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US Military Moving Closer To Automated Killing
Doofus writes "A recent article in the Washington Post, A future for drones: Automated killing, describes the steady progress the military is making toward fully autonomous networks of targeting and killing machines. Does this (concern|scare|disgust) any of you? Quoting: 'After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look. Target confirmed. This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial "Terminators," minus beefcake and time travel.' The article goes on to discuss the dangers of surrendering to fully autonomous killing, concerns about the potential for 'atrocities,' and the nature of what we call 'common sense.'"
Given the amount of friendly fire deaths in recent wars it would be interesting to see if software has a better rate of IDing enemies than humans do.
Landmines do automated killing every day!
Move all violence to online simulations.
The 'automated recognition' in this case was a large orange tarp. The difficulty of creating an automated recognition algorithm for an orange object in a natural background is extremely low. Wake us up when this thing can recognize camouflaged tanks in a forest.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why don't we, instead of perfecting our killing methods, simply stop initiating economy destroying pointless wars?
I'm excited about all the trickle-down technology that'll eventually become consumer grade fare, and I appreciate the advancement in various technology that war brings, but I would much prefer it if the US stopped economically destroying itself (while giving the Middle East a "Great Satan" to fight) and instead let them get back to killing each other over tiny differences in interpretation of fundamentalist Islam.
Not even Bob the Builder can fix the Middle East at the moment. Not when you have God handing out the real estate titles and commanding the thousands of various splinter cells to annihilate everything that's not exactly identical to themselves, as trillions of dollars of oil money pour into the region to feed and fund it all.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Oh, and no love for the robots that risk their lives in place of the soldiers? Jerk.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Someone should make a movie about this. . .
I read somewhere recently a quote that, IIRC, was from Churchill. It was something about avoiding war, but if you must fight, fight with severity, for that is the most humane. I think that applies here. Though it sounds incredibly cruel, if people are not dying in your war, there will be no incentive for either side to stop.
Of course, Gadhafi, Hussein, Stalin, and similar madmen are somewhat of a counter example in that they don't give up no matter how many of their side are killed. Yet Japan in WWII is an example of the ruthless severity (nuclear bombs) causing an immediate and complete cessation of any attempts to create war.
Even modern times with Gadhafi and Hussein, the invasion of Iraq was much more severe than the Libyan rebels, thus the shorter amount of time to cause the government to capitulate. (Getting the rest of the population to stop fighting, much harder... we'll see how Libya does without the outside intervention.)
Anyway, the point is that robot vs robot is war by proxy. Without the violence, the bloodshed, the impetus to end the war just won't be the same. They'll drag on for longer and longer, and resolution will be even less certain than it is today. I'm not sure that's necessarily such a good thing.
All power comes from the barrel of a gun. Aimed at you - to make you comply. Willingly, or otherwise.
All power comes from being able to make someone happy. Really, think about it. A gun is no guarantee that someone will comply. If they feel certain you will shoot, then it has almost no power at all. The power of a gun comes from the fact that you MIGHT make them happy by not killing them.
If your goal is to get people to do something, you'll do much better paying them than trying to threaten them. And if you can make them happy in other ways, you may be even more powerful than merely with money.
Obama didn't obtain the most powerful office in the world by threatening to kill people (King George tried that, and got a revolution). He got votes by giving people hope for change. How much change he delivered is a different thing (certainly he delivered some), but people were happy to believe that it might be true. So they voted for him.
The reality of power is different than what a lot of people think.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I haven't seen a lot of wars about liberty lately. Most were about economics or territory, some were about religion. To my knowledge, the last time the USA was attacked on own territory was Pearl Harbor and the last time the US mainland was invaded was well over 100 years ago. In the end, only the weapons manufacturers get a good deal out of war, the people just get another sock puppet ruling their countries.
There are a lot of treaties that try to limit the number of nukes, land mines and other non-discriminatory weapons on the planet. Adding new weapons to the list to have treaties about isn't really productive if we ever want to stop innocent bystanders dying in war.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
That won't be an issue. The only prominent US politician who's serious about ending America's wars is even more serious about ending all forms of welfare.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
If ever there was an appropriate time for the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag, this is it.
People voted for Obama because they believed he would do violence to others rather than themselves.
You either have a weird definition of violence, or a weird idea of your fellow citizens. I know nobody who voted for Obama because they thought he would do violence to someone.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Looks like they automated Godwin too.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What bothers me is these things make war easier to wage. When Americans aren't coming home in coffins, it's a lot easier for the public and politicians to accept war, therefore we're more likely to start wars.
If we're risking our own soldiers and pilots, at least we might think twice and look for other solutions before starting a war. However, once you've made war palatable to your own public, too often it becomes the first resort especially amongst the hawkish (and religious right versus non-Christian enemies)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
If you can have a discussion about war without talking about economics, then you're probably a child. If you can have a discussion about war without talking about ethics, then you're probably a politician.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You will be in a small cell and be fed corn through a tube, when you have become fat enough, the bottom of your cell will open, you will fall down into a boiler, and your fat will be tuned into fuel.
FRA: STFU GTFO
In the type of asymmetric warfare we are engaged in today robots may not be very effective especially at their current intelligence. Using a gun caries great responsibility and attaching one to a robot and having it make intelligent life and death decisions is something that is far off. I hope by the time we automate killing that we will have fixed most of the problems that cause us to go to war.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I assume you're referring to Ron Paul here, but you're somewhat wrong about the idea that the only opposition to war comes from libertarians. Among others, you can point to Ron Paul's frequent Democratic ally on stopping wars, Dennis Kucinich - he's staunchly anti-war, and staunchly pro-welfare, and polls about as well nationally as Ron Paul.
I am officially gone from
Just politically correct. The US already has policies in place that effectively meet and exceed the goals of the Ottawa treaty.
We stopped selling mines, we destroyed old stockpiles. we have spent over a billion dollars clearing mines and helping victims (usually not our mines). Our new mines are self-destructing or self-disarming, and policy is to not place one without its position being recorded, and that it be removed from any battlefield after its need has passed.
Even with that, the only place we actually use them is in the Korean DMZ. The last time we used them in combat was the Gulf War, in limited use. These were scatterable mines, fired or dropped to a specific grid coordinate to deny use of that small area to the enemy. Since this was their first use we did make mistakes, as apparently not every shot was recorded and reported for later easy cleanup. Rules for their use have since been changed, and by now they should be converted to self-destructing or self-dearming anyway.
One of the most difficult problems we've encountered in prosecuting such wars (starting as far back as Vietnam) is trying to figure out who's "these malevolent folks" and who's a bystander. That's a tough decision in any case, and a very tough decision in the face of fire. But we've found that it's a decision that must be made because we're not fighting the same kind of war that General Sherman fought. The concept of automating killing machines sets my teeth on edge specifically because of your attitude of "tools that will let us take out these malevolent folks without the death of our troops" because it's painfully obvious that you show little concern for the civilians that get caught up with those malevolent folks. It's easy to say that they shouldn't aid or abet the bad guys, but when a bunch of people set up in your house and tell you to keep your mouth shut or they'll shoot your kids, the concept of the greater good goes away in a hurry. Put on top of that the idea that there are Patriots sitting at home who have no problem with an automated drone cutting said house to bits to kill the bad guys (and killing the coerced family at the same time) and I find your view of warfare to be disturbingly myopic. In short, it hurts like Hell to say it but I'd rather see our soldiers suffering casualties by holding their fire until they're absolutely certain who their target is than have our soldiers killing innocent people because they're not concerned with collateral damage. The reason for that is that in the long run, the civilian population sees that they're doing their best not to kill bystanders and that makes them more likely to step up when they can. As Vietnam showed, doing it the other way around does nothing but alienate the population which leads to more American deaths in the long run.
Virg