The U.S. Army is seriously considering replacing soldiers with robots

The Army is set to trim its ranks by more than 100,000 soldiers. Guess how they're planning to make up the difference?

Army robot
(Image credit: (John Moore/Getty Images))

In industries across the economic spectrum — from food service, to manufacturing, to legal services and medicine — robots and artificial intelligences are taking on what were once exclusively human jobs. And this isn’t just the most basic tasks — as robotics and computing become more sophisticated, the types of work that are being automated are growing in sophistication.

This is coming true in the military, too. Last week at the Army Aviation Symposium, in Arlington, Virginia, Gen. Robert Cone, head of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, announced that the Army is looking to reduce its human personnel numbers and "recruit" more robots to its ranks.

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John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.