Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, but there's
Speaker 1: no danger. It's a professional career. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be
Speaker 1: dealing with another listener request topic. This is awesome. We
Speaker 1: love doing these and we love that you guys are listening.
Speaker 1: So keep keep listening and keep requesting. Ah yeah, Joe,
Speaker 1: do you want to read it for sure? Well? Our listener,
Speaker 1: Nate wrote in via our email address, w thinking at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com? Say it again, f W
Speaker 1: thinking at how stuff works dot Com. Wait are you
Speaker 1: sure it wasn't f X thinking. No, it's f W
Speaker 1: thinking at how stuff works dot Com. That sounds it's
Speaker 1: just music to my years. Okay, Nate wrote in, saying
Speaker 1: good show on the five G topic. Thank you, Nate, uh,
Speaker 1: he said, thanks for making podcasts that are technical nature
Speaker 1: but not so full of techno jargon that I can't
Speaker 1: understand it possible. Show topic DARPA, the future of the
Speaker 1: world's most advanced military in the world speculated about the future,
Speaker 1: or review some of the groundbreaking ideas inventions that have
Speaker 1: come out of DARPA. Thanks much, Well, thank you, Nate,
Speaker 1: because we do talk about DARPA an awful lot on
Speaker 1: this show. DARPA is responsible for so many technicals. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not because we love DARPA. It's just because you
Speaker 1: trace the money back when you're talking about the technology,
Speaker 1: and somewhere along the line you'll find DARPA. Yequently a
Speaker 1: couple of guys in dark suits and sunglasses with a
Speaker 1: briefcase and saying just keep going. But it all sounds
Speaker 1: so silly slash sinister and a lot of sists. But anyway,
Speaker 1: what is DARPA. Let's go back and look at DARPA
Speaker 1: as an organization and figure out why so many technological
Speaker 1: historical roads lead to this strange military shadow organizations or
Speaker 1: have led out from there. Well, let's start by saying,
Speaker 1: because we love saying it the even though no one
Speaker 1: ever calls DARPA by its full name, it is the
Speaker 1: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Yes, and uh, well, let's
Speaker 1: also say that as shadowy government organizations go, this is
Speaker 1: a really forward facing one. Yeah. Yeah, they put their
Speaker 1: like their press releases and their call for proposals on
Speaker 1: the Internet. Yeah, they've worked with a lot of people
Speaker 1: who went on to work for other massive companies like Google.
Speaker 1: But we're getting hut of ourselves. So this is the
Speaker 1: research and development arm of the US military, specifically part
Speaker 1: of the Department of Defense. Well that sounds scary, Well
Speaker 1: it's it's not. Kind of is it can be. I
Speaker 1: mean some of the because a lot of the technology
Speaker 1: they're looking into our specifically for military applications, it makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's a it's part of the Department of Defense. It's
Speaker 1: very important that uh technology play a role in military applications. Sure,
Speaker 1: but so much of the technology that we're talking about
Speaker 1: that where those roads lead back to DARPA has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with weapons in the end. Yeah, it may
Speaker 1: be that it's in lots of other ways, um supporting
Speaker 1: military roles and ends up in filtering down into civilian
Speaker 1: technology that we all stand to benefit from. So it's
Speaker 1: not like this is all uh super secret ray guns
Speaker 1: and stuff like that and that that's the only thing
Speaker 1: they work in. This is all sorts of technology that
Speaker 1: could support the military in multiple ways and often ends
Speaker 1: up becoming part of other types of tech right, because
Speaker 1: I would argue that the that the really key word
Speaker 1: in the DARPA acronym is not defense, it's rather advanced.
Speaker 1: Part part of the agency's mission statement is to go
Speaker 1: after these high risk, high reward research and development projects
Speaker 1: as often they're pushing four main areas of strategy, and
Speaker 1: those are rethinking complex military systems to being not just
Speaker 1: reactive but proactive about the speed with which information technology
Speaker 1: is changing these days. Uh three, harnessing biotechnology, oh boy,
Speaker 1: and four is missing, and I forgot to write the
Speaker 1: fourth one down and the Know such a good podcast.
Speaker 1: And the fourth one is on a need to know
Speaker 1: basic three, which is putting backpacks on beatles and getting
Speaker 1: them fly around the room where you want. That's what
Speaker 1: let's hold for a second to find the fourth one
Speaker 1: and four. I'm going to quote this one because it's
Speaker 1: a little bit less uh fourth, right, than than the
Speaker 1: rest of them. Expanding the technological frontier. And also we
Speaker 1: should point out that DARPA is not dark as nine
Speaker 1: organization that has an enormous secret underground scientific laboratory. No.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, DARPA is money. Yeah, DARPA
Speaker 1: is I think of it kind of like um Like
Speaker 1: they're almost like a consulting firm for the government in
Speaker 1: a way, Like they put out a request for proposal saying,
Speaker 1: here's the thing that we want done. We have this
Speaker 1: is our goal, we need to have this thing happen,
Speaker 1: and then they put that request for a proposal out
Speaker 1: and they wait for the various organizations, usually things like
Speaker 1: universities and research centers to respond to that and say
Speaker 1: we're going to attempt to do this thing that you
Speaker 1: have put a request out for, and then it goes
Speaker 1: from there and it all depends upon the actual technology.
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes we're talking about massive companies like Boeing
Speaker 1: being involved. Sometimes we're talking about labs. Yeah, there, there's
Speaker 1: um plenty. Like Stanford has had a long association with
Speaker 1: doing some DARPA projects, particularly in the robotics field. So uh,
Speaker 1: don't think of DARPA as those secret labs. These are
Speaker 1: the guys who fund the secret labs. Were not the
Speaker 1: agents of Shield. No there there, that's that's fair. That's fair.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like we said before, it is part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense, huh. And the current director is
Speaker 1: a woman named dr Addati Propaka who came up through
Speaker 1: DARPA's offices from being a program manager in six to
Speaker 1: leading a whole bunch of semi conductor programs to being
Speaker 1: the founding director of their Microelectronics Technology Office. So I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that she oversaw nano box, but she probably
Speaker 1: oversaw some nano box. And to be fair, you could
Speaker 1: be overseeing nano bots and never even know it because
Speaker 1: that's how small they are, right, you can kind of
Speaker 1: only oversee them. Yeah, you can't really undersee. No, you
Speaker 1: can't really. I mean have you ever tried to get
Speaker 1: under a nano bot? It is like impossible. So as
Speaker 1: DARPA had a two point nine billion dollar budget, they
Speaker 1: employ only two hundred nineteen like official full time government employees.
Speaker 1: Salaries must be on though and world two point nine billion, right,
Speaker 1: and they but they oversee two hundred and fifty programs
Speaker 1: and they have some two thousand collaborations with universities, private companies,
Speaker 1: and other governmental entities. Right. Yeah, So this is uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a big deal where we're having
Speaker 1: a lot of fun discussing this. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of because it has a little bit of the
Speaker 1: cloak and dagger kind of reputation and also mad science reputation,
Speaker 1: So those lend themselves to that. But when I'm sure
Speaker 1: the stuff they don't want you to know, kids could
Speaker 1: come in here and talk a big game about various
Speaker 1: DARPA alternatives. Sure, I'm sure we could bring them in
Speaker 1: for that. But the cool thing to me is that
Speaker 1: this is also an organization that has been responsible in
Speaker 1: a very direct way for incredible leaps in technological capabilities
Speaker 1: in various fields. Jonathan, Yeah, tell me the story of DARPA. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't always DARPA, for one thing, that's true. It
Speaker 1: was ARFA ARCA so close of course. Yeah, they only
Speaker 1: dropped the letter. Actually they gained a letter afterward. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was originally ARPA, just the Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there was a specific event in history that
Speaker 1: that prodded the United States and de forming this organization. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: it was formed in oh less than a year after
Speaker 1: the uss are launched Sputnik. Yeah, the thing what beeped,
Speaker 1: as my my old colleague Chris Palette would say, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: of course, put Nick was the first artificial satellite ever
Speaker 1: put into orbit by humans. Right, It wasn't the fact
Speaker 1: that it was beeping that really disturbed anyone. It was
Speaker 1: the fact that it was beeping and anyone in the
Speaker 1: world contune and in here it and further that they
Speaker 1: had launched it into space. Yeah. So if you are
Speaker 1: the United States and the Soviet Union has just put
Speaker 1: something into space, and you are part of the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense, you're going to be thinking some pretty serious thoughts.
Speaker 1: One is that if the Soviet Union can put something
Speaker 1: into space, it can potentially put something here in the US,
Speaker 1: all the way from the Soviet Union. Yes, not into
Speaker 1: space over the US, but just into the US. Yes,
Speaker 1: so essentially intercontinental ballistic missile kind of thing. Secondly, if
Speaker 1: they can put something into space, sure, right now, all
Speaker 1: it's doing is sending out a signal that you could
Speaker 1: pick up if you're a you have a ham radio
Speaker 1: or something, which is you know, kind of interesting in
Speaker 1: neat but potentially further down the line, yeah, it might
Speaker 1: be able to do other stuff than just beep. It
Speaker 1: might be able to take pictures, it might be able
Speaker 1: to take video or stream video. I mean, obviously this
Speaker 1: is talking further years in advance, but the potential was there,
Speaker 1: and so clearly there was a need for the United
Speaker 1: States to get on the ball as far as technology
Speaker 1: is concerned. And so that's where the government said, all right,
Speaker 1: we're going to we're going to found an organization whose
Speaker 1: purpose is to develop science and technology specifically for defense. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was the that was the reason for ARPA
Speaker 1: to come into being. And in fact, in the earliest
Speaker 1: days of the United States Space Program, ARPA oversaw a
Speaker 1: lot of those operations that would eventually transfer over to NASA,
Speaker 1: but originally it was ARPA that was overseeing those early
Speaker 1: uh space programs. Yeah, a lot of the projects that
Speaker 1: they were that they were working on during their early
Speaker 1: days would wind up being really important to the state
Speaker 1: of technology as we know it today. For for example,
Speaker 1: ARPA hired on J. C. R. Lick Lighter as their
Speaker 1: director of the Information Processing Techniques Office. And if you
Speaker 1: haven't heard about this dude before, his vision of computers
Speaker 1: as communication asian devices, not not just information information processing devices,
Speaker 1: which they were generally thought of back in that time.
Speaker 1: His vision is a big part of why we have
Speaker 1: computers right now, right, I mean the kind of computers
Speaker 1: that we talk into and you know, can play but
Speaker 1: jeweled on and all of that kind of right, because
Speaker 1: before that you're talking about massive machines that were self contained, right.
Speaker 1: They were. Often they were purposed for specific applications and
Speaker 1: couldn't do very much outside of those. So computers were useful,
Speaker 1: but they were also very limited, and it was his
Speaker 1: vision that really helped push that beyond those early limitations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they hired him on in the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 1: that led to a whole bunch of developments, including well,
Speaker 1: first the Arbannett so Arbet. Often people will call that
Speaker 1: like the predecessor to the Internet, which that's that's fair.
Speaker 1: It was the first computer network that was a wide
Speaker 1: scale computer network nected uh initially just three computers, although
Speaker 1: more would join on later, and they were separated by
Speaker 1: vast regions of geography, so it wasn't like three computers
Speaker 1: that were saying next to each other that then we're
Speaker 1: wired together there. This was a true accomplishment, and it's
Speaker 1: hard to explain to someone who now can plug into
Speaker 1: the Internet wirelessly pretty much wherever they happened to be
Speaker 1: how hard this was at the time because they had
Speaker 1: to build the infrastructure, as in the actual physical infrastructure,
Speaker 1: the things that would plug into the various machines. They
Speaker 1: also had to create a means for these machines to
Speaker 1: communicate with each other, because the other issue about computers
Speaker 1: back in those days is that if you had two
Speaker 1: different computers, they essentially spoke two different languages. So you
Speaker 1: had to create a common form of communication for these
Speaker 1: computers to be able to work together in any meaningful way.
Speaker 1: And that became the purpose of several of the researchers
Speaker 1: there to develop the protocols that would allow information to
Speaker 1: be passed across this network and to be accepted and
Speaker 1: interpreted properly on either side. So this would end up
Speaker 1: leading into the technologies that we now use in the Internet.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have evolved into that role. So, uh,
Speaker 1: while the ARPA net you might argue, was just a
Speaker 1: computer network, the Internet was a network of networks which
Speaker 1: incorporate lots of stuff you need. You need some networks
Speaker 1: first in order to really get off the ground, exactly. So,
Speaker 1: so we can thank DARPA for the fact that the
Speaker 1: Internet is a thing. I mean, it's again, a lot
Speaker 1: of the technologies will talk about you could argue would
Speaker 1: eventually come to being eventually anyway, but the keyword there's eventually.
Speaker 1: The reason they happened when they happened is largely because
Speaker 1: DARPA was funding the research that made it possible. Sort
Speaker 1: of side question, has anybody ever put a date on
Speaker 1: the time that the Internet became the Internet? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't have the date in front of me, but essentially, yes,
Speaker 1: there is a record. There is a record of that thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you're talking about the Internet. One other things
Speaker 1: to remember, of course, and I mean, I'm sure our
Speaker 1: listeners are really aware of this, that the Internet and
Speaker 1: the Worldwide Web are two different things. Right. The World
Speaker 1: Wide Web exists on top of the Internet, So you're
Speaker 1: talking about the Internet probably wasn't really the Internet until
Speaker 1: there was an x files fan site, so so in
Speaker 1: other words, you had to wait for the x files.
Speaker 1: So the Web had been around for a little bit,
Speaker 1: but no one cared, right, it didn't have any x files. Really,
Speaker 1: I would argue that it didn't really become the Internet
Speaker 1: until because that's when cats were invented, and that would
Speaker 1: be when when the Internet really tell I think so,
Speaker 1: and finally made all those hieroglyphs make sense. That was retroactively.
Speaker 1: It was rhet conning is what we call that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It's not the only technology that DARPA had a hand
Speaker 1: in developing. It also was largely responsible for the funding
Speaker 1: of research that led to the Global Positioning System or GPS,
Speaker 1: another technology that got a big boost from spotne going
Speaker 1: into space absolutely so. The Navy first tested a system
Speaker 1: called Transit back in nineteen sixty They used five orbiting
Speaker 1: satellites that would allow ships to fix their exact position UH.
Speaker 1: A successor to that was called Timation in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing was that the military used the satellites
Speaker 1: for a very long time and civilians only got partial
Speaker 1: access to this data. It was specifically degraded on purpose
Speaker 1: so that you would not get an accurate reading of
Speaker 1: your position because it was considered too valuable for military
Speaker 1: use to allow civilians to really get that information, right.
Speaker 1: That's why that's why some of the first GPS systems
Speaker 1: were so crappy in comparison to the ones that we
Speaker 1: have today. It wasn't because there was something lacking in
Speaker 1: the technolo pology. It was because it had been purposefully restricted.
Speaker 1: It was called selective availability. And you if you look
Speaker 1: at the there were forums that were dedicated to GPS,
Speaker 1: Like the people who are really into this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff less like any other technology. There were people who
Speaker 1: really thought it was super cool, like the early adopters
Speaker 1: radio enthusiasts. They might talk about, oh, this one has
Speaker 1: a precision of up to five hundred feet, so you'd
Speaker 1: be somewhere within five hundred feet of like you knew
Speaker 1: your position was within five feet of what you were
Speaker 1: being told. It made geo cashing a lot trickier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in fact, geo cashing really took off because Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton got rid of the policy of selected availability, and
Speaker 1: once that was eliminated and these GPS receivers could suddenly
Speaker 1: get much more accurate readings, people were more interested in
Speaker 1: buying them and using them, And the the enthusiasts were
Speaker 1: the ones who were saying, hey, why don't we use
Speaker 1: this to have a game? And you you know, I
Speaker 1: did a whole article on how geo cashing works where
Speaker 1: I talked about the history of it. It actually is
Speaker 1: really fascinating. It became this this means of hunting treasure
Speaker 1: using these online forums. And again DARPA is largely responsible
Speaker 1: for the research and development of that technology. Yeah. Then,
Speaker 1: of course there are all kinds of DARPER projects that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the podcast before. We've talked about
Speaker 1: the ones where they where they were trying to control
Speaker 1: the flight of beatles and stuff with little backpacks that
Speaker 1: they put on them. We've talked about of course they're
Speaker 1: the DARPA contracted Boston Dynamics robots there, we'll legged walking.
Speaker 1: We we've talked about autonomous cars. Yeah, yeah, the Grand
Speaker 1: Challenges those were those are a really big deal with
Speaker 1: DARPA's past, where DARPA had created these challenges for teams
Speaker 1: to create autonomous vehicles that would have to complete a
Speaker 1: course within a certain amount of time. Uh. And um,
Speaker 1: the very first one, there were no winners. None of
Speaker 1: the cars were able to complete the course successfully. The
Speaker 1: second year they had I think five or six teams
Speaker 1: successfully complete the course and the one that had the
Speaker 1: lowest time one. And then they decided to make it harder.
Speaker 1: So the original course was like a desert course, right.
Speaker 1: It was pretty wide open space, and it was you
Speaker 1: had to go from point A to point B, and
Speaker 1: it did require turns and stuff. It wasn't like a
Speaker 1: straight shot, but it wasn't having to navigate through like traffic. Uh.
Speaker 1: They they made it tougher by setting it in a
Speaker 1: simulated urban environment I think. I think they used essentially
Speaker 1: in an old army base, and they set it up
Speaker 1: as if it were a town, and they included actual
Speaker 1: traffic in the streets, and I think even pedestrian traffic,
Speaker 1: and the vehicles had to be able to autonomously plot
Speaker 1: a path from a starting position to a destination. They
Speaker 1: were not told what it was going to be beforehand,
Speaker 1: and then the cars had to navigate through that, obeying
Speaker 1: all traffic laws as well. So a much more difficult
Speaker 1: task than just going from point A to point B.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that continue to the most recent robotics challenge,
Speaker 1: the one that's going on right now and will conclude.
Speaker 1: We're recording this in April. In the summer, there's going
Speaker 1: to be the Robotics challenge that requires teams to create
Speaker 1: a robot that can get into a vehicle, drive the
Speaker 1: vehicle to a location, get out of the vehicle, go
Speaker 1: into said location, navigate a set upstairs, go over possibly
Speaker 1: some rubble, breakthrough a wall, connects some wires together, operate
Speaker 1: some control systems, and do something secret that has yet
Speaker 1: to be revealed to the teams. And the purpose of
Speaker 1: this is to create a robot that can respond to
Speaker 1: emergency situations. It was specifically inspired by the Fukushima disaster.
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry, guys, but the second that you got
Speaker 1: to breaking through a wall, I could think of in
Speaker 1: my head was like a like slim Ninja version of
Speaker 1: the kool Aid Man. See, that's interesting. My first thought
Speaker 1: was that it's it's a robot that turns into the
Speaker 1: Incredible Hulk. That was my version of smashing through the wall.
Speaker 1: But Cooley man, is that's good too. It would be
Speaker 1: hilarious if it actually did get shout out oh yeah
Speaker 1: when it does that. Um yeah. And I'm sure at
Speaker 1: least one team is going to have to do it
Speaker 1: that way. I really hope that someone does. Yeah. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's that one is going on right now, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to following the the progress of the various
Speaker 1: teams and kind of also, I'm very curious to find
Speaker 1: out what the secret objective is that has yet to
Speaker 1: be revealed, And the idea is it's supposed to test
Speaker 1: the robot's ability to deal with um changing situations that
Speaker 1: are difficult, if not impossible, to predict. Yeah, but of
Speaker 1: course there are lots of new DARPA proposals going on
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, and we should preface this. We're
Speaker 1: going to be talking and some of these we will
Speaker 1: not be covering in depth. And the reason for that
Speaker 1: is that the proposals are in various state ages right now.
Speaker 1: Some of them are so early and so vague as
Speaker 1: to be impossible to go into depth about because there's
Speaker 1: nothing to talk about yet. Yeah, there's no science to
Speaker 1: talk about because no one has done the science yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's where science comes from from, no one having
Speaker 1: done it yet exactly. So. Yeah, and this, this first
Speaker 1: one that I'm going to mention, is one of those things.
Speaker 1: The press release for this was only put out on April,
Speaker 1: I believe. And uh, this is for Project the Darpest,
Speaker 1: calling and zero. They love acronyms, you guys. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch. They are metal gear solid. I've got
Speaker 1: a feeling, hey, call back. I've got a feeling that
Speaker 1: uh uh, that we're going to see like there's a
Speaker 1: there's gotta be a department in DARPA that's just like,
Speaker 1: all right, you gotta come up with a really awesome
Speaker 1: project name that could be a cool acronyms. Just keep
Speaker 1: on tweaking it until the acronym makes sense. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: so end zero that's near zero power r F and
Speaker 1: sensor operations. And this project is currently seeking proposals and
Speaker 1: it's it's looking to develop low energy, wireless sensors that
Speaker 1: can wake up and take action when a particular event
Speaker 1: triggers them, like, for example, infrastructure damage. If a crack
Speaker 1: appears in a dam, for example, then these these sleeping
Speaker 1: sensors could could wake up and phone home, or if
Speaker 1: there's a forest fire or etcetera, an earthquake or an earthquake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me actually, because one thing we've
Speaker 1: talked about before is imagine we're going into the world
Speaker 1: of the Internet of things, and one of the primary
Speaker 1: components of the Internet of things as we've imagined it
Speaker 1: at least, is sensors, right, you know, ubiquitous sensors. Sensors
Speaker 1: on everything that let you know when something's going on
Speaker 1: that needs attention, or they give you data that you
Speaker 1: can use somehow to to decisions or have your environment
Speaker 1: changed for you, or whatever it may be. You're going
Speaker 1: to have sensors everywhere, yeah, Yeah, so that you don't
Speaker 1: have to be in a place watching a thing personally,
Speaker 1: your your place can monitor that for you. Sure, but
Speaker 1: you don't want those sensors to be a big power drain,
Speaker 1: of course, and you don't want them to have just
Speaker 1: sort of like little batteries that you'd have to replace
Speaker 1: or recharge all the time. So this makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to me if you can come up with
Speaker 1: ways of of having sensors that are basically not draining
Speaker 1: power or somehow inactive when they're not in use, so
Speaker 1: essentially they can go into some form of sleep mode
Speaker 1: and thus prolong the life of their power source. Also, uh,
Speaker 1: it's attractive or another reason, that reason being that I
Speaker 1: think most of us would prefer a world where the
Speaker 1: sensors are active when they need to be and not
Speaker 1: always monitoring everything we do all the time always, or
Speaker 1: the sort of compliment that is that the sensors are
Speaker 1: largely invisible. Yeah, you know, you don't want them like
Speaker 1: activating all the time when they're not doing anything, Like
Speaker 1: a smoke alarm that goes off every time you you
Speaker 1: fry a piece of chicken in a pan. Sure, that's
Speaker 1: why you out so frequently. So I mean the smoke
Speaker 1: alarm that does that, I must point out is operating correctly.
Speaker 1: It's your cooking, that's what we're saying. No, that's fair,
Speaker 1: really terrible cook This podcast has actually been an elaborate intervention,
Speaker 1: and it's led up to this point. I congratulations, guys.
Speaker 1: I would slow clap, but I don't want to set
Speaker 1: off the audio. But I guess it doesn't matter since
Speaker 1: we're not really making an audio podcast. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always tried to stick with baking more than cooking,
Speaker 1: but now this is we are just kidding, Lauren. I
Speaker 1: must say I've seen you bring leftovers before that look delicious.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you, thank you, Joe. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: most of them are from takeout. So what else has
Speaker 1: DARPA been up to besides making these low inner or
Speaker 1: sending out a proposal for these low energy sensors. Well
Speaker 1: here's another call for proposals I was reading about that
Speaker 1: I am fascinated by because of the vagueness. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: was one that the proposal and and it leads your
Speaker 1: your brain down a bunch of strange directions. When you
Speaker 1: when you told me about this one, I was so perplexed,
Speaker 1: and honestly I still am because I haven't had a
Speaker 1: chance to dive into it to a point where I
Speaker 1: feel like I really have a grasp on it. So
Speaker 1: why don't you walk me through what this is? Okay,
Speaker 1: So this is known as BRASS and BRASS stands for
Speaker 1: building resource adaptive software systems, And so they are currently
Speaker 1: seeking proposals um and the idea behind this is that
Speaker 1: they want to or at least as we understand it,
Speaker 1: is that they want to create software or frameworks for
Speaker 1: creating software that sort of eliminate the need for updates, right,
Speaker 1: the costernal updates, right, that can dynamically adapt to all
Speaker 1: the software and hardware around them. Right. So, so we're
Speaker 1: all familiar with the need for software to update. You know,
Speaker 1: computers are incredibly powerful, but they interface with us through
Speaker 1: software that has very little resilience. Just think about how
Speaker 1: easy it is to just completely break and ruin the
Speaker 1: operational software profile of your amazing piece of hardware computer. Well,
Speaker 1: or just the fact that, uh, let's say that you
Speaker 1: get anyone who's ever done an operating system upgrade where
Speaker 1: they've upgraded from one version to another and then realize
Speaker 1: that some other programs no longer work properly. That's a problem,
Speaker 1: and it's a problem that DARBA has identified as being
Speaker 1: a serious issue, particularly in military applications where downtime could
Speaker 1: put people's lives at risk. Yeah. Another side of this
Speaker 1: is if you hear the stories about like, you know,
Speaker 1: the missile command systems that are still running on like
Speaker 1: Cobal all operated, you know, just these ancient software systems.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so DARPA announced this was also this month,
Speaker 1: so April, that it would launch a four year research
Speaker 1: project to find out what it would take to create
Speaker 1: software that remains robust for a hundred years without updates.
Speaker 1: So I think they're not necessarily saying like time to
Speaker 1: create that software. They're saying, let's do research to figure
Speaker 1: out what it would take to create software like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's identify the requirements and then start to identify
Speaker 1: how those requirements could be met. Yeah. So this is
Speaker 1: a quote from their call for proposals, so brass quote
Speaker 1: seeks to realize foundational advances in the design and implementation
Speaker 1: of long lived software systems that can dynamically adapt to
Speaker 1: changes in the resources they depend upon and environments in
Speaker 1: which they operate. So that's really interesting. And and again
Speaker 1: this is something where it's just a call for proposals UM,
Speaker 1: so we don't know everything about what they mean yet,
Speaker 1: but there have been different interpretations of what this means.
Speaker 1: One of them is sort of that, Okay, so all
Speaker 1: software lives on what this uh, this release called an ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and that sort of makes sense. There's an ecosystem of
Speaker 1: other software out there. There's other software in the world
Speaker 1: that has to share and trade information with UM. There's
Speaker 1: the hardware that it runs on, you know, the physical
Speaker 1: stuff that allows the software to execute. There are protocols,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's like the language the software uses
Speaker 1: to communicate with other pieces of software. One example would
Speaker 1: be HTTP, the protocol of Web traffic. UM. Of course,
Speaker 1: the users that operate it could be considered part of
Speaker 1: the ecosystem, possibly the libraries that supported the data that
Speaker 1: goes into it, right, yeah, yeah, So libraries you can
Speaker 1: think of as like imported tools that are used in software.
Speaker 1: So you might have like the Windows Control library, which
Speaker 1: would include like Windows buttons and stuff like that, or subroutines.
Speaker 1: And of course for any program, this ecosystem is constantly
Speaker 1: changing all around and around it, and this is why
Speaker 1: we have to have software updates. I mean, sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: realize there's a vulnerability or something like that they need
Speaker 1: to patch. Other times it needs a compatibility update, it
Speaker 1: needs to be updated to work with something else, or well, well,
Speaker 1: because I was going to say, uh when like Firefox
Speaker 1: updates and all of a sudden, Adobe Flash is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't work with this version of Firefox anymore. Let's
Speaker 1: get on writing some new code to patch that up, right.
Speaker 1: Or you might be saying, well, I want to port
Speaker 1: this piece of software to a totally different environment. So
Speaker 1: it used to run on my web browser, now I
Speaker 1: want to make it an Android app that does exactly
Speaker 1: the same thing. Uh okay, well that's usually not so easy.
Speaker 1: You've got to like actually have some developers go in
Speaker 1: there and make some changes. If I'm interpreting this correctly,
Speaker 1: what it sounds like they want to get into is
Speaker 1: the idea of self adapting code for software programs like
Speaker 1: the like, how can you create software that is itself
Speaker 1: sort of uh, mainly just driven by its goal, Like
Speaker 1: it has a function that it performs and it adapts
Speaker 1: when its conditions change. Sure so so kind of rather
Speaker 1: than having software updates that have to be written by
Speaker 1: a team and installed either manually or automatically when the
Speaker 1: team sends them out. You would have software that's essentially
Speaker 1: updating all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I that might
Speaker 1: be the case, or it may be something that could
Speaker 1: potentially be I hesitate to use the words simpler, because
Speaker 1: this would still be incredibly difficult. But the development of
Speaker 1: a new form of software platform that could perpetually do
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to do no matter what kind of
Speaker 1: equipment it's running on. You know, let's say that the
Speaker 1: because I mean, obviously, if you if you assume that
Speaker 1: Moore's law holds true at least for a while, then
Speaker 1: the computers of ten years from now are going to
Speaker 1: be so much faster than what we're using today that
Speaker 1: running today's software on them would seem ridiculous. It certainly
Speaker 1: wouldn't be optimized for that equipment. This sounds like it's
Speaker 1: a proposal to try and create a type of software
Speaker 1: that would consistently be able to adapt so that it
Speaker 1: is running at the appropriate efficiency for whatever conditions happened
Speaker 1: to be there. In other words, if you're using it
Speaker 1: in the future, it should be just as efficient on
Speaker 1: that future equipment as it is on today's equipment. Which
Speaker 1: is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of. That would be like if you took a
Speaker 1: copy of I don't know, we were is talking about
Speaker 1: Silent Hill, a Silent Hill one for the PlayStation and
Speaker 1: being able to plug it right into a PS three
Speaker 1: and have it look like a PS three game or
Speaker 1: at least run we can see. That's the other thing
Speaker 1: about That's the other thing about legacy systems, right, is
Speaker 1: thatwards compatibility isn't always considered and built in exactly if
Speaker 1: we look if we just look at the brief history
Speaker 1: of computers already, which have not been around that long.
Speaker 1: In the grand scheme of things, there there's a host
Speaker 1: of different forms of media that we no longer have
Speaker 1: access to that you know, we don't have the devices
Speaker 1: that read that media, or there are very few of
Speaker 1: them in existence these days. So, uh, this is also
Speaker 1: supposed to be a system that's going to have a
Speaker 1: centuries worth of longevity to it, meaning that the stuff
Speaker 1: that's created at the beginning should still be just as
Speaker 1: accessible in a hundred years. That's not even true for
Speaker 1: the stuff we build right now. That is in itself
Speaker 1: is a huge task, right, I mean, the stuff that
Speaker 1: the stuff that was made back on punch cards. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna I doubt any of our listeners have access
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, So, I mean it sounds like you're
Speaker 1: talking about the same kind of thing I am, from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, more or less. I mean, the
Speaker 1: only thing I because I've seen interpretations that suggest that
Speaker 1: that every implementation of this would adapt on its own
Speaker 1: to a point where like some people have in some
Speaker 1: of the stories I've read, have have equated this to
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence and the potential rise of sentience sentience from
Speaker 1: sentience sentience from from artificial intelligence, which is a totally
Speaker 1: different thing, right, It's not. It's not that the software
Speaker 1: is intelligently adapting itself so that it will be the better, faster,
Speaker 1: and stronger on that hardware. It's just saying, oh, I have,
Speaker 1: uh this much more memory, now let's use it. Or
Speaker 1: you know this, this other program has changed and so
Speaker 1: I need to change in order to use it. Something
Speaker 1: along those lines. I mean, that's again, the vague descriptions
Speaker 1: make it difficult for us to really come down on this,
Speaker 1: and also the responses to this request for proposal could
Speaker 1: end up having a limited response or it could end
Speaker 1: up being a response that that the response says, yes,
Speaker 1: we're gonna meet all of these requirements, but the reality
Speaker 1: may shape out totally differently. It's it's impossible to say
Speaker 1: this is the very dawn of this research for this
Speaker 1: particular project. So it'll be really interesting to see what
Speaker 1: happens for years from now when this this kind of
Speaker 1: research project comes to an end and see where we're
Speaker 1: at and what has actually taken place, because right now
Speaker 1: it's very hard for me to envision what the end
Speaker 1: product is going to be. Like. Another project that is
Speaker 1: in those early beginning stages is called four Is it Mighty?
Speaker 1: It is the Mighty Thore? Yes, it is Technologies for
Speaker 1: Host Resilience, and it is currently it is currently reviewing proposals.
Speaker 1: So they so they had a proposal acceptance round, They've
Speaker 1: received a bunch and they are presumably looking at them
Speaker 1: um and and this this project is trying to discover
Speaker 1: how disease tolerance works in various creatures and various systems
Speaker 1: of creatures and to then identify ways to make organisms,
Speaker 1: uh presumably mostly humans stronger against infection. That makes so
Speaker 1: much more sense than what I thought Technologies for Host
Speaker 1: Resilience was going to be. I thought it was going
Speaker 1: to be about how you know, when you have a party,
Speaker 1: and like you've invited different people to come to your party,
Speaker 1: and you know that one of those people really hates
Speaker 1: the other ones, You've got to figure out how you
Speaker 1: can position them at the party so that you don't
Speaker 1: have any of those awkward social situations. I thought that's
Speaker 1: what this was about. And then fortunately none of them arrive. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's my party to a t Joe, You've just described
Speaker 1: every party I've ever tried to throw. Um the you
Speaker 1: know what? Getting back into this the proposal here. I
Speaker 1: love this idea because to me, this this sounds like
Speaker 1: a proposal. Let's look into alternatives for things like antibiotics,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Yeah, And so it's flipping the common system
Speaker 1: on its head. Of of figuring out how to attack better,
Speaker 1: this is learning how to defend better, which is so
Speaker 1: cool medically speaking. And yeah, especially with all the problems
Speaker 1: that we've talked about having with the overuse of antibiotics.
Speaker 1: And did we do did we do? Yeah? I thought
Speaker 1: we had. Yeah, So yeah, we we talked about that
Speaker 1: at length, about the various issues which I mean, this
Speaker 1: would be a really cool kind of technology that could
Speaker 1: stand to benefit millions of people, well beyond military applications.
Speaker 1: So here's hoping that that pans out. Well, they're also
Speaker 1: darpest looking at alternatives to GPS. Yeah, after creating this
Speaker 1: amazing satellite global UH positioning satellite system, they they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't working so great? Yeah, or rather
Speaker 1: there are there are there are some limitations. Like one
Speaker 1: of the limitations is that, well, if you don't have
Speaker 1: satellite coverage, then you don't get them the data needed
Speaker 1: to tell you where you are. And sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: have satellite coverage because it can be blocked. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it might be blocked by a physical structure. So example,
Speaker 1: you might be in a city that has laws of
Speaker 1: tall buildings and you're not getting a clear signal, and
Speaker 1: that might be it. Sometimes you might be in a
Speaker 1: really deeply wooded area that might be it. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: might have UH an opponent of some sort jamming signals,
Speaker 1: so you cannot get a clear signal from a satellite,
Speaker 1: and thus your device cannot determine what your position is. Um.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of reasons why you might
Speaker 1: want to look into this, or you know, it may
Speaker 1: be that the environment you're in, Like if you are
Speaker 1: in an underground facility, you're not going to get a
Speaker 1: strong signal, you know. So what what are some alternatives? Uh?
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of different proposed was on this.
Speaker 1: One of them is called the All Source Positioning and
Speaker 1: Navigation Project or ASPEN, and UH, this one is interesting.
Speaker 1: It it's supposed to make use of all available signals
Speaker 1: in an area, everything that is being transmitted, including things
Speaker 1: that are not being transmitted by humans. And by that
Speaker 1: I mean it will pick up radio signals, television signals,
Speaker 1: cell tower signals, all to try and position itself, but
Speaker 1: also naturally occurring phenomenon like lightning, because if you know
Speaker 1: where the lightning strike is and your your system detects
Speaker 1: the lightning strike as well, it can coordinate that information
Speaker 1: to help locate your fixed position. UM. And because this
Speaker 1: would be a passive system, you wouldn't without shutting down everything,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to jam it. Uh. So that's
Speaker 1: the you know, one of the ideas, and it's not
Speaker 1: the only alternative GPS that DARP is looking into, but
Speaker 1: it's the one that I can find the most information on. UM.
Speaker 1: Also there looking at maybe looking backward at computer models. Right,
Speaker 1: the computers we have today are digital computers. The computers
Speaker 1: of the past were analog, and they're like, hey, you
Speaker 1: know those analog computers were actually pretty cool. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is ah, this is going to make a lot of
Speaker 1: sense to all the musicians out there. The difference between
Speaker 1: digital and analog. So digital deals with discrete measurements. You know, essentially,
Speaker 1: when you get down to it, a bit is either
Speaker 1: a zero or a one. It can't be any other value, right,
Speaker 1: unless you're talking about quantum bits, which are technically zero,
Speaker 1: one and everything in between. Um, So your classic bit
Speaker 1: is either a zero or a one, and that leads
Speaker 1: to the ability to make discreete measurements with incredible precision.
Speaker 1: But as far as dynamic, changing complicated systems go, it's
Speaker 1: not ideal. So something like a really complex fluid system
Speaker 1: would be difficult to simulate with classical computers without using
Speaker 1: a huge amount of of computational power. That's why when
Speaker 1: we talk about things like these really dynamic systems like
Speaker 1: climates and weather, it's difficult to simulate. It's why it
Speaker 1: needs so much processor power. But what DARPA says is
Speaker 1: that if we look at more of an analog method computation,
Speaker 1: we could potentially make these sort of simulations using much
Speaker 1: less computational power comparatively speaking, make it more efficient, so
Speaker 1: we're not constantly having to build the next great supercomputer
Speaker 1: in order to to simulate these systems. Uh. And when
Speaker 1: we talk about analog, they're not talking about like mechanical
Speaker 1: switches or anything like that. They're talking about some pretty
Speaker 1: high tech stuff like DNA computing models or photonic systems
Speaker 1: that you're using optical uh, you know, fiber optic wires
Speaker 1: instead of instead of electricity. So it would be still
Speaker 1: kind of a sci fi high tech computer, and it
Speaker 1: would be really really good at dealing with certain computational problems,
Speaker 1: not necessarily faster than classical supercomputer for other types of problems, however,
Speaker 1: very much like quantum computers. We talked about that in
Speaker 1: the past two how quantum computers could be amazing at
Speaker 1: particular applications. But it doesn't mean you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to run the next version of Skyrim, like the
Speaker 1: next Elder Scrolls game at the highest frame rate. That's
Speaker 1: not what a quantum computer, but it probably would make
Speaker 1: those mods even more interesting. Now there's a particular office
Speaker 1: within DARPA called the Technical Technology Office, which looks at quote,
Speaker 1: military capabilities that create an asymmetric technological advantage and provide
Speaker 1: US forces with decisive superiority and the ability to overwhelm
Speaker 1: our opponents end quote. So that's your moral fashioned just
Speaker 1: straight up military technology. Yeah, this is the stuff that
Speaker 1: would give our side technical advantage over anyone else's side.
Speaker 1: That's essentially what it comes down to. And what what
Speaker 1: I love is that says an asymmetric technical advantage, Like
Speaker 1: technical advantage isn't good enough, it has to be asymmetrical.
Speaker 1: What they're saying is we're investigating how to make war
Speaker 1: more unfair. Yeah. Yeah, and uh and so here are
Speaker 1: some of them. And the first one I can't believe
Speaker 1: they took this name. I mean, I really can't they
Speaker 1: They have a project called Hydra hale Hydra hale Hydra.
Speaker 1: So that's like a y'all have to help me here,
Speaker 1: because as we've established, I'm sort of a casual comics fan. Alright,
Speaker 1: So two of the three members of four thinking now
Speaker 1: know that the third one is not one of us.
Speaker 1: Hydra is is that some sort of like weird Nazi
Speaker 1: thing in Captain America. It's an evil organization that's set
Speaker 1: up in the Marvel universe that uh, yeah, it's an
Speaker 1: offshoot of the well because you know the Captain Mark
Speaker 1: Captain America rather comics started during World War Two, and
Speaker 1: so the Hydra originally was an offshoot of the Nazis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now now exists as its own totalitarian secret organization
Speaker 1: that is attempting to bring the world under one world order.
Speaker 1: So hopefully that's not what this Defense initiative is trying
Speaker 1: to evoke. Yeah, as far as I know, they don't
Speaker 1: use the Marvel Hydra symbol as their logo or anything. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a project that is specifically dedicated to adding
Speaker 1: unmanned support in naval operations as in the Navy, not
Speaker 1: as in belly buttons. Uh So, manned ships can't be everywhere,
Speaker 1: right like you if you if there's a conflict and
Speaker 1: the Navy has to be involved, uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to just like with any military resource, you have
Speaker 1: to be very strategic about where you're you are locating
Speaker 1: your resources and how they can respond in any given situation,
Speaker 1: and they can't be everywhere at once. So this would
Speaker 1: actually be a program that would UH augment the Navy's
Speaker 1: operations by creating unmanned platforms. And platforms in this sense
Speaker 1: mean a method of uh attaching whatever tools you need
Speaker 1: to accomplish your mission. So if it's surveillance, it might
Speaker 1: be various sensors, cameras, that kind of thing, microphones, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And you would deploy these with Navy ships and ideally
Speaker 1: they would be able to remain operational for months at
Speaker 1: a time without the need of having to be recharged
Speaker 1: or maintained in any way. Uh So, really, in a way,
Speaker 1: it's it's like saying, let's let's have lots of ways
Speaker 1: of listening in and paying attention, so that it's almost
Speaker 1: as if we can be everywhere. But in reality, it's
Speaker 1: because we have these unmanned um platforms in order to
Speaker 1: gain that that or to gather that information underwater drones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be, I mean that could certainly be part
Speaker 1: of it. Because again, this is sort of the definition
Speaker 1: of what their goal is. It's not the explanation of
Speaker 1: how they achieve that goal, right, So they use lots
Speaker 1: of vague terms like platform and payload because it's better
Speaker 1: to go had to be vague and not predefined. What
Speaker 1: it is, because you may come up with a solution
Speaker 1: that didn't meet that predefinition but still is totally applicable. UM,
Speaker 1: then you got vulture. Okay, I like that. They're picking
Speaker 1: lots of commonly feared, mythological and real animals. The Armies
Speaker 1: of Hell burst forth under Defense Department funding. It's not
Speaker 1: not the case in this one either. But the next
Speaker 1: one is called Cerberus. All right, so let's Chiron here
Speaker 1: we get No, it's a This is a project to
Speaker 1: develop an unmanned aerial vehicle you a v that would
Speaker 1: be capable of remaining in flight for up to five
Speaker 1: years without the need for maintenance or refueling. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about like using solar cells and fuel cells that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Uh. The idea being that you could
Speaker 1: put this up in the air, it could have a
Speaker 1: surveillance role UM or reconnaissance role, and you wouldn't need
Speaker 1: to have it come down after because most most drones
Speaker 1: that are used to have a very limited flying time.
Speaker 1: This would be something that would be used for long
Speaker 1: term UM. And that project, actually I believe is now
Speaker 1: concluded and they've they're they kind of transitioned into looking
Speaker 1: into ways of UM accelerating the advancement of solar cell
Speaker 1: technology because it's a very important component of this. Next,
Speaker 1: you have the extreme accuracy tasked ordinance or exact to
Speaker 1: which I have to feel like they're going to get
Speaker 1: into copyright anyway. Yeah, if you're if you're exact. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that you go after the Department's defense,
Speaker 1: but maybe. Um so, this is technology for military snipers
Speaker 1: that could also be a deterrent. Sure. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: one's been in the news a lot over the past
Speaker 1: couple of days since we've been we we are recording
Speaker 1: this podcast episode Look Behind the curtainet on the April,
Speaker 1: and I've been seeing this pop up a whole bunch. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so exact though, this would be guided small caliber bullets.
Speaker 1: And by small caliber, I mean fifty caliber, so small
Speaker 1: for a given definition. And by guided, what do you
Speaker 1: mean guided? So they're developing bullets that would be capable
Speaker 1: of changing pathways in midflight. So let's say that you
Speaker 1: are a sniper and you've lined up a shot on
Speaker 1: a target. You've identified the target, so there'd have to
Speaker 1: be some way for this targeting system to communicate with
Speaker 1: the bullet, essentially saying this is where we're shooting. You fire,
Speaker 1: but let's say the wind changes direction. If you're a
Speaker 1: truly gifted sniper and you're firing from a very far distance,
Speaker 1: a change in wind could be all that it takes
Speaker 1: for a hit to turn into a miss. And if
Speaker 1: you miss, you've also given away potentially your position and
Speaker 1: endangered your mission. So this would be a means of
Speaker 1: having a system that could allow for corrections in bullet
Speaker 1: flight so that the bullet actually hits the intended target.
Speaker 1: Now you'll notice I'm using a lot of terminology that
Speaker 1: dehumanizes the purpose of snipers. That's not by accident. That's
Speaker 1: the way DARPA defines these things too, because once you
Speaker 1: start talking about this is a way for you to
Speaker 1: kill people more efficiently, it gets super grim, super fast.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a strange reminder and wake up
Speaker 1: call on this because while DARPA is coming up with
Speaker 1: lots of wonderful technologies that do filter down to the
Speaker 1: the everyday level, and if we partially have them to
Speaker 1: thank for the Internet, you can see them as a
Speaker 1: very positive organization in a lot of ways. But their
Speaker 1: funding technology technology, But we also have to remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're gonna make bullets and stuff too write and
Speaker 1: you know, you could even argue that, you know, the
Speaker 1: responsible use of that technology can still be positive in
Speaker 1: the overall scheme of things, But should you get down
Speaker 1: to particulars, it's it's it's hard to talk about, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, and you just you just can't
Speaker 1: forget that when they say engage targets faster, what they
Speaker 1: genuinely mean is is kill a bunch of people, yeah,
Speaker 1: more efficiently. Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean, that's that's just
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation. Now that technology may end
Speaker 1: up affecting other things that end up being in civilian
Speaker 1: technology down the road that we can't necessarily anticipate right now.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, I can imagine, for for example, going back
Speaker 1: to autonomous vehicles, guiding systems being useful for for that
Speaker 1: kind of right or even for some forms of autonomous flight.
Speaker 1: It could be important, and you know, lots of different
Speaker 1: other robotics. Really clearly, if if you're if your room
Speaker 1: book can target the pile of of escaped kitty litterle
Speaker 1: better sure, just not thinking about being in fear of
Speaker 1: my room, but my room is able to pick me
Speaker 1: off from across the house. Um So, the next one
Speaker 1: is one that we've already kind of referenced earlier in
Speaker 1: this episode, the Legged Squad Support System or l S three.
Speaker 1: This is the one that includes the technology that was
Speaker 1: developed by Boston Dynamics, the big dog technology, the legged
Speaker 1: robotic units. And the purpose for these isn't to fulfill
Speaker 1: the enemy with fear when they see this for legged
Speaker 1: monstrosity marching towards them at a style change their hearts
Speaker 1: and make them collapse into a puddle of Oh it's
Speaker 1: so cute. Yeah, it's not neither of those things. It's
Speaker 1: specifically to serve as like a mule. It's it's designed
Speaker 1: to carry cargo because soldiers can carry a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: Some of them might be carrying upwards of a hundred
Speaker 1: pounds of gear. That's like forty five kilos of gear.
Speaker 1: That's that's heavy, and to think that, you know, you
Speaker 1: often will end up also having to walk a very
Speaker 1: great distance while carrying that. You know, you're you're already
Speaker 1: talking about a huge physical demand on a soldier, and
Speaker 1: that's before there's any sort of combat that might take
Speaker 1: a point. Yeah, and that kind of physical strain can
Speaker 1: absolutely affect your performance in the field. Sure. So this
Speaker 1: this project is about finding means of creating a robotic
Speaker 1: uh systems that could carry gear on behalf of soldiers.
Speaker 1: It could keep pace with soldiers, So it has to
Speaker 1: be able to go across different types of terrain, including
Speaker 1: difficult terrain, and to remain safe around those soldiers. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you have to create a robot that
Speaker 1: not only keeps pace and can travel the same sort
Speaker 1: of ground that the soldiers do, but doesn't tread on
Speaker 1: their feet or bump into them or you know other
Speaker 1: things that we've talked about with robots, things that you
Speaker 1: have to consider anytime you have a robot and human
Speaker 1: potentially interacting with one another. So that's what that system
Speaker 1: is all about. Uh So yeah, I mean those are
Speaker 1: just that's just a kind of an overview of some
Speaker 1: of the projects that DARPA has in various stages of
Speaker 1: development right now. There are tons of other ones that
Speaker 1: we didn't even touch upon. Oh of course. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are many, many, many things that they're always working on.
Speaker 1: If you guys have heard about one that you would
Speaker 1: like us to take a deeper look at, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Yeah, you should send us
Speaker 1: an email and say, hey, there's the specific DARPA initiative
Speaker 1: that we would love to hear more about. We will
Speaker 1: happily take a look at least as far as DARPA
Speaker 1: will allow us to and and report back on that.
Speaker 1: You can contact us by just sending an email to
Speaker 1: FW thinking at how Stuff Works dot com. I think
Speaker 1: I may have mentioned that email address before, uh but
Speaker 1: FW thinking at how stuff Works dot com in case
Speaker 1: you missed it the first five times. Um So, this
Speaker 1: is one of those things where you know, I am
Speaker 1: overall happy that DARPA exists. Actually, I'm really happy that
Speaker 1: DARPA exists, because as as flippant as I can be
Speaker 1: about this, national defense is incredibly important. And you know,
Speaker 1: we would not be here if it weren't for nash
Speaker 1: Old events, like our lives would be if they were,
Speaker 1: in fact, our lives would be significantly different. Um So,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things. But I'm also thankful
Speaker 1: for the technology that has come out of it that
Speaker 1: has benefited us in a consumer fashion. Again, the three
Speaker 1: of us would not be in this room right now
Speaker 1: if it weren't for the Internet. We wouldn't have jobs,
Speaker 1: not here anyway. Well, I mean, in that parallel universe,
Speaker 1: we might all wind up sitting in a small room
Speaker 1: talking together. Anyway, to be in this room trying to
Speaker 1: create a fire, I think. I think two out of
Speaker 1: the three of us would be trying to induct the
Speaker 1: third one into hydra. Joe, I have an interesting business
Speaker 1: opportunity for you. Well, I have a rat on a
Speaker 1: skewer to cook. I want to get this fire going.
Speaker 1: That's fair, all right? So at any rate, Uh, As
Speaker 1: far as what the future holds for DARPA, it's really
Speaker 1: going to be a continuation of developing technologies that will
Speaker 1: benefit military operations in some way, whether it's directly for
Speaker 1: combat roles or support roles. That's its purpose. It's going
Speaker 1: to continue doing that, and as a result those technologies,
Speaker 1: many of them will filter down to benefit our lives
Speaker 1: in ways that are very difficult for us to anticipate
Speaker 1: right now. I'm sure when when DARPA was first formed,
Speaker 1: back when it was ARPA, no one had really thought
Speaker 1: about the possibility of something as incredible as the Internet, right,
Speaker 1: and so it's when you think about that there, it's
Speaker 1: impossible for us to predict what's going to come out next,
Speaker 1: and There are plenty of research and development UH departments
Speaker 1: in in UM companies and in universities that depends very
Speaker 1: heavily upon DARPA's investment in order for them to do
Speaker 1: the work they do, so it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: what comes next. Any predictions, Joe, I think that the
Speaker 1: the controlling of large flying beetles is really going to
Speaker 1: be key to the next stage of of how stuff works,
Speaker 1: in particular because we're going to be moving away from
Speaker 1: like web video podcasting and into disseminating leaflets that are
Speaker 1: carried out by beatles controlled by computers. I think that
Speaker 1: the beatles could actually be carrying our microphones and video cameras,
Speaker 1: like like swarms of microphones and video cameras. I think
Speaker 1: they already do now. There are only two remaining beatles,
Speaker 1: but I think they're fully capable of carrying cameras and microphones.
Speaker 1: My prediction is that the next big thing coming out
Speaker 1: of DARPA will be a pun generating computer. And then
Speaker 1: you can post exactly that. We can sit in Jonathan's
Speaker 1: chair and it will just take whatever the last word
Speaker 1: we said was and turn it into something horrific. I
Speaker 1: think the important thing for us to remember is that
Speaker 1: all you need is love. So if you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes a Forward Thinking again, write us.
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