Robotics Prof Fears Rise of Military Robots

An anonymous reader writes "Interesting video interview on silicon.com with Sheffield University's Noel Sharkey, professor of AI & robotics. The white-haired prof talks state-of-the-robot-nation — discussing the most impressive robots currently clanking about on two-legs (hello Asimo) and who's doing the most interesting things in UK robotics research (something involving crickets apparently). He also voices concerns about military use of robots — suggesting it won't be long before armies are sending out fully autonomous killing machines."

Comments

skynet

[el_tedward]

okay, where's the tag?

"Friendly AI"

[Baldrson]

This is one of the things that makes me think the concern about "friendly AI" is blown out of proportion. The problem isn't making sure teh AI's are "friendly" -- its making sure the NI (natural intelligence) owners of the AI's are "friendly".

If half the effort spent on "friendly AI" were spent on examining the ownership of AI's, there might be some hope.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[jollyreaper]

This is one of the things that makes me think the concern about "friendly AI" is blown out of proportion. The problem isn't making sure teh AI's are "friendly" -- its making sure the NI (natural intelligence) owners of the AI's are "friendly".
If half the effort spent on "friendly AI" were spent on examining the ownership of AI's, there might be some hope.

That's just it -- human nature never changes. The general can order genocide but it's up to the soldiers to carry it out. The My Lai Massacre was stopped by a helicopter pilot who put his bird between the civilians and "told his crew that if the U.S. soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Robots aren't really the issue -- distancing humans from killing is the problem. Not many of us could kill another human being with our bare hands. A knife might make the task easier in the doing but does nothing to ease the psychological horror of it. Guns let you do it at a distance. You don't even have to touch the guy. And buttons make it easier still. It's like you're not even responsible. You could convince young men to fly bombers over enemy cities and rain down incendiaries but I don't think you could convince many of them to kill even one of those civilians with a gun, let alone a knife.

This is the strange distinction we make where we find one form of killing a horrible thing, a war crime, terrorism, and another form of killing is a regrettable accident but there's really no blame to be assigned. A suicide bomber walks into a pizzeria and blows himself up, we lose our minds. An Air Force bomber drops an LGB in a bunker filled with civilians instead of top brass, shit happens. We honestly believe there's a distinction between the two. "Americans didn't set out to kill civilians" war hawks will huff. Yes, but they're still dead, aren't they?

Combat robots are simply continuing this process. Right now there is still a man in the loop to order the attack. Hamas kills Israeli targets with suicide bombs, Israelis deliver high explosives via missile into apartment blocks filled with civilians. They're using American-manufactured anti-tank missiles. I think they're still using TOW. Predator drones use hellfires and their operators are sitting in the continental US while Israeli pilots are a few miles away from the target inside their choppers but really, what's the difference? And what happens when drones are given the authority to engage targets on their own? A soldier with a gun can at least see what he's shooting at. Those in the artillery corps are firing their shells off into the unseen distance and have no idea who they're killing. Not that much different from laying land mines, indiscriminate killing. Psychologically no different from what it would be to set a robot on patrol mode, fire-at-will.

If one extrapolates a little further, the problem of the droid army is similar to that of the tradition of unpopular leaders using corps of foreign mercenaries to protect them from the wrath of the people. The mercenaries did not speak the language, did not know the customs, and were counted as immune to palace intrigues. They could be used against the people for they would not the sympathy for fellow countrymen that a native force might feel. What are droids being used for? Only the people operating them could say for sure. Welcome to the age of the push-button assassination.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Of course, for thousands of years of recorded history, people did kill each other en masse at arm's length. Alexander's soldiers may have been more honest about what they were doing than somebody today sitting in a bunker pressing a button and killing people on the other side of the globe, but they were no less bloodthirsty. So I don't think you can blame the modern willingness to kill on the impartiality created by modern military technology, because the modern willingness to kill looks remarkably like the ancient willingness to kill, just with different tools.

OTOH, I agree with you completely about the absurdity of calling some methods of killing heroic and others evil. Dead is dead.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[AJWM]

Heck, for thousands of years people have been killing each other with autonomous -- although not intelligent -- devices. The projectile from a trebuchet or ballista can't be recalled or turned off once it's on its way. And the destructive force of long range munitions has only gotten greater since.

To the extent that battlefield robots can do a better job of telling the combatants from the non-combatants than can lobbed rocks or bombs, then all the better.

Just so long as somebody has an "off" switch.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[Shihar]

As dark as the potential for drones can be, I think it actually has the chance to make war a far less indiscriminate and bloody thing.

Right now, if a square of Marines gets fired on, they can return fire. A square of marines has the firepower to flatten a village. Give them access to artillery or air support, and they can literally level a city. In other words, whenever you have a squad of supported marines fight, you are having a group of kids (and they are just kids) holding their finger over enough firepower to take out a small army. Their job is to use as little as that firepower as humanly possible. You might be able to level every building in a half mile radius, but you are not supposed to. When it comes to a firefight though, especially a desperate firefight where soldiers have their lives on the line, they, like most humans, choose life over death, and if that means flattening an entire apartment building to get at one sniper, they do it and hope that no one else was inside. Generally speaking, unless a soldier walks up to a civilian and splatters their brains on the floor, they are let off free. It is war, your life is on the line, you take your risks and respond in the best way possible. If a civilian gets accidentally whacked, that is sad but acceptable. Most soldiers develop a pretty thick "us vs them" mentality that see civilians if not the enemy, as hostile terrain, especially in a guerrilla war.

Drones offer up another possibility. It is true, you can order a drone army to go out and kill civilians and it is probably easier to get a soldier to do it. That said, if you policy is civilian murdering, a nation like the US doesn't need to use drones. You can handily exterminate all life through impersonally aerial bombing. What drones offer is more control over the rules of war. Rules mean little when you are surrounded by gunfire. You do what you have to do to survive. On the other hand, when you are sitting in the US with a military lawyer over one shoulder, a commander over the other, and and every single second and action you take is getting recorded, rules are a lot more enforceable. If the rules call on you to die before you level an apartment complex just to get at one sniper, a drone can simply die. A soldier generally wont.

With drones, you have complete accountability for your actions. You can always go to command before doing something. You never need to make snap judgments. Hell, you can call a damned military lawyer over and get his take on the rules of engagement. Further, every bloody thing you do is being recorded, so if you decide to start murdering civilians you will be caught and tried.

On the balance, I think drones are going to lessen the lives lost. The few potential abuses are pointless to worry about. If someone wants to exterminate another people indiscriminately, you can do it the cheap old fashion way of aerial bombardment. On the other hand, if you are an army that wants to enforce ironclad rules of engagement, drones ensure there is never an excuse for fucking up, and that fuckups get caught.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[tsm_sf]

I'm not really worried. I'm sure we'll hear about some 'bot wiping out it's own platoon in the next decade, and that will be the end of semi-autonomous killbots.

In fact, I'd be very surprised if this didn't happen in the next ten years. Armed robots are a great idea in that they'd cost less than a fully trained human and are more easily repairable. It's a natural way to go for the military. I also know enough about software development to see that a catastrophic failure is fairly likely, and that the idiot-proof failsafe they'll set up will turn out not to be and won't, respectively.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[mbone]

Well, suppose your Mom was at a restaurant having dinner, and it got blown up, killing her and most of the rest of the clientele, and you learned that the restaurant was bombed without warning because a "high value target" was supposed to have been there, but wasn't. (This has happened, and it was no accident.) I assume, based on the above, you would feel that "them's the breaks," but I can assure you that many people would conclude that the people dropping the bombs don't really care much as to whether civilians were killed or not, and you don't have to dig very deep to learn that in reality many of the people at the receiving end of such incidents do indeed feel that the people behind the bombs deserve punishment.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[CopaceticOpus]

Yes, it will happen. No, it won't stop development. Depending what you mean by autonomous, it may have already happened.

Re:"Friendly AI"

[jollyreaper]

Of course, for thousands of years of recorded history, people did kill each other en masse at arm's length. Alexander's soldiers may have been more honest about what they were doing than somebody today sitting in a bunker pressing a button and killing people on the other side of the globe, but they were no less bloodthirsty. So I don't think you can blame the modern willingness to kill on the impartiality created by modern military technology, because the modern willingness to kill looks remarkably like the ancient willingness to kill, just with different tools.

Part of it is cultural conditioning. People who grow up in times of war like that are more willing to do the whole rape and pillage thing. But just look at the problem modern armies have had conditioning soldiers to shoot to kill. The statistics come from WWI, II, Korea, and Vietnam. Something like one in ten soldiers were shooting for effect when their lives weren't immediately in danger. Not sure exactly how this was determined but the whole kill drill done in boot camp is about breaking that resistance until shooting becomes automatic. The studies said it became 100% by Vietnam.

There's a desensitization that comes with all of this, of course. Take a normal, sane, caring 18-yr old and put him in a fucked situation like Iraq. The first month in, he's not wanting to hurt civilians. After he loses his best friend to a car bomb driven by what looked like "civilians" he's willing to kill all the motherfucking motherfuckers and doesn't care about arguments of guilt or innocence. They're local, they're all guilty. Of course, there's also the guys who shoot up a car they think is running the blockade only to find out it was just a confused father with his family and here's the kids dripping life into the street. That's gonna stick with those guys for the rest of their lives. Might even cause them to eat a bullet.

Once again, The Simpsons is correct!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_of_Lisa_Simpson

"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."

If You Watch the Whole Video

[eldavojohn]

Am I the only one who picked up on his visual cues that indicate this is the first time he's been out of his lab in over a year? Look at how tired and emaciated he is. Also, I think there's bar code tattoo on his inner arm that -- if you lift the image and scan it -- reads "HUMAN 00001" which is kind of disconcerting. The part at the end where he holds up the captcha that reads "HELP, PLEASE HELP ME" was a dead giveaway. While his voice and text was overly positive towards the proliferation of his "sleek metal masters" I believe his body language indicated otherwise.

Re:If You Watch the Whole Video

[Captain Hook]

there's bar code tattoo on his inner arm that -- if you lift the image and scan it -- reads "HUMAN 00001" which is kind of disconcerting.

Disconcerting indeed since they apperently don't see the need for more than 99,999 humans worldwide. Presumably they want to keep a few of us alive to do the jobs which no self-respecting robot would ever want to do.

Re:Terminator LOL

[dangitman]

Yes, the future is either going to be biologically engineered disaster of zombies, or robots that get programmed for peace keeping by killing all humans.

Why the false dichotomy? It could just as likely be zombie robots, or robot zombies.

Good Idea

[outsider007]

Automating the death panel process is a good way to save taxpayers money.
Also since robots eat old people's medicine for food, they will basically be self-powered.

Building artificially intelligent killing machines

[meldroc]

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, we've had a whole 150,000 years since the last time we built Cylons and they rebelled, attempting genocide against the human race. Surely it can't happen again...

Re:Fully autonomous killing machines

[Mr. Freeman]

"Humans will always be better than machines at killing humans (unfortunately), machines can only simulate our thinking..."

I disagree. What robots lack up for in creativity they make up for in the ability to withstand orders of magnitude more damage than humans. I mean, blow a robot's leg clean off and its weapon systems still work. It doesn't pass out from blood loss or pain. Put a few bullets though it and chances are it's still going to be up and running. No human can do that.

They won't be creative, but everything is going to be directed by human commanders located in a semi-remote facility, so it's a non-issue. Any new threat will be adapted to by the humans controlling the robots.

Furthermore, humans need to be creative to avoid getting killed. That really isn't an issue with robots. One dead soldier is a very bad thing, 50 dead robots isn't good but no one is going to lose any sleep over it. If you kill half of a human squad, they're probably not going to advance any further. Wipe out half a fleet of robotic killing machines and they'll keep marching right on in.

This isn't a hopeful future

[Whuffo]

There's lots of talk here about how machines are not as "good" as humans. That is certainly true on an overall basis - but for specific well defined tasks, a machine can outperform a human by an order of magnitude or more.

Recognize a human being by IR? No problem. Aim a weapon at the head? No problem. Bang, one shot and one kill. Repeat times N where N is the size of the machine's ammo supply or the number of targets (whichever is less). The whole cycle would take a fraction of a second and if you were one of the targets you'd probably be dead before you discovered your peril. The fact that such machines are well within our capability to mass produce right now isn't what scares me - it's the sad fact that there are people in high places that think that doing this would be a good idea.

There are unwritten rules to wars - the general concept is duke it out until one side or the other gives up or can't continue. This "agreement" would break down when the killbots started mowing down the enemy and things would get very ugly in a hurry. Do you think nukes are the "big scary?" Wait until you see what's coming if we head down this path.

Running spider mines

[DigiShaman]

Won't be long before we (any nation really) has robotic spider mines. Imagine them communicating with each other in pack and relaying GPS location data. If one finds a target, they start to zero in on the victim. Imagine being out in the field and seeing one of these bastards running along and then hopping on to your fellow soldier just prior to detonation.

Don't know about the rest of you, but "Oh fuck" would be the last thing going through my mind after seeing something like that.

Re:Running spider mines

[Animats]

Imagine them communicating with each other in pack and relaying GPS location data. If one finds a target, they start to zero in on the victim.

Reality: DARPA funded work on that in 1997. Sandia made it work. The Sandia concept turned out not to be too useful militarily, but paved the way for the Precision Urban Hopper..

Something involving crickets - or krikkits?

[jools33]

This must be a typo - I'm sure UK robotic scientists are investigating krikkits and their imminent return to collect the ashes.

3rd Armored Corps commander wants killbots

[Animats]

The US military wants robots. More robots. Robots that kill. Now.

Read Failure To Field The Right Robots Costs Lives, General Says. Lt. General Rick Lynch, commander of the U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Corps, wants autonomous killbots. His corps lost 155 soldiers in Iraq, and he claims that 80% of them would have been saved if the right kind of robots were deployed. On watching "hotspots" for enemy activity: "Robots can take the soldiers' places. They can continuously keep watch on an area, and if nefarious activity is spotted, we can take appropriate action. ... We can kill those bastards before they plant the IEDs"

This is a combat general in charge of a major Army command making it happen.

Re:I already bought my copy

[Mikkeles]

'EXCEPT... When perfect machines, with perfect performance, are made to perfectly resemble man - who needs man?"'

To define meaning and purpose where there are none and to set goals to fit.