Post by @supersquirrel@lemmy.ca

2026-10-27 20:40 UTC

GDLS to bring natural language control to Abrams tanks and next-generation combat vehicles Imagine if I pitched competitive rocket league players on an idea to give competitive edge by developing voice activated control so they can say things like “air dribble” or “wavedash” and the AI will help control the rocket car for the players to offload some work… then imaginr if instead of a silly video game we were talking about a ~70 ton cannon? If you watch the way the crews of these vehicles operate, they don’t rely on the armor of the tank, they coordinate closely to move in and out of cover/defilade to apply forward force with minimal exposure to enemy return fire… so how does being able to give vague instructions to a vehicle help with that? Now bring into context that the experience auditorily, mentally and physically of being hit by incoming fire whether it credibly can threaten penetration or not while inside an armored vehicle is not an experience you can describe… This breaks my brain…

Replies (5)

@robjwells@awful.systems 2026-10-27 21:07

The military’s been looking for the holy grail of natural language command and control since the 1950s (Noam Chomsky’s linguistics work was funded by the DoD for exactly this reason). Hasn’t happened yet, but maybe we’re finally onto something with “Don’t besiege Moscow, take it immediately, make no mistakes.”

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@_stranger_@lemmy.world 2026-10-27 21:10

HEY ALEXA- BOOOM HEY a- BOOM ALEXA STEER RIGHT BOOM alexa: EERING RIGHT AHEAD, FULL SPEED :dies cursing a chatbot, pursued by a drone:

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@CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2026-10-28 04:57

They are improving! This is the crankery of 1980s user interface design from ST:NG not 1950s futurism or 1920s eugenics.

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@zogwarg@awful.systems 2026-10-28 06:07

ELEVEN! (youtube)

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@Soyweiser@awful.systems 2026-10-28 17:58

Soldier: “Tank shoot those ” Tank does a full emergency stop “Sorry using slurs against my terms of service, is there anything else I can help you with”

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