Marine Guile Defeats DARPA AI

| January 20, 2023


Dr. Lawrence Lightbulb, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

LC sends us the humorous tale of how our Marines were tasked with defeating DARPA’s new Artificial Intelligence (AI) detection system. DARPA eggheads placed their AI robot in the center of a traffic circle and defied the Marines to approach it undetected.

So they did.

US Marines Use Cardboard Box to Defeat DARPA Robot Trained to Detect Humans

Whoever came up with the idea to hide under a box is clearly a fan of Metal Gear Solid.

Matthew Humphries

The latest book written by former Army Ranger and Pentagon policy analyst Paul Scharre reveals how a group of US Marines evaded detection by an AI robot using, among other things, a cardboard box.

The book is called Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence(Opens in a new window), and discusses the current “struggle to control artificial intelligence” with particular focus on China, the US, and Europe. It’s not released until Feb. 28, but as Games Radar reports(Opens in a new window), excerpts are being shared on Twitter by The Economist’s defense editor Shashank Joshi.

One of those excerpts(Opens in a new window) reveals how DARPA spent a week with a group of Marines at a test site in order to help train an AI robot by attempting to defeat it. The robot was parked “in the middle of a traffic circle” and the Marines had to approach it undetected. Scharre explains, “If any Marines could get all the way in and touch this robot without being detected, they would win.”

In a great example of how terrible AI still is, all of the Marines managed to remain undetected.

PC Mag

UPROXX

Need to tweak that detection algorithm a bit. I was subbed to DARPA for a couple different projects and I’m enjoying this a bit too much. Thanks, LC.

Category: Guest Link, Humor, It's science!, Marines

19 Comments
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President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

Just as funny now as when I first read that.

Hack Stone

The Marines further refined those skills to allow them to touch the dancers at The Driftwood without the bouncer catching them.

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

Wasn’t Dr Lightbulb’s name Dimitri?
Nickname “Dim”?

RGR 4-78

spam.

Mason

For $3.4 million the RAND Corporation will write a study that will point out how DARPA should be funding cardboard box detection algorithms.

#BigBrainTime

A Proud Infidel®™

For a paltry $2 million I can give them a definition of a carboard box!

USMC Steve

I bet they were Lance Corporals too…

Berliner

Was the cardboard box a leftover from all the crayons shipped from Crayola to the base? 😜 

Hack Stone

E-4 Mafia will now be providing 1st Sergeant Working Party Evasion Cloaking Device.

JustALurkinAround

There is nothing Marines enjoy more than climbing in some box.

5JC

Did the Marines get millions in contract money for producing the stealth box? If so the ladies at the Platinum Club will buying new Tesla’s.

A Proud Infidel®™

Teslas SHIT, they’ll be buying Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Ferraris!

MCPO USN

Didn’t they also bribe the robot with cans of dip?

Skivvy Stacker

Too bad they didn’t get a chance to “Walk Like an Egyptian”.

Hack Stone

That’s racist!

https://www.newsweek.com/steve-martins-king-tut-sketch-causing-controversy-one-college-campus-717418

Of course, everything is racist to a 20 year old college kid pursuing a Liberal Arts degree.

Mason

KoB

Mr. Schrodinger’s cat wants his box back.