Declassified US military report reveals plot to create ‘machine humans’ with super-vision and internet-brains

Harry Pettit, Senior Digital Technology and Science Reporter

Published: 17:13, 28 Nov 2019
Updated: 17:14, 28 Nov 2019

THE US military plans to build super-soldiers enhanced to become part human, part cyborg, within 30 years.

Grunts could be upgraded with boosted strength and enhanced senses as part of a bonkers scheme outlined in declassified documents.

It may sound like something straight from a science fiction flick, but Pentagon bosses hope to deploy them on the battlefield by 2050.

A Department of Defense report on a "human/machine fusion" programme was declassified last month and picked up by Army Times.

It's the result of a year-long assessment that aimed to "forecast and evaluate the military implications of machines that are physically integrated with the human body", according to the DoD file.

Such changes promise to "augment and enhance human performance over the next 30 years."

The Pentagon wants machine-augmented super soldiers on the battlefield by 2050Credit: Getty Images - Getty

The report identified four key areas in which personnel could be merged with robots in future.

Enhancements to the eyes and ears, giving soldiers super-sensitive vision and hearing, were two of those mentioned.

Another was boosted strength gained through wearable tech.

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

Tech added to soldiers' eyes could give them super-human sightCredit: AFP or licensors

But it was enhancements of the mind that truly excited Pentagon brass.

Troopers' brains could be hooked up to computers to improve their thinking power and allow them to control unmanned vehicles with their thoughts.

"This technology is predicted to facilitate read/write capability between humans and machines and between humans through brain-to-brain interactions," researchers wrote.

"These interactions would allow warfighters direct communication with unmanned and autonomous systems, as well as with other humans, to optimise command and control systems and operations."

Terrifying space weapons of the future

Here are three of the scariest...

Rods from God

A strange but utterly terrifying weapon has been dubbed "rods from the God" and is based on the concept of creating man-made meteorites that can be guided towards the enemy.
Instead of using rocks rods the size of telephone poles are deployed.
These would be made out of tungsten — a rare metal that can stand the intense heat generated by entering Earth's atmosphere.
One satellite fires the rods towards the Earth's atmosphere while the other steers them to a target on the ground.
Reaching speeds of 7000mph they hit the ground with the force of a small nuclear weapon — but crucially creating no radiation fall out.
As bizarre as it sounds, a US Congressional report recently revealed the military has been pushing ahead with the kinetic space weapons.

Molten metal cannons

This intriguing idea is being developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
It is called the Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition or MAHEM.
This game changing rail-gun can fire a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred miles per second by the most powerful electromagnets ever built.
The molten metal can then morph into an aerodynamic slug during flight and pierce through another spacecraft or satellite and a munition explodes inside.

Space force ships

Already the United States is powering head with its spacecraft, although China is busy developing one of their own.
The top secret American XS-1 under development by DARPA.
It can travel ten times the speed of sound and launch missiles.
Meanwhile an unmanned craft is currently being developed in the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre in Mianyang, Sichuan province, which is also known as Base 29.

The report warned that plans to augment soldiers would initially be met with resistance from the US public.

However, it predicted that the use of the technology in healthcare and other settings would accelerate after 2050, helping to ease public backlash.

The shift threatens to destabilise the legal, security and ethical frameworks upon which civilisation is based, researchers concluded.

"Introduction of augmented human beings into the general population, DOD active duty personnel, and near-peer competitors will accelerate in the years following 2050.

"It will lead to imbalances, inequalities, and inequities in established legal, security, and ethical frameworks."

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