die as they have 100 lives.
What does it matter? I was referring specifically to the usefulness of robotic infantry in modern warfare. Battles are won with air power, missiles and intelligence warfare, things you don’t really need humanoid autonomous robots to do.
I get why you feel this way. Because its been true for a lot of modern conflicts. The issue is that we have gotten used to non-great power conflicts.
Great power conflicts are very different. It’s not so much about winning battles. It might seem strange, but you can win every battle and still lose if you don’t have the ability to keep fielding soldiers. They are wars of attrition. Whoever keeps their industrial capacity higher longer, and stops their population from dying longest wins. Yes winning battles helps with that, but it’s not the only thing that matters.
The reason robotic infantry is so game changing is because people don’t die. You start a war with a limited amount of possible manpower. You send people out to fight, and they die. As wars drag on, and on you are forced to conscript more, and it slowly destroys you even if you are holding the line, or even winning.
Just look at Ukraine. They’re basically running out of fighting age people to send to war.
Now imagine your in a defensive war. You are trying to hold your border against a near-peer agressor. If you use human soldiers to hold that border then each time one dies they have to be replaced by some other person in your country.
If you use robotic infantry to hold that border each time one is destroyed you drag the broken corpse out, strip it for parts, melt it down, and build a new one. Or just repair it depending on the damage. Even if you are limited in how many you can field. Say you can field 10k robots, and 50k humans. Say 80% of the time a robot is destroyed it’s fixable. That 10k becomes 10k->8k->6.4k->5.1k->4k->3.2k-> etc. So with just 10k robotic units you’ve effectively doubled the size of your standing army, and can now go twice as long without conscripting people. Allowing you to have a more robust economy during war, and outlast your enemies when you might not have before.
Nobody is saying things like missiles will be obsolete. Just that these will be a game changer, and human infantry will end up taking more of a back seat. Relegated to specific roles, and used sparingly.
Its because they wont act like normal infantry, they will act like suicide bots that can manipulate things like a human can. Needs to be understood under different dynamics than a straight 1:1 with bio-infantry
What would be the advantage of these robot over drones?
Imagine your trying to like hold a position right. With these since they’re ground based you can just sit them there in low-power mode, and wait. With an air based drone they have to land somewhere which can be hard to do for bigger drones. Then they have to take off again when an enemy shows up, reach altitude, etc. With these they just detect the enemy, and power up fully again in seconds.
With an air based drone they have to land somewhere which can be hard to do for bigger drones
you can fit the functional parts of a rifle on a small quad copter, one that could land in a space a little larger than a dinner plate
Then they have to take off again when an enemy shows up, reach altitude, etc.
consumer quad copters can reach human head height in 1-2 seconds
a demonstration of how quick these things are: https://youtube.com/shorts/7lXEeqT9LnQ
With these they just detect the enemy, and power up fully again in seconds.
they will also be a human sized metal target that is standing dead still, easier to see than a landed drone from sheer size
Yes they are different. That’s kind of the point. A quadcopter with a rifle on it can’t hold a city. It can’t even use a very high caliber weapon. The higher caliber weapons have a lot of knockback, and require a strong structure to absorb that. Which means you need a bigger body.
Nobody is saying quad copters don’t have a use. But they can’t do everything. You need infantry. Heavy infantry especially. A ground based robot could have a high caliber rifle, a shoulder mounted anti-air system for taking down quadcopters, carry 100’s of pounds of ammo, and it uses a lot less energy when moving around per lbs of cargo.
A quadcopter is extremely weight limited, and energy limited. A ground based robot can have a massive battery, tons of ammo, heavier weaponry, etc. Longer time on mission, and can do indoor CQC. It can even engage in nonlethal missions where you need to find and capture a target alive. A quadcopter is best suited to supporting ground operations not replacing them.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Ground war.
