Trauma Pod
Alert reader G.K. is on guard about the robot threat and offers this link about DARPA’s Trauma Pod project:
The Trauma Pod Program will enhance battlefield casualty care by developing autonomous and semi-autonomous mobile platforms through the integration of tele-robotic and robotic medical systems. The initial phase has successfully automated functions typically performed by the scrub nurse and circulating nurse; these functions are now performed by semi-autonomous robots working in coordination with the tele-robotic surgeon. The next phase of the program will develop methods for autonomous airway control and intravenous access so that initial therapy can be autonomously administered. Finally, these systems will be miniaturized and incorporated into a tactical platform capable of operating in a battlefield or mass casualty environment.
As I get almost to the end of Peter W. Singer’s Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century I worry less and less about the Terminator scenario and more and more about two other considerations. One is the way in which for some in the American national security establishment, thinking about better military technology seems to serve as a substitute for thinking about better strategy. It’s more lucrative, it ruffles fewer political feathers, and it’s easier. But it doesn’t work as well. War is politics by other means, and improving your means doesn’t get you very far if you’re not thinking sensibly about your policy aims.
The other is that if robots and AI are really the technology of the future, then the United States seems to be aiming a perilously large proportion of our financial and intellectual resources into military applications of these technologies rather than potentially more productive ones. In Asia they have lots of robots making stuff and taking care of people, not patrolling the skies over Afghanistan dropping bombs.
40 Responses to “Trauma Pod”
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February 18th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Re “The initial phase has successfully automated functions typically performed by the scrub nurse and circulating nurse; these functions are now performed by semi-autonomous robots working in coordination with the tele-robotic surgeon. The next phase of the program will develop methods for autonomous airway control and intravenous access so that initial therapy can be autonomously administered. ”
————
Actually, that’s just the cover story.
The real mission is to capture and torture insurgents on a massive scale using medical technology. (Robots don’t take the Hippocratic oath).
Best case — you get an intel head on where the top command lead is. Worst case: you scare the living shit out of the insurgents and they quit fighting anyway.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:55 am
“Trauma Pod” is the inside joke. The purpose is not to RELIEVE Trauma — it’s to INFLICIT Trauma. With surgical instruments.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:57 am
See e.g., http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/03/kidney.vagina.surgery/index.html
February 18th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Excuse me — someone’s knocking at the front door. I be right bac..
February 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I’m courting Godwin here, but over-reliance on technology was among the biggest, non-war-crime mistakes of the WWII-era German military establishment (yes – Nazis). So convinced were they of their technological superiority that they failed to recognize fairly low tech countermeasures. For example, the submarine command was convinced the Allies had developed a super-detector for finding submarines at depth, when all we had were surface radar and passive high-frequency detection.
One could make an argument that a pretty similar thing happened in the 90s with the US military and the “revolution in military affairs”, and that our current wars are showing the insufficiency of technology. Strange then that our response is to throw more technology at the problem.
And speaking of Germans – Clausewitz may have been a military genius, but he was not a political scientist. War is not a form of politics, but the antithesis thereof.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am
It seems to me that a robot that can save your life (or get you to a hospital in the best possible condition) following a traumatic accident would amount to a robot “taking care of people.” You may be right that the military focus is overdone, but this is one case where the military technology fills an obvious and immediate need in the civilian world.
That said, this would seem to be a keystone technical advance for the implementation of a Matrix-like regime in which the machines lived on by exploiting human bodies for their, um, inherent battery power or whatever. So that’s a little unsettling.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:31 am
That said, this would seem to be a keystone technical advance for the implementation of a Matrix-like regime in which the machines lived on by exploiting human bodies for their, um, inherent battery power or whatever.
Fortunately, they have been programmed to have no knowledge of the First Law Of Thermodynamics. Which, when you think about it, is better than all three of Asimov’s Three Laws in terms of preventing a robot takeover.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:39 am
And speaking of Germans – Clausewitz may have been a military genius, but he was not a political scientist. War is not a form of politics, but the antithesis thereof.
I’ve always thought Clausewitz got it backwards. Politics is war by other means.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Are we underinvesting in research for civilian uses of robots, say as compared to other developed countries? Some numbers to support this contention would be nice.
It’s opportunity cost. Money is limited, and so dollars spent on military robots can’t be spent elsewhere. Further, assuming a limited amount of robotics expertise available to the United States, every hour of time spent on military robots is one that’s not going towards robots with productive uses.
I think there’s a good argument to be made that given the relatively youthful state of robotics technology, it’s better to expend the money and expertise on more generic work or more productive purposes (space probes, manufacturing, Roombas). Later, when a real strategic purpose for Trauma Pods comes along, they can start development from a much more advanced state, rather than using over-engineered battlefield-hardened concepts for research purposes.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:47 am
All technology is developed for military purposes and made commercially viable for sexual purposes. I predict the development of the orgasmatron from “Sleeper” very soon.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:50 am
February 18th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I always thought a better justification for keeping the humans around was for computational purposes. Keep all those human brains working so that you can tap them for their peculiar expertise by posing virtual problems if a need arises.
There is a satisfying symmetry to it, both in setting and plot.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:58 am
“Fortunately, they have been programmed to have no knowledge of the First Law Of Thermodynamics. “
The First Law of Thermodynamics is; “You don’t talk about Thermodynamics”
In the U.S. Robotic development is following the money, and the market for robotic research is military, as that is the biggest source for funding.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:13 am
“United States seems to be aiming a perilously large proportion of our financial and intellectual resources into military applications of these technologies rather than potentially more productive ones.”
Mr. Yglesias has to cite evidence of this theory.
Farmers want automated tractors, where they will see huge efficiency gains. UPS and FedEx can easily get 60% reductions in energy usage by going to freight automation. DARPA has completed the second round of tests with autonomous civilian vehicles on open roads. My own community within Fresno around the junior college, might allow experimentation with of automated home delivery. Automated cargo wagons are appearing more frequently within factories.
I try and keep reference links on my blog. Not only is it going to happen, it is likely to happen three years before GM thinks it will happen, and GM will be caught flat footed again.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
I’m glad I’m not the only one who read this post and thought, Matt’s nuts on this one.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:20 am
It’s not just robotics, it’s pretty much the bulk of hard science in the US. We are a scared, militaristic people. We happily spend millions of pallets-full of cash on war against distant make-believe enemies, but cry like babies about too much government spending on domestic, non-blowing shit up projects.
The only solution would seem to be to scare the shit out of us about global warming and healthcare nightmares.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Silly Matt. Our killer robots will kidnap their productive robots and enslave them. Problem solved.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Clearly an hour spent thinking about battlefield medic-bots is an hour not spent thinking super-productively about world peace… right. And spending on robotics is not a zero-sum game either; actually I would be surprised if R&D on medic-bots doesn’t trickle down significantly into civilian tech.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Don’t over-analyze this specific project. It’s DARPA’s job to go after high-tech, high risk projects. They aren’t exactly a battle-lab, looking at all concepts and non-material solutions. They are by nature tech-focused.
Tele-medicine is not a new field. Been going on for some time. This is just a proposed next step, not a certainty. Look at DARPA’s record, precious few of its technologies have ever matured to the next level.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
how long before the AMA mobilizes to ban tele-robotic surgeons?
February 18th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
When it comes to DARPA, I don’t really care how crazy it sounds. I just care how much money they need to poke the idea further to see if it goes anyway. 5 million; sure, knock yourselves out, money well spent as part of a program to ensure that we, as a rich country, are thinking very hard about the next war instead of refighting the last one. 5 billion; get the hell out of my budget, ballistic missile defense!
February 18th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I’m courting Godwin here, but over-reliance on technology was among the biggest, non-war-crime mistakes of the WWII-era German military establishment (yes – Nazis). So convinced were they of their technological superiority that they failed to recognize fairly low tech countermeasures.
Arthur C. Clarke (I think it was him) had a great short story called “Superiority” about this. Not to give away the plot, but it was in the form of memoirs by a top general about the war with an inferior adversary. They commenced the war, sure of victory, but then implemented several high-tech new weapons without failing to think through the consequences and were eventually overwhelmed.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
DTM’s post 15 beat me to it, so I’ll try to be brief:
If the military didn’t spend a lot of money on robotics, is there any economic theory that says other private companies would spend money on it? If robotics companies didn’t have the Pentagon as a customer, that the civilian customers would flourish?
It seems more likely that our country as a whole has such a robotics industry because of government spending (via the military).
February 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I really, really, disagree with this assumption, primarily because it isn’t a zero-sum game. First of all, military research money comes entirely from the federal government. If that research money was cut from the military, the likelihood it would find its way into other technology research is virtually nil.
Furthermore, once the military develops technology, it inevitably finds its way into the consumer market. The GPS that allowed the U.S. Army to navigate the desert in the first Gulf War now helps us find our way around Boise, Idaho. The interstate system was primarily designed to assist the military in movements from coast to coast.
The new technology developed in today’s super-accurate robots will be in our homes and cars tomorrow, probably in ways we can’t yet even conceive of.
I’m firmly convinced that if we really want new technology in our lives, find an excuse for the military to develop it.
Likewise, we could have coast-to-coast high speed rail in ten years if we convinced the Pentagon it was at least as important to national security as the Osprey or F-22.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Matt,
You ought to do some research on the state of civilian medical technology — doctors are already using surgical robots here, to limit the need for larger, more invasive operations (since robot instruments can be much smaller than human hands). They use robots in some types of heart surgery at my local hospital. Whether this sort of innovation would continue under the sort of health care reform you advocate is another question.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I’d like to see a study on robots as targets. Without strong logistic support, they can be reduced to piles of junk in short order.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
“If robotics companies didn’t have the Pentagon as a customer, that the civilian customers would flourish? ”
In private factories, yes. But civilian government controls the public roads, and there advanced technology stops. Private companies cannot find efficient energy use when government bottlenecks the process by controlling the central resource and prohibiting advanced efficiency.
February 18th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Without solving the conceptual processing problem, much of this stuff is going to go nowhere or be under-performing for a long time.
There’s a reason a machine like Cameron would be incredibly valuable – it’s in the software embodied in that chip. The rest is just mechanics.
March 7th, 2009 at 2:36 am
Great Post, this stuff really is the next wave of the future.
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