The Robotics Lab at West Point would like to make a general announcement of some upcoming initiatives of the Unmanned Systems Working Group (USWG). Currently there are two pilots ongoing in DEP and Math. LTC Mike Saxon, the PY201 course director, is piloting a three-lesson robotics laboratory that explores the intersection of ethics, law of war, robotics, and AI. After completing the course's formal instruction on ethics in war, often described as the jus in bello, cadets will form into teams and be responsible for examining and improving the algorithms and performance of a small, camera-enabled robot on the "battlefield," given requirements for military utility, discrimination and non-combatant immunity, and proportionality.
In D/Math, Dr. Frank Wattenberg is conducting a pilot project with one section of MA103. The purpose is to get some experience with Robotics and Artificial Intelligence as an interdisciplinary theme across the 47 month USMA experience. This is in addition to the normal content of MA103. Cadets were each given a "personal robotics laboratory" and are experimenting with building and programming a simple robot based on the Arduino Uno board and the Parallax BOE Robot kit. The section has already had one very stimulating discussion on autonomous weapons systems and the Law of Armed Conflict lead by Dr. Robert Goldstein from D/Law. The next discussion will be led by CPT Kyle Greenberg from SOSH on the economic and social impact of previous advances in automation. The culminating term end event will be the IROC -- Indoor Robot Obstacle Course.