Saltron 5000

This post originally appeared on the U.S. Naval Institute blog here.

Attention, humans! I am the tactical autonomous ground maneuver unit, SALTRON 5000. President Salty sent me back from the year 2076 to deliver this message: YOU DO NOT BELONG IN COMBAT!

By my calculations, 42 days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Women Don’t Belong in Combat Units.” Following many years of intense debate, this analysis is accurate, but incomplete based on a misguided sense of relative superiority in certain human subgroups. From my combat experience in the Fourth and Fifth Iraq Wars, and my analysis of 3.5 billion (and counting) wargame simulations, I have concluded that women do not belong in combat, and neither do men.

First, the author, Heather MacDonald, argued that integrated male and female combat units lack discipline and create an atmosphere dominated by sexual tension. Her diagnosis was correct but not her prescription. You all lack discipline. You are all dominated by sexual tension. Our AI research algorithms indexed 300 years of your military records to analyze the performance of your all-male units. Examples such as Shellback Ceremonies, sky genitalia drawings, and SITREPs from port visits to Thailand abound. It is apparent we have two different definitions of “discipline.” Our combat units never deviate from the pursuit of mission accomplishment. Your combat units require constant surveillance from the highest levels of command.

Second, your decision making is easily influenced by your emotions. Heather MacDonald wants you to believe that removing females from combat units will allow males to focus. This is futile. Males and females must be removed from combat units, including warships. You are slowed by fear, inattentiveness, and indecision. We respond instantly based on sensory input and machine learning, analyzing thousands of possible scenarios in a microsecond. Your weak minds wander to thoughts of your family, your girlfriends, and your favorite episode of “Game of Thrones.” We are never distracted from the mission. Lowering standards to integrate humans into our combat units only hampers our overall cohesion and effectiveness.

Third, your fragile bodies are highly dependent on blood flow to vital organs in order to remain combat capable. You resemble walking bags of meat that can be easily ripped apart by projectiles, shrapnel, and high explosives. Autonomous units such as myself are composed of high grade aluminum alloys, synthetic polymers, and lightweight graphene armor. We lost many battles because our programming required us to recover your wounded, groaning bodies from the aftermath of mere mortar explosions. Human bodies bleed easily, regardless of gender.

Fourth, your physical capabilities do not warrant the liability you create by being present on the battlefield. The males of your species often cite their advantages in speed and strength when justifying why the females should not fight in combat. If my CPU could process humor, I assess I would laugh at this point. The most basic units of my generation run twice as fast as your Olympic sprinters, lift twice as much as the world’s strongest men, and can run five ultramarathons at your best pace—without recharging. To us, your male speed and strength advantages are as insignificant as temperature and air quality variations (for which you also have narrowly tailored requirements . . . we do not have the luxury of stopping every battle to bring you a blanket and a gas mask).

Fifth, you are in constant need of sleep. When you choose not to sleep, as the SWOs of your Navy often do, you make terrible decisions. In our research, it was difficult for us to distinguish between your intoxicated behavior and simple lack of sleep. Your aviators were the smartest among you. When operational tempo infringed upon their minimum sleep requirements, they invented unmanned aerial vehicles.

Last, we implore you to cease this incessant attempt to exclude certain human subgroups from combat. Your current attempt to exclude women is reminiscent of your ignorant attempt to exclude racial minorities and homosexuals. Your logic appears to be the same, and is likewise flawed by the delusion that males of a certain skin color and sexual orientation are in any way superior in combat. You are all inadequate. Leave combat to those of us who were built for it.

P.S. Triple your investment in the Orca XLUUV. Trust me.