Meet the burping Terminator-style robots with mood swings and a torso that shoots BB pellets being used to train Army soldiers
The British Army has deployed Terminator-style robots to train soldiers for battlefield situations.
The machines, which are built with a head and torso the size of an average man, can talk to and respond to soldiers because they are equipped with AI software Chat GPT.
If the soldier gets angry, the robot, called SimStriker, can become hostile and fire BB bullets from its belly. A calmer soldier, on the other hand, will help keep the situation under control.
In a battlefield scenario, soldiers must face SimStriker in a village where the locals are in need of food, electricity, and medical supplies, The Telegraph defeated.
The robot reacts differently depending on whether the soldier decides to help the local population.
The British Army has deployed Terminator-style robots to train soldiers in battlefield scenarios
The machines, which are made with a head and torso the size of an average man, can talk and respond to soldiers because they are equipped with AI software Chat GPT
It comes amid a movement to use better technology and AI to prepare for complex future warfare. Pictured: Soldiers in Salisbury demonstrate the EXO Insight goggles, a virtual eye tracking behaviour monitoring system
Army trainers can also manually adjust the robot’s mood from a control room if they want to make the scenario more challenging for the soldier.
It is an unprecedented breakthrough in technology for the military, which can now train its soldiers against a ‘thinking’ enemy. Soldiers are used to training with static wooden targets.
The SlimStriker project, which launched in 2020 and is being deployed with the 16th Air Assault Brigade in Colchester, has produced robots equipped with sensors that can record soldiersā accuracy and rate of fire.
It also has a camera in its forehead, so it can detect movement and light, and then send a signal to the robot to intervene if a soldier walks into the room.
When resting, he can burp to simulate an unfocused guard. And when active, he’ll say things like “Who’s there?” and “Stop” through a speaker in his collarbone.
The robot was created by 4GD, a company founded by two former Royal Marines that trains soldiers using virtual reality and special effects.
The robot will be further developed so that it can virtually imitate the organs on its torso. This will make injuries sustained during a fight appear even more realistic.
The company has shared footage online of soldiers entering a room, where they come face to face with the robot.
James Crowley, 4GD business development director, told The Telegraph: ‘Although it does have the feel of a Terminator, unlike the film we’re not trying to subordinate soldiers to a robot. We’re trying to use a robot to enhance the soldier.
Soldiers are shown preparing to enter a room where an AI robot lies on the other side
“We want to use it to bring the training environment as close to the operational environment as possible. That’s why it shouts, talks and shoots back. It’s a leap forward in the way the military can train for urban environments.”
This is the latest AI move by the military, having previously used Capita to speed up the recruitment of new soldiers using AI.
AI software is helping to process potential recruitsā medical records, which are provided with their applications. Capita claims it can reduce the time it takes to process medical records by almost a third.
This comes after the Ministry of Defence indicated last year that fewer troops will be needed on the frontlines in the future due to the rise of AI.
The updated Defence Command Paper of July 2023 stated that the conflict would āchange the way we think about the āsizeā of our armed forcesā.
In July, MailOnline revealed that British soldiers will soon be assisted by a groundbreaking AI app that will sift through vast troves of battlefield data and tell commanders how to defeat the enemy in record time.
The advanced technology is currently in development and military leaders could get their hands on it for the first time during experimental testing later this year.