Robots poised to fill military jobs

The wave of automation that swept away tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing and office jobs over the last two decades is creeping upon the military that may put rear-echelon and front-line positions in jeopardy. “The U.S. military is very likely to pursue forms of automation that reduce ‘back-office’ costs over time,” says said University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Horowitz, a global expert on weaponized robots, and removing some personnel from non-combatant risks on the battlefield. Automation will likely have a big impact on military organizations in logistics and manufacturing. Driverless vehicles are poised to take transportation jobs from combat-support billets. Warehouse robots can do the same chores inside Air Force ordnance and supply units. Divers may no longer need to rip out sea mines by hand. Robots can do it. New warships are increasingly designed to reduce the number of sailors needed for operations. The highly automated guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt, homeported in San Diego with 147 sailors or half the number that run similar ships, deploys three MQ-8 Fire Scout drones to find targets, map terrain and identify weather conditions. The Office of Naval Research and Strategic Capabilities Office continue to experiment with what some call a “ghost fleet” of unmanned, networked surface and sub-surface vessels, to go along with drone-cousins. The inexpensive software and automated machinery trends in artificial intelligence and robotics will begin to threaten military jobs, just as it will to nearly half of all civilian jobs over the next several decades, according to a 2013 analysis by Oxford University. (Source: San Diego Union-Tribune 02/20/17) Gulf Coast Note: The second ship in the Zumwalt class is Michael Monsoor. Its start of fabrication took place in October 2009. In July 2014, Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Gulfport, Miss., facility delivered DDG 1001’s composite deckhouse to the Navy. Ingalls also built the peripheral vertical launch system and composite deckhouse for the ship, and all components were sent for final vessel assembly to Bath (Maine) Iron Works. Navy divers train at Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City, Fla. In April 2006, production on the flight test airframes of the MQ-8B drone was initiated at Northrop Grumman's Unmanned Systems production plant in Moss Point, Miss.