US Military Warns of “Augmented Human Beings”

A declassified report plans for "human/machine fusion" — and the toll it will take on society.

BattleBots

The U.S. military has ambitious plans to turn its soldiers into high-tech cyborg warriors by making them stronger, enhancing their senses, and wiring their brains to computers.

Pentagon brass thinks these cyborgs will make their way to the battlefield by 2050, Army Times reports. The Department of Defense just declassified a report from October that details its plans for “human/machine fusion,” revealing its bizarre plan to bring to life military tech that’s always been safely quarantined within the realm of science fiction.

Bleeding Edge

The report’s executive summary identifies four key upgrades it hopes to develop over the next three decades. Two include enhancing soldiers’ eyesight and hearing. The military also wants to make soldiers stronger by equipping them with new wearables.

According to the report, all three of these will “offer the potential to incrementally enhance performance beyond the normal human baseline.”

Top Priority

What has the military really excited, however, is the fourth category: “direct neural enhancement of the human brain for two-way data transfer.” In other words, connecting soldier’s minds to computers so that military leaders could instantaneously transfer new information, but also to let soldiers control pilotless vehicles with their thoughts.

Troubling, however, is the report’s predicted aftermath: “introduction of augmented human beings into the general population, DOD active duty personnel, and near-peer competitors will accelerate in the years following 2050 and will lead to imbalances, inequalities, and inequities in established legal, security, and ethical frameworks.”

READ MORE: Cyborg warriors could be here by 2050, DoD study group says [Army Times]

More on military tech: The Military Wants to Build Deadly AI-Controlled Tanks

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