110 million landmines are estimated to be buried worldwide, but new techniques are being developed to help remove these indiscrimate killers.
This week saw a number of high profile figures including Stephen Hawking, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak come together to sign an open letter warning of the dangers of weaponised artificial intelligence (AI). The letter argued that AI has reached a point where deployment of robotic weapons is feasible, and that humanity must act to prevent the proliferation of autonomous offensive machines.
Autonomous weapons are described in the letter as those that “select and engage targets without human intervention”. There exists today, however, a weapon which does exactly that, and is deployed in about 70 different countries around the world. Landmines, once placed in the ground, effectively engage targets without human intervention, silently waiting for friend or foe to enter their blast range, killing and maiming indiscriminately.
Of course, landmines are not the type of ‘smart’ weaponry that Musk and Hawking are warning about. But if a landmine actually could ‘think’, and distinguish between a soldier and a child, it would be a far less terrifying and brutal weapon. It is the very randomness with which the landmine inflicts its damage that makes it such a blight worldwide, often on populations threatened by poverty, where the land is relied upon for subsistence.
It’s estimated that there are 110 million landmines buried across the world, the vast majority a deadly legacy from wars long past. The actual number, frightening as it may be, is perhaps less important than the impact that landmines have on communities. It takes only a handful of mines – or even the suspicion of their presence – to discourage the use of land.
This week saw Kurdish fighters claim that ISIS had planted “thousands” of landmines as they retreated from the northern Syrian city of Hasakah, rendering 15 villages around the city uninhabitable. “They plant large mines that are easily detonated so young boys are blown to pieces,” one commander told NBC News. “We need help. We don’t have the technology or techniques to defuse them.”
This same problem is one that persists in current and former warzones across the globe. Sweeping for and clearing landmines is a tricky business – time-consuming, expensive and dangerous. An individual landmine can cost as little as £2 to make, but takes anywhere between £120 and £600 to find and clear. What’s more, today’s landmines are usually made of plastic, rendering traditional detection techniques useless.
Earlier in the week I wrote about a project underway at the University of Bath to develop a new method of detection that will be able to identify both metallic and non-metallic mines. The project is being funded by Find A Better Way (FABW), the charity set up by Sir Bobby Charlton in 2011 after visiting the minefields of Cambodia. Using a combination of 3D camera technology and metal detection, the new system aims to create a subsurface image, pinpointing the mines below.
“The innovative idea in this project is a combination of capacitive array and inductive array, so that both classification of electrical properties and detection of non-metallic and metallic landmine can be done,” Dr Manuchehr Soleimani, the lead researcher on the project, told me.
“The capacitive array works a bit like a touch screen, and the inductive array is like a metal detector. We’re hoping to develop a compact, low-cost version of this combined smart camera that can be deployed in landmine detection.”
Meanwhile, a slightly less technical, but no less impressive technique for landmine detection is being used in Cambodia. Teams of Gambian pouched rats are trained to sweep the fields, sniffing out the TNT of landmines and other unexploded ordnance. With the help of a single rat, a 200 square metre patch of land can be cleared in just 30 minutes – something that would take a deminer two or three days according to the rats’ handler.
Whether it’s the latest 3D imaging technology, or a crack squad of TNT-sniffing rats, the need for a more effective and accessible method of clearing minefields is evident. Musk and Hawking have both identified AI as the biggest existential threat that humanity faces, and it may well indeed enslave us all one day, or simply wipe us out. Regardless, we should at least be trying to make our planet as inhabitable as possible in the meantime, where vast tracts of land aren’t given over to the scourge of landmines, and millions tread in fear for life and limb.
If the rats are that good (and sure to be less expensive than the featured technology), ramp up their breeding and training.
I welcome Andrew Wade raising this issue again, like so many have before without success.
I am still very likely the world’s leading scientist in bomb disposal of conventional, mines, terrorist IEDs and nuclear bombs and Improvised Nuclear Devices (IND)s.
I invented a water gun to make safe limpet mines on UK Naval ships in 1970.
I can easily design a system to smash these mines up without detonating them or usually they can be detonated in situ with a small charge.
I offered Richard Branson a business deal in exchange for £5 million to research new detection/initiation of these tank and anti-personnel mines in 2001.
His team sent him my offer when he was on holiday in France and he immediately asked his new business director, Richard Samuelson to contact me.
A property close by, just came on the market close-by with 10 acres of ground ideal for the detection phase within a half mile of my MOD RARDE Establishment for phase II with the explosive trials I would have used my facilities to carry these trials out. So I got a bridging loan to put the £125,000 deposit on.
Within a week 9/11 happened and rightly Richard Branson had to withdraw and I lost my deposit and could not sustain the loan, so my house was repossessed.
I made contact later and gave my PowerPoint based Presentation to Mike Kendrick who co-ordinated his World attempt balloon flights who designed the balloons.
He said my proposal was fantastic but too big for Virgin without consulting Richard Branson who would likely been more visionary.
I was also rejected by the Princess Diana Memorial fund as it was for victims of mines.
I said clearing the mines would stop more victims succumbing to them and likely Diana would agree but lack of their vision has led to many more being killed/maimed since.
Contact me 01732 462 805
I do not in any way seek to joke about a very serious matter: but if the history of manking is littered (as it is!) with the results of human intelligence -sadly far too often malicious, vindictive, evil, meglomaniac intelligence? then perhaps there is a place for more and more of our affairs being directed by AI. Correct me if I am wrong, but surely already the vast majority of our affairs are in essence regulated by AI. At least the programmes for future and increased usage will only be developed by those trained in the sciences and technology (because those trained in ‘other’ and clearly lesser skills-politics, religion, law, accountancy… will be quite incapable of doing so.
I have opined several times recently that the “age of Aquarious” for those blessed with a technical education (which, because it is based upon Nature’s Laws is identical all over the world) is nearly upon us. I welcome it absolutely.
Its so long ago (I believe I was about 14!) that one of my school masters who had served in the 8th Army -the Desert Rats- told us about a particularly nasty mine deployed by Rommel. If it was stepped on, by a single soldier, its first act was to blow the charge up to chest height and then explode, hopefully also hitting those around the first unfortunate victim. I do recall this chap telling us that any ‘mine-laying’ troops of the opposition who were captured with this item in their vehicles were given no quarter: ie killed immediately. Though I gather that in WWI some of the opposition, who had bayonets with serrations which would have given a particularly nasty wound, were similarly dispatched. The ingenuity that mankind’s leaders can offer we proles to kill or maim others in the ‘lower-orders’ is constant, amazing to me. Perhaps it is indeed a good job that future conflicts will be decided on and by key-board and screen. And the only ‘proper’ blood letting will be that portrayed by Hollywood, on even bigger screens!
All you need is a log that is round and rolled along the ground via a simple motor inside the log. We made these when we were kids & called them tanks 50 + years ago (just for play fun). This will roll over any mine and detonate it. Very simple and inexpensive; no electronics needed & bio degradable. Just aim it in the direction required. Many can be side by side to blanket an entire area.
Land mines, sea mines, bombletts, depleted uranium… where do the thinkers of this stuff stop caring about the future and only focus on maximum immediate damage. Management needs to understand specialists can easily produce this killing zone stuff and leave the use decision to their seniors, however the seniors rarely realise every time they engage this technology they are responsible for the after effects. Make it a war crime to litter post purpose death and we’d change the attitude of senior decision makers. If AI is a threat it’s primary target will be the decision makers of war. A little AI may make a world of good in dealing with the sloppy decision makers and killing less “expendable troops” or “acceptable losses”