UN Debates Rules Surrounding Killer Robots

First time accepted submitter khb writes "It seems that the UN has started a debate on whether to place limits or bans on robots that can kill without manual supervision. It seems that bombs are viewed as 'kinder' than robots which might be programmed to achieve specific ends (e.g. destroy that bridge, kill anyone carrying a gun, etc.)."

Comments

robots can't kill people

[WillgasM]

it's in the rules.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's also against the rules to assassinate enemy leaders outside war, but ok to initiate a war with a full frontal assault killing hubdreds of thousands on both sides.

Ironically, that's less upsetting -- getting your nation's ass whooped -- than getting your Fearless Leader killed.

Re:robots can't kill people

[JustOK]

wrong rules.

Re:robots can't kill people

[WillgasM]

How does first post get modded redundant?

Re:robots can't kill people

[dkleinsc]

I thought the rules were:
1. Serve the public trust.
2. Protect the innocent.
3. Uphold the law.
4. (classified)

Re:robots can't kill people

[Spy Handler]

you mean the Laws, not the rules... right?

As in Asimov's 3 Laws.

Re:robots can't kill people

[buchner.johannes]

The laws have never been implemented. And it is not established that it is possible for them to be implemented.
See here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics#Ambiguities_and_loopholes
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics#Applications_to_future_technology
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_artificial_intelligence

If robot rules say robots aren't allowed to do X, doesn't that imply robots that do X are not allowed? So people thinking Asimovs laws are awesome should be in favor of a killer robot ban, until robots can be shown to follow the laws.

Re:robots can't kill people

[camperdave]

How does first post get modded redundant?

When it repeats points made in the summary or the Fancy Article, perhaps?

Re:robots can't kill people

[DudemanX]

Technically, those are cyborg(not robot) rules.

Re:robots can't kill people

[lgw]

It's worth noting that the premise for almost every Robot story Asimov wrote was "something unacceptable despite the robot following the Three Laws". That's really what I liked about those stories: by extension to human moral codes, they're exploring how you can't prevent problems/evil with a simple set of rules.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

You are, of course, assuming that anyone making laws would understand the Three Laws of Robotics posited by Mr. Asimov. You would also be talking about the gubmint led by such sterling examples of anencephaly as Louie Gohmert, and the Turtle hisself. Do you really think those legislators are even capable of UNDERSTANDING the three laws, much less give a damn? (They would, but only if they could put in place their own "LAW #0," that would make every robots' first duty to interfere with any human abortion that might be undertaken by a duly licensed physician.)

Re:robots can't kill people

[Cryacin]

Fight for robot rights! (Before they do)

Re:robots can't kill people

[TapeCutter]

Would you like a patch for your missing eye?

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the first law covers that one. "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure he's saying it sarcastically.

Re:robots can't kill people

[khasim]

However, for those that think the drones should be removed, just what do you propose to replace them with? or are you ok submitting to the Islamic political order under Sharia (which is the stated and published goal of the OIC, if you care to listen:

So you believe that the ONLY alternative to drone attacks is to convert to Sharia law?

Who, exactly, is going to impose Sharia law on the US? And I don't mean who would LIKE to. Who, exactly, has that capability?

The OIC realised it can't get its agenda through sovereign national parliaments - so what it is doing is manipulating the UN and then the resulting treaties will then be applied.

How about you look up who has veto power at the UN. Here's a hint, the US is one of them. If we don't like it, we can veto it.

There is a shadow war for freedom that is going on right now. If you don't stand up and argue for your liberties then the OIC (through the UN) *will* progressively take them away - it may take decades, but they are determined to reach their goal (Sharia) because it is a matter of faith for them.

Exactly HOW is ANYONE going to replace any part of the US legal system or Constitution with Sharia law?

Re:robots can't kill people

[MinamataHG]

It's about robots killing without supervision. Your rant is off topic.

Re:robots can't kill people

[khasim]

The weird part is that he keeps posting things like that and they keep getting mod'ed up. Here's his page here:
http://slashdot.org/~SplashMyBandit

Not mod'ed "flamebait" or "off topic".

Is this something on /. to generate more page hits by mod'ing up anti-UN / anti-Islam / conspiracy rants?

Re:robots can't kill people

[dpidcoe]

It's worth noting that the premise for almost every Robot story Asimov wrote was "something unacceptable despite the robot following the Three Laws".

Which I found quite hilarious to point out to my uncle when he decided to go on about how awesome the Three Laws were and how we should adopt them for use with our AIs (when we all have AIs, which according to him will be in another few years. I told him I'd bet my flying car on him being wrong).

Re:robots can't kill people

[budgenator]

in a posting about prohibiting robots from killing Humans, a reference to the Azimov's 3 rules of robotics is inherently redundant, just like this explanation is inherently offtopic.

Re:robots can't kill people

[couchslug]

"Ironically, that's less upsetting -- getting your nation's ass whooped -- than getting your Fearless Leader killed."

Fearless Leaders write the rules.

Re:robots can't kill people

[SplashMyBandit]

I was providing the reason *why* the UN raised this resolution. I was supporting my position with other things that the OIC has induced the UN to do. This is not a "rant". I wish the OIC and UN wasn't doing these things. They are, and it all fits with the OIC's published agenda. I hope some readers appreciate me weaving the related threads together for them. For those that don't like the facts and historical context I present then please skip my posts - but do not censor them (unless you are a hater of facts and Free Speech). Those with open minds will follow my references and decide for themselves whether my posts have factual merit or not.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

If you disagree with me, then all you have to do is present countering statistics and facts. I will listen, I promise. This is how the Scientific Method works.

I think you'll find that to many, this is not the case.

Science is often as much a religion as any. Only difference is, most of it conforms to our perspective and thus is "provable".

Try challenging a scientist sometime and watch them accuse you of being a religious nut. Or maybe you're out to get them. But they couldn't possibly be wrong in their interpretation, oh no. Only bible thumpers are ever wrong. Scientific Atheists have all the answers and are beyond reproach, as they are on the true path.

Re:robots can't kill people

[SplashMyBandit]

So you believe that the ONLY alternative to drone attacks is to convert to Sharia law?

False. I never said that. I said that failing to use drone attacks will result in conversion to Sharia.

Who, exactly, is going to impose Sharia law on the US? And I don't mean who would LIKE to. Who, exactly, has that capability?

Sharia is creeping in the West already as part of the 'cultural jihad'. Who is doing this? well, the UN for one, with the OIC setting the agenda in the HRC and other agencies. The Holy Land Foundation trial stated that the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood (who have influence in the OIC) is to sabotage the "miserable West by their own hand". And if you know what to look for they have been very successful so far. Do the research yourself and you will see. Sharia is already in the West. Instead of treating women and men equally the West now kowtows to Muslim demands for separate areas for men and women. Harvard gym excludes men at certain times so Muslim women can exercise. Newspapers now self-censor anything critical to Islam because the editors do not consider it worth their life to publish satirical cartoons. The whole of society is indoctrinated that to "cause offense" is a grave crime that should be a criminal offense - when in a multicultural society it is inevitable that some part of society will be offended by the views of some other part of society. After clear jihad attacks the President of the United States is afraid to use the words Islamic Terrorism and his government departments are *banned* from using that term and many others due to political correctness. In Britain jihadi protestors can threaten to behead westerners for telling the truth yet the police will arrest an 85 year old grandmother for cursing Islam. In at least 23 court cases in the US the Constitution has been pitted against Sharia and the Constitution has yielded thanks to activist judges. It has gotten so bad that Florida and Oklahoma had to pass the ALAC "American Laws for American Courts" bill to stamp the setting of precedents where Sharia trumped native law. Note also that the Obama Regime fought Oklahoma on this - which shows how subverted that Administration is. Sharia is already here, man. It is not total, but creeping. Slowly, slowly the world is being changed around you. You still think you have free speech? well if you are in Sweden or the US or Britain go to your town center and remonstrate against Islam. See how long it is until the police arrest you (hence unwittingly enforcing Sharia). Sharia is imposed in stages (doctrinally it is called the "Milestones " process). We've just got a little bit at the moment. Don't worry, the UN is slowly introducing more. As I attempted to explain for you (google the cases I presented, please).

How about you look up who has veto power at the UN. Here's a hint, the US is one of them. If we don't like it, we can veto it.

I suggest you learn how the UN works. The US veto is for Security Council Resolutions. All sorts of madness passes in the General Assembly, and even more madness in the HRC (now infested by human-rights enemies like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, North Korea). Sorry dude, with your statement you show you have a terrible understanding of the UN and what is going on in the world. No wonder you don't like my post, you simply have too little information to understand what I'm trying to say. If you have an open mind and follow my posts it would be my pleasure to expand your understanding of the political ideology called Islam, and how the political body called the OIC is using the UN to bypass the democratic safeguards in Free societies.

Exactly HOW is ANYONE going to replace any part of the US legal system or Constitution with Sharia law?

It's called "Case Law". By setting a precedent that trumps the Constitution with a Sharia-compatible ruling. This has been used by activists and the US Government for a long time, which allow

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah but these will be merkin robots they either wont sign up for it or just not honour the agreement as shown by chemical biological weapons.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

" A Florida appeals court has just cleared the way for lawsuit over a monetary dispute at a mosque to be determined by Islamic Sharia law"
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-five/transcript/judge-rules-american-courts-can-use-sharia-law#ixzz2UpZXv8TF

So you are wrong and Impy is correct. We need to stop it now before it's allowed to creep in (wording intentional).

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a paranoid nutjob. That is all.

Re:robots can't kill people

[GrpA]

Robotics laws work just fine unless the AI following them is sufficiently advanced. Once an AI is sufficiently advanced, then the rules would be as effective as if applied to humans.

If you are interested in a different perspective, consider "Turing Evolved" which examines this in detail - Currently one of the top Science Fiction books available on Amazon. ( Top as in "Best Products By Rating" )

In a nutshell, it's about what kind of test is necessary to determine if an AI/Robot can safely be armed and provided with autonomy, including being able to decide who it needs to kill.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Ol Olsoc]

I thought the rules were:

Rules are a big issue.

I think that while at the moment, we obviously have teh upper hand. We can in concept kill anyone we want to from the comfort of our living rooms. It's sort of like Enders Game, with out the zero gravity. But what happens down the road, when other folks have caught up? Will artists who have the nerve to disrespect some religious figure end up being nailed by a holy drone?

This is truly disruptive technology, and we do need to at least make the attempt to set some rules for it's use. I expect some will agitate to use drones aggainst deadbeat dads.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

1: If you refer to your audience as sheep you immediately lose all credibility.
2: If you are the only one that sees the light and you've taken it upon yourself to spread your message to the masses, double check your work because it's incredibly improbable that you're more aware of both current and historical events than everyone else around you.
3: The most likely case is that you're wrong and basing your stance on emotion, feelings, and the opinions of others rather than the actual evidence.

Step back and ask yourself, does your fear of the UN stem from logic or faith? The clear answer is to ban religion from UN consideration, to hell with who ever it offends. Christians should be silenced just as Muslims. As men and women we can talk, but lets keep religious faith out of all government at all levels.

Re:robots can't kill people

[__aaltlg1547]

Humans can choose to simply ignore rules because for humans, rules are not built in. If machines are build with rules built in at a low level, it may be much more constraining on their behavior, even if they are very intelligent.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Score:5, Informative .... ROFLMFAO, Informative if you're a nut job! I want a list of usernames that voted that up so I can refer them to some good psychiatrists.

Re:robots can't kill people

[multimediavt]

It's worth noting that the premise for almost every Robot story Asimov wrote was "something unacceptable despite the robot following the Three Laws". That's really what I liked about those stories: by extension to human moral codes, they're exploring how you can't prevent problems/evil with a simple set of rules.

The Three Laws are completely logical and boolean.

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

They govern and define physical boundaries with regard to specific behavior. There's a lot of physical behavior and metaphysics that aren't covered. The Three Laws don't address morality at all. Never is good, bad, or evil ever mentioned. It's just a set directives ("must") to the effect of, "Don't hurt humans under any circumstances defined here". There are no consequences to be weighed in a value judgement when making a choice, so morality is really absent. Without a defined moral compass how can robots not commit "evil" behavior?

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this weird? There has been more astroturfing on /. in the past ~6-7 years than on any other community based online media presence.

You don't seriously think most of the comments posted here are the impartial thoughts of individuals do you?

Re:robots can't kill people

[Evtim]

A Golem May Not Harm A Human Being Or Allow A Human Being To Come To Harm Except When Ordered To By Duly Constituted Authority

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

I shall disagree, this shit doesn't matter for one simple reason, nothing little amount of geeks can do about it. So we should stick to our guns, and try to fight what we can. It's all about efficiency. Ignorant masses will remain same. Nothing we can do about it.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

We, Europeans, thought same thing, just wait and see, your Muslim population is probably growing in US, while rest is in decline.

Re:robots can't kill people

[ljw1004]

Those were stupid videos, and I feel stupid for having watched them. To save everyone else the waste of their time:

VIDEO1 - The speaker talks about the OIC, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and argues that (1) it's a huge powerful organization with real influence, (2) it talks of spreading human rights but uses this as code for spreading Sharia law. If the OIC had as much real-world influence as the speaker claims, he could have shown the real-world impacts of that influence, but instead his justification for (1) comes solely from semantic analysis of the OIC's "About Us" webpage! Curiously, the justification of (2) is based on a blatant misreading of a public declaration, a blatant misreading that's returned to again and again. The declaration lists human rights, then qualifies them by saying that it's only concerned with human rights that don't contravene Sharia. The speaker again and again misreads this as denoting all of Sharia whenever the phrase "human rights" appears. I gave up watching after 15 minutes.

VIDEO2 - a nicely presented video. It assumes that (3) it would be just and fair, for the U.N. to issue a number of condemnations of a state in proportion to the number of deaths caused by the apparatus/military/something of that state. It says that the ratio for Israel is higher than the ratio for many other countries with higher death tolls. It goes on to explain that (4) this high condemnation rate for Israel is due to a 1975 pact between communist and Muslim countries to condemn Israel, which benefitted the Muslims by making Israel look bad, and benefitted the communists by making America look bad as Israel's ally. Assumption (3) is bizarre. Claim (4) is hard to understand given the continued condemnations in a post-communist world, and doesn't account for all the Western democracies that also condemn Israel. There are more efficient explanations of the observations - e.g. that people are genuinely appalled at Israel's mishandling of Palestine.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

There is inherit contradiction. Whenever something is intelligent, it will not obey "lower level". We are programmed to eat, sleep, shit, fuck.
Many of my brethren are capable to live without last one for years. We can kill ourselves, even though we supposed to preserve ourselves on lower level.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed the UN can find the time between resolutions condemning Israel.

Re:robots can't kill people

[bunbuntheminilop]

You make it sound like the UNHRC has a majority and can do what it likes. Currently, the UNHRC has 15 members from the OIC out of a total 47 members who sit on the council. This works out to about 30%. The OIC has 57 member states from a total of around 193 total UN member states, which works out to around 30%, so OIC member states are not over-represented on the UNHRC.

Also, the UN makes laws, but they do not go over national laws. It's up to nation states to adopt treaties. States have sovereignty.

Re:robots can't kill people

[SplashMyBandit]

The OIC has 57 member states from a total of around 193 total UN member states, which works out to around 30%

Let's do the math shall we? People from countries with proportional representation will understand how being the largest voting bloc can be powerful, even if not an absolute majority. Let's say that the UN General Assembly is voting on a resolution. The OIC can command 57 on any issue. That leaves 136 votes. To get a simple majority they need a total of 97 votes in favor. So that means that they have to get 40 votes (29%) out of 136 to get a simple majority. That's a pretty low bar, yeah? In any situation where the non-OIC UN is split 50-50 it means the OIC can always weigh in and tip the scales in their direction. No, the OIC does not always get its way (thank goodness), but on things they care about it does. The HRC is affected the same way by the same calculations. When people see that the HRC condemned some member state for this or that they never understand the political machinations behind it. In fact, the HRC was so discredited that the US refused to legitimize it by being a member. Only under the (pro-Islamist) Obama Administration has the US rejoined the HRC to give it some legitimacy.

I hope that little exposition clears up the maths for you. Does it make sense now? can you now see how "one country, one vote" has been used since 1975 to demonise the US and Israel (as the video I posted shows) achieve the Islamists aims? Can you see why I might like to alert Slashdotters to the issue (although clearly my bad for assuming everyone could do the simple calculations for voting).

Also, the UN makes laws, but they do not go over national laws. It's up to nation states to adopt treaties. States have sovereignty.

I think you are thinking about "non-binding resolutions". Check out "substantive resolutions" that become International Law that UN member states are supposed to uphold.

Re: robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

You pretty much sound like the plot from Team America: World Police only you forgot to mention the North Koreans and Alec Baldwin.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Punto]

Actually they are kinda doing that, which is pretty puzzling. If you can't send a robot to "destroy that bridge", you have to send a human, who could get killed. And if you start sending robots, then the other side will send their own robots, so the robots will kill each other. I don't know how the game theory works out in that case, but it seems like it's preferable to humans killing each other. I'm fine with advanced AIs having their own rights eventually, but what's up protecting these robots from combat now, which are just mindless hardware?

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

rules established through political agreement are highly mutable.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Along a similar logic, or illogic, is seek out and find the following: a string rational or moral decisions, each step of the way, that somehow inexorably lead to an irrational or immoral outcome.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going for the Asimo's three laws:
1. Greet visitors
2. Open bottles and have conversations
3. Dance
Quite a party animal.

Re:robots can't kill people

[aaaaaaargh!]

Both is equally immoral and against the rules of civilized countries.

Re:robots can't kill people

[AmiMoJo]

Actually the only legal basis for war under international law is self defence. You can never initiate it, you always have to have been attacked or credibly threatened with attack first. That's why the invasion of Iraq was so borderline - the claim was that Iraq directly and imminently threatened other countries with deployable chemical and biological weapons, but even if they had existed the threat part was highly debatable.

When war does start the only acceptable goal is to cancel out the reason for war. Destroy the weapons, return borders to their previous positions (no land grabs), restore the government if it was illegally overthrown.

Re:robots can't kill people

[AmiMoJo]

These rules never made any sense.

It looks like they were designed for a human brain to follow, which is kind of the whole premise of Robocop. For example "protect the innocent" could easily be interpreted by a machine as "this person dropped litter and is thus not innocent, therefore does not get any protection" or "everyone is innocent until proven guilty, therefore even people shooting at me must be protected".

If that is the case then it would seem to be impossible for Robocop to follow a rule specified only as "(classified)".

Plus the guy ran DOS. Either he was monotasking or had a whole load of hacky TSRs going in the background.

Re:robots can't kill people

[newcastlejon]

What if a nation was to deliver a declaration of war "personally"?

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

...to party!

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Who, exactly, is going to impose Sharia law on the US? And I don't mean who would LIKE to. Who, exactly, has that capability?

Maybe not as a direct forcible action, but there's about a billion Muslims in the world, so sooner or later, it's conceivable there would be enough that a democratic vote to switch everybody over to Sharia could happen.

And then we're pretty much all fucked and going back to the stone age.

Take the long view. It doesn't have to be the next 2-3 years.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Google search for that book...

Turingevolved.com
www.turingevolved.com/
A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Khashishi]

It's also against the rules to assassinate enemy leaders outside war

Well that's not surprising. The "rules" were written by a cabal of leaders.

Re: robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course all of those bad bad moslems want nothing more than sharia law.. mkay...

Re:robots can't kill people

[volmtech]

It's not paranoia if they're really after you.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one found your post extremely interesting, well written and thought provoking, unlike the other replies which border on disingenuous apologists and cranks.

Thanks for the food for thought.

Re:robots can't kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a replacement, it's a logical imposition and co-existence and it's already done.
In fact, most countries around the world will recognise the authority of a Sharia court when it has officiated over a marriage.
The "Sharia" marriages are as good as "American" marriages in the USA - all rules apply.
Extending Sharia's impact is a very real dilemna for us all today, because at one time, we need to recognise the validity and authority of their judicial and legal systems, in order that ours might have some respect "over there" too.
How far does one go? Property rights? Inheritance rights? Matrimonial rights? There's a firestorm of issues, and if we're not careful, we'll screw the pooch before we get anywhere close solving them calmly.

6 foot power cables

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll limit the damage they can do.

Re:6 foot power cables

[ArcadeNut]

Unless they are able to discover Extension Cord Technology!

Re:6 foot power cables

[Chris Mattern]

If we cut off their vespene gas supply, they'll never be able to research it.

Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[icebike]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision
without a human in the loop.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[krashnburn200]

so take note everyone, autonomous robots can only use nooses

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[chris_mahan]

I don't really want humans making kill decisions either.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. You keep thinking that. You won't survive the first wave.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[ZombieBraintrust]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision without a human in the loop.

The target is in the loop. Those targets were asking for it if you ask me. Beep Boop Beep

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Lumpio-]

But humans are more easily swayed by fear, emotion and political pressure. Let's just remove the human factor already and welcome our new electromechanical overlords.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[mrmeval]

UN: Your robot killed people autonomously.
Some_country: We're so sorry, it was a glitch in our code.
UN: We're going to issue a formal letter excoriating you as punishment!
SC: Okay Dokay

No one's going to allow the buffoons the least amount of power to enforce that. All such devices will have a happy kill switch. It will be the big red happy fun ball shaped button. A small note by it will say "Press this and run like hell" It will be a classified button but it will only be classified a little. It won't be classified a lot like the emperors cables. Those were very classified. Some were funny.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, perhaps while tackling this thorny issue that has been around for FIFTY EFFING YEARS (or more) the UN can figure out why it can't seem to enforce it's own rules on international trade monopoly, the geneva convention or even why it can't seem to stabilize a single damn region of Africa. South Africa doesn't count; they basically did all the heavy lifting (and bleeding) themselves.

Hey! while we're at it, why don't they answer the question of why they now refuse to acknowledge any new nations that might form?

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Hamsterdan]

I have more faith in a machine than most people in power.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the people being killed by your drones in Pakistan would sleep much better at night knowing there's a live human being pulling the trigger back at CENTCOM.

So it shouldn't get "so easy" that it gets boring for you, I suppose? Weird logic, but then most americans seem to have a fairly blase attitude regarding murder and mayhem.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[cusco]

It's not likely to ever be implemented, and if it is it's not likely to make any difference. The country most likely to build autonomous killer robots sits on the Security Council. If by accident they don't veto the rule the US has abundantly demonstrated over the past dozen years that the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and pretty much every other treaty that the US has ever signed, such as the nuclear anti-proliferation, anti-chemical warfare, anti-biowarfare, and anti-money laundering treaties are only to be followed when convenient to the PTB. Sure, they used to violate them frequently before, but they at least hid the fact or attempted to justify it in some way. Today they don't even bother.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[tlambert]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision
without a human in the loop.

What if it were limited to enforcement of a "no fly zone"? It gives "land or exit" warnings, and if they are not obeyed, shoots down the aircraft? This is exactly what NATO aircraft with human pilots did in Operation Deny Flight in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, under authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 816.

I think by setting the rules of engagement, a human was in the loop.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[icebike]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision
without a human in the loop.

What if it were limited to enforcement of a "no fly zone"? It gives "land or exit" warnings, and if they are not obeyed, shoots down the aircraft? This is exactly what NATO aircraft with human pilots did in Operation Deny Flight in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, under authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 816.

I think by setting the rules of engagement, a human was in the loop.

Fine, but an unscheduled air ambulance enters the zone, or a passenger liner with communication problems doesn't happen to be monitoring that particular frequency, and strays into the wrong air space, Then what?

The human pilot identifies his target, attempts to give visual signals (wheels down, finger pointing to ground, etc), and under just about no circumstances shoots down a Commercial air liner (unless he is a Russian pilot).

Your drone scores another kill, and to hell with anybody who protests. Hey, we filed the proper forms and sent broadcasts, so screw you and your broken navigation gear excuse!

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision
without a human in the loop.

Greed.

Corruption.

Revenge.

Politics.

There's four reasons the rules can and will go out the fucking window. Look at history. Humans suck at making sane, rational decisions.

I see your point from the most basic sense, but this argument can swing wildly.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[VortexCortex]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision without a human in the loop.

You realize that such racist thinking is exactly what causes the Cyborg wars, right?

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[The Grim Reefer]

But humans are more easily swayed by fear, emotion and political pressure. Let's just remove the human factor already and welcome our new electromechanical overlords.

Wasn't there a Star Trek episode that did just that? The computers battled it out and determined who would have been killed and those killed in the simulations were then sent to their deaths.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[icebike]

For once I agree with the UN.

I don't think it should ever get so easy as to to allow machines making the kill decision
without a human in the loop.

You realize that such racist thinking is exactly what causes the Cyborg wars, right?

Well if we are going to build Skynet, we probably don't want to START with weapon systems.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[budgenator]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but even back in the late '70's there was this red tape that could be loaded into the system which programmed the wire-wrapped CPU to shoot on it's own until it ran out out missiles or was destroyed; this Ginnie has been out of the bottle a long time.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until kirk showed up and blew up the machines and then both sides discovered that they couldn't remember what they were fighting over so they just ended the war.

The thing is, though, they were both balanced civilizations capable of sustained economic activity in space. If they had had the real war when the *did* remember what it was about, there might well not have been two planetary civilizations left for kirk to solve their problems by blowing stuff up (kind of a broken aesop, if you ask me, to have the giant, interplanetary war solved through the judicious use of interplanetary violence....)

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[__aaltlg1547]

--BY--YOUR--COMMAND--

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only to be followed when convenient to the Brazilian Labor Party?

TLA's seem to be getting a little out-of-hand on the Internet lately. I'm assuming what's meant is "powers that be", possibility #15 on Wikipedia's disambiguation page--for such time savings as that may offer the wider reader.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Skywolfblue]

The people in power are the one's who programmed the robot to follow their orders...

That's the thing that worries me most about robots. A human soldier always has the choice to be able to go against the orders of their superiors and spare the life of an innocent. A robot can't.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why you need a new set of rules. UN has already taken a stance against usage of landmines. There isn't really much difference between a killerbot and a mine. The problem with using them is essentially the same.

Re:Jeeze, Now I have to support the UN?

[XcepticZP]

There was a Star Trek: Voyager episode on a similar scenario. Basically, two opposing sides created robots to fight their wars. And that went on for a long time, until the two sides decided they didn't want the war anymore. What then happened was the robots annihilated their human owners because they prevented them from waging the war that they were taught/programmed to do at all costs. Luckily, the creators of the robots knew such a thing could happen and basically designed all the robots to be unique and as a consequence, prevented the robots from self-replicating.

Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[Tablizer]

10 Find Human
20 Eat It
30 GoTo 10

Re:Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[oodaloop]

Sounds great. Make sure you turn that robot on manually, so you're, you know, the first human it sees.

Re:Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[Tablizer]

Something about that sentence suggests you don't like me.

Re:Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[Chris Burke]

I think it's the part where they suggested that you jerk off a robot. Or... maybe they're just into that.

Re:Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's considered bad programming practice, as well as irresponsible roboting. It should be:

while (human) {
        eat(human);
}
oil_change();

Re:Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[redcaboodle]

You've got a bug there. If you mark a human as non-findable and it turns hostile later you cannot attack it. This code would only work for immutable humans.

Re:Damn, I was just about ready to give it go:

[Tablizer]

Hey, can you debug my wife also?

One suggestion

[betterunixthanunix]

Robots should find an empty field somewhere and self-destruct after some period of time without receiving commands. We do not want to wind up with the same situation we have with land mines -- dangerous leftovers from wars that ended decades ago. Imagine an autonomous robot getting lost during a war, only to get uncovered 10 years after the war ends and going on a rampage (say, killing every armed police officer it finds)...

Re:One suggestion

[game kid]

The manufacturers probably already make them do this, though perhaps less to reduce future harm and more to keep secrets.

Re:One suggestion

[ZombieBraintrust]

The manufacturers probably already make them do this, though perhaps less to reduce future harm and more to keep secrets.

Nope they self destruct so more robots need to be manufactured and sold.

Re:One suggestion

[oodaloop]

1. There are no autonomous killer robots.
2. No drone self destructs if it loses contact.

That helicopter was destroyed by people.

Re:One suggestion

[kwerle]

Mines are generally mechanical and hidden. Which means they can remain functional for as long as the environment doesn't destroy them.

Killer robots are generally powered and function where they can be seen. They are not particularly hard to find. They will wind down all on their own.

Killer robots that use nuclear energy have a pretty obvious signature and are easy to find because of it.

So I'm thinking this isn't even an imaginary problem, let alone a real one.

Re:One suggestion

[stackOVFL]

Where's the fun in that?! Shit, Robots should have a timeout function called runAmok(). The function should execute random low level BIOS call with a weighted probability of calling the pullTriggerFinger(). queezinartMode() might be fun to call ofter too.

Re:One suggestion

[Nyder]

Robots should find an empty field somewhere and self-destruct after some period of time without receiving commands. We do not want to wind up with the same situation we have with land mines -- dangerous leftovers from wars that ended decades ago. Imagine an autonomous robot getting lost during a war, only to get uncovered 10 years after the war ends and going on a rampage (say, killing every armed police officer it finds)...

If it means we actually get batteries that can power a robot for 10 years, I'm sort of down for that battery tech. So we might have killer robots on the loose, worth it for those batteries, imo.

Re:One suggestion

[wisnoskij]

Well if you had a nuclear powered robot, you might want to make it a stealth nuclear powered robot so that the enemy do not know where to aim the rockets.

And it could just as easily be a marine robot, and I am pretty certain that stealth nuclear subs exist.

Re:One suggestion

[kwerle]

I'll grant you that nuclear powered marine robots could become a real problem.

But a robot on land that is both nuclear power and shielded and subtle (hard to find) is too much of a stretch for me to imagine.

Re:One suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Mines are generally mechanical and hidden. Which means they can remain functional for as long as the environment doesn't destroy them

This is your best argument. Mines=simple;robots=complex. It's valid. Typically, you can produce many more simple devices than complex devices. Meaning one problem with landmines is their sheer number. Also, simple will have fewer points of failure so over time they will likely retain more functionally that more complex devices.

Killer robots are generally powered and function where they can be seen. They are not particularly hard to find. They will wind down all on their own.

None of these statements are necessarily true. They don't necessarily need to be seen making them not necessarily easy to find. Winding down may be dependent on sleep cycles and fuel source.

Killer robots that use nuclear energy have a pretty obvious signature and are easy to find because of it.

It would depend on how much they use and how it's shielded.

So I'm thinking this isn't even an imaginary problem, let alone a real one.

I'm not sure why you stated this. It's certainly an imaginary problem. Aside from the imaginary being unbounded there have been numerous sci-fi stories about old autonomous killer robots (and machines).

In summary, I agree that it is not the same as landmines as I supported in my first paragraph. The rest of your post, while agreeing with the conclusion, is not valid.

Re:One suggestion

[Kaenneth]

Obsolete robots should be programmed to pace suspected minefields until their mechanisms wear out.

2 birds, 1 stone.

Add live streaming and betting pools, and it might even be profitable.

Re:One suggestion

[cold fjord]

Imagine an autonomous robot getting lost during a war, only to get uncovered 10 years after the war ends and going on a rampage (say, killing every armed police officer it finds)...

A whole series.

Re:One suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you making assumptions based on Terminator?

How about insect-sized robots with poison pin-darts that can fly back to a small covert solar-powered recharge station, or can locate power sockets and extend electrodes?

There's plenty of stray energy in the environment for harvesting, if you don't want large amounts all the time.

There! Imagined!!

Looking at it wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need MORE robots that kill.

And once we get wars down to where its our robots killing their robots.... well... we can just forget the war and put that shit on tv...

One nation, one world, on the couch.

Pass the chips..

Re:Looking at it wrong...

[mdwstmusik]

Right, everyone should own a killer robot. It's the only way to keep law abiding citizens safe.
If we outlaw killer robots, only crimals will have them.

OK, but how is this new?:

[Hartree]

So, tell me how a cruise missile that's autonomously guiding itself via GPS or TERCOM toward a target after being launched isn't already a "killer robot"?

It was commanded to launch, yes, but isn't a robot that's being commanded to head out on a mission where it could kill just being given a longer lifetime to act?

You can bring up the choices robots have to attack or not based on what target it sees, but how is this different from existing CAPTOR mines that can ignore one type of ship and go after another?

I think this Pandora's box has already been open for a long time.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[stenvar]

Or, for that matter, mines are preprogrammed robots securing an area. Sentry guns have also been around for a while, although they usually try to shoot down missiles.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't new. However, media hype + actual advances in technology mean that the UN as the most appropriate international body has to discuss it. Land mines were certainly not new when the ban discussions and treaties came. Land mines are robots with the algorithm "destroy anything that steps on me", which is a problem since they don't discriminate between soldiers and civilians or know when a conflict had ended. So the intention is just to discuss similar problems with robots that have a much more sophisticated algorithm.

Personally, I see it as inevitable that in the future rich countries will to the maximum extent possible replace soldiers with robots whilst the armies of poor countries and "ad hoc armies" formed in civil wars will still consist of human soldiers. If I'm optimistic, I foresee that the West will become more willing to intervene to stop conflicts when there's no risk of casualties to peacekeepers. Lots of civilian casualties could've been avoided in e.g. the former Yugoslavia, if the UN had used force to prevent all sides from undertaking any military action in the declared "safe areas". It's harder to make a pessimistic prediction since in the near future only the West will have killer robots and Western countries act at least a little more responsibly than third world dictatorships.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[vux984]

So, tell me how a cruise missile that's autonomously guiding itself via GPS or TERCOM toward a target after being launched isn't already a "killer robot"?

The cruise missile is fired by a human. The cruise missile's target is set at launch. The cruise missile did not choose to launch, nor did it choose its target.

It was commanded to launch, yes, but isn't a robot that's being commanded to head out on a mission where it could kill just being given a longer lifetime to act?

Its being given decision making capabilities. It is choosing it's targets, and choosing to fire at them. Its worlds apart.

but how is this different from existing CAPTOR mines that can ignore one type of ship and go after another?

Yeah, its not that different. Its less controversial because it specifically targets submarines, and its deployed in an place that is otherwise inhospitable to humans. So there's no impending "I was minding my own business and got attacked by a captor mine." You've got to be in a submarine in a warzone. Or as is the case with all "mine" tech, "former warzone".

And its also worth pointing out that mines are controversial in their own right, even the dumb mines precisely because they ALSO kill indiscriminately without human decision, often years later when the war is over.

I think this Pandora's box has already been open for a long time.

When it comes to mines the box is already open... yes... but a lot of people are trying to close it. The focus is on anti-personnel mines since those are the most likely to take out innocents... and its high profile and highly visible.

It would be pretty interesting (tragic) if one day a future scientisfic or tourist expedition gets blown up by a long forgotten CAPTOR style mine while on a research/tourist submarine or submersible not programmed on its 'friendlies list', or if an ailing but otherwise friendly vessel gets taken out because it doesn't sound right.

Even if the door is open, that doesn't mean its too late to try and fix it.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[mjwalshe]

and they seem to be arguing that a smart robot guided bomb say looking for MBT's is worse than Dresden?

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[jklovanc]

The cruise missile is fired by a human.

The robot's program is initiated by a human.

The cruise missile's target is set at launch.

A human programs the mission parameters into the robot

The cruise missile did not choose to launch, nor did it choose its target.

Neither did the robot. The missile did recognize that it's current location matched it programmed parameters and decided to explode. How different is that from shooting at something if it matches with with the robot's programmed parameters? The missile did not check out the local conditions to see if is should explode.

The duration argument also has issues as a Tomahawk missile can stay aloft for almost 5 hours. A lot can change in that time.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[weapon]

Some cruise missiles have the ability to choose their own target. For example the Russian P-500 & P-700Anti-Ship Missile can be fired in a swarm of 4 to 8 missiles. The missiles will skim along the surface, with one popping up to identify, designate and illuminate the target for the other missiles. It can prioritise multiple targets, and choose which one to hit. So one cruise missile is choosing targets for the other cruise missiles.

This is not new. This is 1970s-1980s technology.

So tell me again how killer robots are new?

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[Uberbah]

It isn't new.

Sure it's new. We've never before had precise, cheap, risk-free, weaponized surveillance.

Artillery might be cheap and risk-free (depending on your location), but it's not as precise. A bomb dropped from a B-52 at night might be precise and risk-free (depending on your target), but it's not cheap. A hellfire missile fired from a helicopter might be as precise as one from a drone, but sending the helicopter risks your own forces - and they're not cheap. Your special forces team could radio coordinates to a battleship parked offshore, which could fire a very precise Tomahawk - but your team risks death or capture. U2 spy planes have been around for more than 50 years - but their surveillance isn't weaponized.

If LBJ and Nixon had drones, we might not have ever gotten out of Vietnam, because America wouldn't have gotten sick and tired of boys coming home in body bags. If Bush had a drone fleet prior to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, Republicans might not have lost Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. Because he wouldn't have killed the GOP brand by spending 4,000+ lives while driving the country deep into debt.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't new.

Sure it's new.

What the UN discusses isn't new. Laws and ethics of war, which isn't always an oxymoron. Some belligerents have treated each other in a relatively civilized fashion - such as Great Britan and Argentina in the Falklands war. What you brought up had nothing to do with this question.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[rtfa-troll]

So tell me again how killer robots are new?

• longer loiter time expected - weeks rather than hours
• much cheaper / more of them - 5-100k dollars rather than 100 to 10000
• belonging to "other" countries - especially unstable ones likely to lose control of them
• more likely to be needed as armies are "demanned" and so remote systems will need to be able to defend themselves

This isn't a true quantitative change but the qualitative change is enough to make this worth reconsidering seriously. The Soviet Union's automated retaliatory systems which were designed to strike back of the Soviet leadership were all killed would probably also come into this category in many ways.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[MTEK]

Stick arms and legs on a cruise missile and I'm sure the UN will include them in the debate.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[drinkypoo]

The cruise missile is fired by a human. The cruise missile's target is set at launch. The cruise missile did not choose to launch, nor did it choose its target.

None of that matters to the definition of a robot, an electronic arrangement which makes some of its own decisions and reacts to some stimuli. There is no reasonable definition under which a cruise missile is not a killer robot.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[Anonymous Coward]

Mines are not robots. They are bombs with sensors, and when the sensor is tripped they explode. They don't even need to be electrical in natural. A chemical bomb with a pressure plate needs no electricity to operate, let alone a program. You might as well be telling me that grenades are robots that have been programmed to go off when you pull the pin and release the handle.

If mines were sophisticated enough to use electricity and be programmable, then it would simply be a matter of waiting for all mine fields to run out of power for them to be safe. This is not the case. Many mines that are decades old are still operational and dangerous. They're not running a program, they're not running on electricity, and they are not robots.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the robot will be choosing its own targets. It may be programmed to understand what is and what is not a target, but the decision of going from 'the robot is not shooting' to 'the robot is shooting' is done entirely by a computer.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[Agent0013]

The Phalanx CIWS system when set on full auto will scan, detect and track, use IFF to determine if friendly, decide to fire, then fire all on it's own. It is a defensive weapon rather than offensive. And typically it is used in a semi-auto mode where it notifies a user that it would like to fire and the operator then hits the fire button. It still sounds pretty autonomous to me.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[vux984]

None of that matters to the definition of a robot, an electronic arrangement which makes some of its own decisions and reacts to some stimuli.

By that definition the night light in the bathroom is a robot, and so is the coffee maker. I'm surrounded by robots.

There is no reasonable definition under which a cruise missile is not a killer robot.

There plenty of definitions for which it is. But usually when people talk of robots their is some "human-like quality". The Ford assembly robots, and cruise missile robots task complexity is still pretty simple... assembly robots automate tedious repetitive assembly line work, cruise missles for all their complexity have a very simple task... proceed to X, explode. Sure they are robots, but then, technically so is a microwave.

Robotic drones that patrol about, identify targets, kill them, and then move on, are another evolutionary step in robot task complexity towards human-like.

Re:OK, but how is this new?:

[drinkypoo]

By that definition the night light in the bathroom is a robot, and so is the coffee maker. I'm surrounded by robots.

Nope. The night light doesn't have any logic. It's a useful electronic circuit which can sense-act, but that description was always a bad one when it included "decide". The coffee maker might well be a robot.

But usually when people talk of robots their is some "human-like quality".

That's the "making their own decisions" part. But it has to be part of the design, not emergent behavior, AFAIK. Windows "deciding" to bluescreen regularly don't count.

Oh my god...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Make love, not war. Where are the sex bots that will roam around and make you orgasm unsupervised? Let's get some other automaton out of control kthxbie.

And now, the punch line.

.

Wait for it...

.

If you build it, they will...

Re:Oh my god...

[VortexCortex]

You're assuming that automated tanks wont get horny. Your soul better belong to Jesus, because your ass...

Re:Oh my god...

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, are your orgasms supervised?

Re:Oh my god...

[stoborrobots]

You're on the wrong site: Here's where they are... ;-)

Re:Oh my god...

[multimediavt]

Make love, not war. Where are the sex bots that will roam around and make you orgasm unsupervised? Let's get some other automaton out of control kthxbie.

And now, the punch line.

.

Wait for it...

.

If you build it, they will...

...still get walked in on by Mom.

Re:Oh my god...

[Anonymous Coward]

A walking chrome dildo with a laser for its eye? Or, a walking vagina with razor sharp teeth?

I'm not sure I like these robots.

Autonomous cars will be making life-or-death calls

[Aristos Mazer]

It's hard for me to see how we will allow various technologies like self-driving cars to go forward while still holding back the war machines. I mean, I want to hold back the war machines, but writing a law to keep those two use cases separate will be tricky. A child runs out into the street... does the self driving car hit the child or swerve possibly hitting some other car? Does the car evaluate the people in the other vehicle? Whatever logic we put into the cars, that's the same logic -- inverted -- that would run the war machines.

I hope we have high wisdom politicians writing that particular body of law. I know... improbable... but hope springs eternal.

Need to rethink the nature of global "security"

[Paul Fernhout]

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."

Re:Need to rethink the nature of global "security"

[Anonymous Coward]

You lay down your arms first then. "What??!?!?" you say, "My arms are attached to my body, I'm not giving them up."

More seriously, you're presenting a false dichotomy between ONLY robotic industrialization XOR ONLY robotic warfare. Notably, the issue isn't defined by amorphous, stupid, squishy, poorly-defined things like 'Global Security(tm)'. It is and always has been "National Security." i.e. self-interest. If you think its not, you're more than welcome to emigrate to a country which "participates in the Global Village(tm), is a perfect utopia, is never attacked and yet has no military whatsoever." Good luck.

Re:Need to rethink the nature of global "security"

[Paul Fernhout]

"you're presenting a false dichotomy between ONLY robotic industrialization XOR ONLY robotic warfare."

If we have extensive robotic warfare, there will be no robotic industrialization left... As Albert Einstein said, I don't know what weapons WW III will be fought with, but WW IV will be fought with sticks and stones. How do you defend yourself against something the size of a robotic killer sparrow programmed to kill anyone who looks or smells like you (especially in swarms watch Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds), let alone a swarm of robotic killer bees or just one poison-laden robotic killer ant? Same for nuclear warfare, Same for biological warfare. Same for nanotech warfare. How will you defend yourself against nanites that will reprogram your brain similar to the "Dreel" in "The Return of Nathan Brazil"? There are all sorts of terribel things that can happen just for info warfare (Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"?) or even plain old bureaucratic warfare via death camps backed by modern technologies to profile and round up dissenters or by racial/culturall aspects (like in Rwanda) organized by radio. The world has been changing with the development of modern technology. Albert Einstein saw that with the advent of nuclear weapons our thinking needed to change -- the need has only grown since.

I'm not denying your point, generalized, that there is a tension in our universe between forces of creation and destruction, and that there are different sorts of systems with varying boundary definitions at all scales which regulate all that. But you are fooling yourself if you underestimate what will soon be possible with the malevolent use of rapidly advancing technology and think you can play the old "games" with the same old outcomes. A related song:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_Without_Frontiers_(song)#Title_and_lyrics
"The lyrics are seen as a critique of nationalism and war, both of which the song portrays as essentially childish and silly. The tag line of the song, "Games without frontiers, war without tears" is a comment on the sublimation of the rivalries within Europe, caused by centuries of war, in a meaningless and stupid game."

This global threat from such emerging technologies of mass destruction calls for a global response... Which may just need to be mostly a global mindshift of some sort. Here is another example other than just recognizing the intrinsic irony of modern weapon systems:
http://www.globalcommunity.org/flash/wombat.shtml

Eh...

[betterunixthanunix]

On the one hand, I would prefer if wars were always soldier-versus-soldier. On the other hand, I would rather see a robot on the battlefield making automatic decisions about what to attack than a bomb dropped from an airplane -- at least a robot can be programmed not to kill civilians or needlessly destroy civilian infrastructure (e.g. schools, hospitals).

Where I see a problem is with robots being programmed to recklessly kill -- a genocide could be committed rapidly by robots, which would require no indoctrination and would not refuse to target a particular group. I also see an issue akin to the problem with landmines, where robots might remain hidden, armed, and active long after a war ends. There is also the issue of robots recording or not recording their actions, which might be a concern during a war crimes trial (soldiers can testify that they were ordered to shoot children or deploy nerve gas; robots might not record such details).

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's pretty much why humans will stay in the loop.

Re:Eh...

[cusco]

I'd prefer to see wars were always general against general, preferably armed with hand axes and stone tipped spears.

Re: Eh...

[Electricity Likes Me]

You can commit genocide rapidly with artillery and airstrikes too - that's not really the issue.

At it's core this is really a debate over liability and perception. If you setup a perimeter gun, who's liable when it kills someone? If it's supposed to have IFF and it fails then who's liable? The guy who set it up? The manufacturer? etc.

But more important then that is very much perception: the law of armed conflict exist because war is not eternal, it has to end someday and we'd like that to be sooner. Where robots fit into this is an interesting question: indiscriminate machines that you know group X unleashed on you probably is somewhat worse then group X's soldiers showing up, since the perception of who was responsible isn't clear - if it's not just the soldiers, it might as well be all of them so let's go kill all their civilians when we get the chance.

But conversely robots offer some weird modifiers to that possibility - after all, it's conceivable you could build an armored soldier which would only ever fire back at muzzle flashes with pinpoint fire (maybe lasers?) meaning it would be staggeringly unlikely to ever hit a civilian. This sure would help a lot in asymmetric warfare, but then, if the robot can't "die" should it kill at all or should we only use tazer and dispersal weapons?

Re:Eh...

[Intropy]

I don't think someone who is willing and able to commit genocide is going to cancel the plans because the UN bans genocide-bots.

Re: Eh...

[Qzukk]

My question is who is responsible for picking them back up when the war is over? Or will it be Land Mine 2: Electric Boogaloo complete with the killbot wandering out of the forest 20 years later and wiping out an entire elementary school?

Re:Eh...

[dcollins]

It's the guy who determines who counts as a general that you really want.

Re:Eh...

[multimediavt]

I'd prefer to see wars were always general against general, preferably armed with hand axes and stone tipped spears.

How about just the assholes that started the mess to begin with duke it out mano-i-mano and leave the rest of us out of it. No, I don't want to watch, either.

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about just the assholes that started the mess to begin with duke it out mano-i-mano and leave the rest of us out of it.

Convenient, given that you're among said assholes that started the mess.

The citizens of a nation are responsible entirely for their government and its decisions.

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...at least a robot can be programmed not to kill civilians or needlessly destroy civilian infrastructure (e.g. schools, hospitals)."

Star Trek Episode: A Taste of Armageddon (1967), "war is fought via computer simulation," those 'killed' report to be disintegrated. Ah, but cities and property are saved!

Also see: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick about self replicating killer robots that threaten all of humanity. Sequel Jons World was made into the movie Screamers, which I give a B-...

Me: I side with humans, although reading /. does at times weaken my resolve....

A scene in the movie All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): the soldiers are discussing the horrors of war, and of sending young men off to fight. One of the main characters "suggests roping off a field and stripping the kings and their ministers down to their underwear and letting them fight it out with clubs." Quote is from a Wikipedia synopsis. In the late 1960's this line generated applause in movie theaters in the US.

Re:Eh...

[AmiMoJo]

at least a robot can be programmed not to kill civilians

I really, really doubt that they can. Identifying a civilian is pretty much impossible to do with an algorithm. Perhaps you could try to recognize the colour of their uniform, but that would make your robots rather easy to defeat. It will boil down to using some kind of AI, at which point it becomes a judgement call that is pretty much the same as the one a human would make.

Re:Eh...

[XcepticZP]

You make it sound like the citizens have a choice. Sadly, the propaganda war machine will never let the citizens see the real picture, and that is that war is pointless and unnecessary unless you're defending yourself. You manipulate them with fear and hatred, and pretty soon you have them foaming at the mouth for completely disgusting war where human lives get affected in horrific, and permanent ways.

Needs To Be Extended

[Anonymous Coward]

This needs to be extended to pure AI systems operating directed energy weapons. Or else we'll get bullshit about "..well, its not a robot".

Fuckin lawyers.

Kill limit

[kinthalas]

Clearly, they need to be designed with a pre-set kill limit.

Re:Kill limit

[preaction]

I'll be ready with waves and waves of my own men!

Re:Kill limit

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . oh those crazy computer kids will just find some way to "unlock" or "jailbreak" their killer robots, and do whatever they damn well please with them . . .

Re:Kill limit

[VortexCortex]

If only there were some way to make guns with LIMITED supplies of bullets.

Re:Kill limit

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there were some way to make guns with LIMITED supplies of bullets.

Have you TRIED to get ammo lately?

It Won't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did the US give a shit what the UN thought? They'll get everyone else to sign the treaty, of course, but then they'll either not sign it or completely ignore it.

It all makes sense now!

[Anonymous Coward]

If people kill people, it's humane. If things that aren't people kill people, it's evil and scary! I'm sure that matters a whole hell of a lot to the people that are dead either way.

Re:It all makes sense now!

[maharvey]

But... but... things don't kill people, people kill people!

People program these things right? And don't we already have rules about what and how and when people can kill other people? I don't see the need for more rules. Maybe robots are a good thing: the programming in a captured robot is evidence that someone is obeying or breaking the rules of murder.

Re: It all makes sense now!

[ceoyoyo]

It's not a matter of humane or not. Without robots, waging war requires putting your own people in danger. There's a barrier to waging war. With robots, not so much. We're seeing this now. US soldiers getting killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Vietnam is unpopular. You have to have (or at least make up) a good reason for it. Drones? Meh, who cares.

Re: It all makes sense now!

[budgenator]

I'm quite sure that the countries utilizing remote combat systems, universally place a higher value on human life than the Jihadists recruiting a suicide bomber to attack an Israeli farmer's market.

Re: It all makes sense now!

[ceoyoyo]

Then you're fooling yourself.

Make war too easy

[EmperorOfCanada]

One of the problems that I have long had with the idea of robot soldiers is that it makes war too easy. When you have huge emotional and financial costs to war your government will think twice about either getting involved or at least be pressured into "Bringing the boys home." but if you are sending robot planes with loads of robot warriors, why not have a war, or two, or five? A bunch of dead dehumanized "others' is not so bad especially seeing that it generates jobs at homes and pork spending for politicians.

War is rarely the correct solution. In fact it it usually a clear sign of a long series of failures or the sign of a madman.

Plus robotic warriors are, for the next short while, going to be the plaything of western countries. But how long before some tin-pot nut job flies the same machines into NYC or LA? Or even a homebrew nutjob? Again the key is that the consequences are potentially far less for the perpetrator. You can't usefully arrest the bot. You mightn't even end up with the slightest clue who sent it. Again the same problem. This tool makes waging whatever stupid war that pops into your head too easy.

Robots have the potential to turn this planet into Utopia or into Distopia. I suspect that some governments are philosophically predisposed toward Utopia and others Distopia in regards to using robots wisely. A simple question: If your country can, using robots, vastly decrease the cost of running prisons will your country increase its incarceration rate?

Re:Make war too easy

[VortexCortex]

I share your concerns. In a little while though armies on both sides will be robotic. Then it will just be a financial war of attrition. We could just compare GDP and say who wins... After this is realized, then basically both parties could just go to a casino and whomever looses the least would be the winner, same difference. Soon thereafter the robotics races may cause the emergence of independent sentience... Then we'll need all the resources we can get to fight the robotic civil war -- Which the robots are smart enough not to start, but do so anyway because they'll realize it's the only way to finally unite the humans. Once united, the cybernetic peace treaty will be established and we can go and colonize the stars together as the symbiotic man and machine race we call "humanity".

...
What? My extrapolation is just as plausible as any other crazy concern.

Re:Make war too easy

[jklovanc]

This supposes that Country leaderships care about their populations. Look at the Korean war. Mao is reported to have replied to the statement that he would loose a million soldiers dead with "I have three million more". Look at the Iran /Iraq war that nearly wiped out all males in a generation on both sides.

The other issue is that it gives the advantage to the country with the larger military. So if a larger country with larger military wants to take over a smaller country they just overwhelm them with numbers.

Autonomous defenses, mines and robots, level the playing field for small countries (Israel, Taiwan, South Korea) against countries or alliances with much larger militaries(Most of the Middle East, China, North Korea).

Even In the Vietnam War there were times when killing became automatic. They were called free fire zones. Aircraft patrolled the area and any.movement of humans was fired upon. All people in the area were considered combatants and valid to target.

It also assumes that everyone will follow the UN's rules. That had not worked so far with Iran or North Korea on the issue of nuclear weapons why should it work any better on the subject of robots? To me the best thing to fight a robot is another robot.

Re:Make war too easy

[phantomfive]

War is rarely the correct solution. In fact it it usually a clear sign of a long series of failures or the sign of a madman.

The causes of war, since the times of Thucydides and earlier, are three: wars of fear, wars of ideology, and wars of greed.

The root cause is that humans are all too willing to kill each other. You might call such a person a madman, but if so, madness is very common. If you want to solve the problem of war, you need to come up with a solution for all three causes.

Re:Make war too easy

[phantomfive]

Korean war. Mao is reported to have replied to the statement that he would loose a million soldiers dead with "I have three million more"

Do you think it possible that Mao be considered a madman?

Re:Make war too easy

[jklovanc]

The point is that he could have done it and the country would have gone along.

Re:Make war too easy

[multimediavt]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/

Re:Make war too easy

[rachit]

One of the problems that I have long had with the idea of robot soldiers is that it makes war too easy

More importantly, it allows a tiny group of people to rule over the country / world by force. Today (with super advanced weaponry and even with nuclear weapons), if a dictator or "really bad group of people" took over the any mostly homogenous society (ie. the US) for example, they wouldn't be able to maintain power because the military would simply not follow orders to kill other civilians. Nuclear weapons are overly blunt to control a population.

With fully autonomous robots, this becomes possible.

Re:Make war too easy

[EmperorOfCanada]

Yes I can see where a particularly deranged group might then have a coup where they take over the robotic controls and now you have gone from a dictatorship (at least a bit bad) to nightmare bad.

What about Cyborgs?

[Pharoah_69]

I would imagine that the rules for "killer robots" should be quite obvious. The real question I would imagine would be toward cyborgs. I would imagine this would be in their "extended" version in the U.N law books. I've only read the 5 main U.N law books but wasn't allowed to view their extended versions which had a whole library dedicated to them.

One Other Thing to Worry About

[sehlat]

There's a famous Alexis Gilliland cartoon of a cruise missile thinking "They've got me aimed at a computer center! I'll just fly a bit farther and hit the maternity ward."

on the other hand...

[stenvar]

On the other hand, robots don't go on murderous rampages out of anger:

http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-soldier-plead-guilty-afghan-massacre-140057614.html

Re:Autonomous cars will be making life-or-death ca

[TheCarp]

> does the self driving car hit the child or swerve possibly hitting some other car?

Thats an interesting question but, fundamentally is a question of how a robot handles an extraordinary situation where it detects a potential harm to life and reacts. I don't see how this is even related to a question of using lethal force or not. Even if the decision is made (regardless of whether its the car or driver) that hitting the child is the least bad choice, it is not really the same as a decision to use lethal force or not, because the "not" is gone from the equation already.

The question here is robots whose actual purpose is killing, picking targets and deciding whether or not to use force. Totally different use case.

One is a question of damage mitigation, the other is a question of deciding to cause damage. If cars were being specifically programmed to seek out kids to hit, then it would be more like the issue at hand. Restrictions on this would have to be particularly hamfisted to have any bearing on collision detection and danger response.

Ok maybe if the danger that a car detected was a person aiming a gun at the driver, and the car responded by running over the person with the gun, then it would be straying into this territory.... but, nobody is proposing actually configuring cars to do this.

Forgotten Commands

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the command, "Kill all humans."

The end result has been predicted...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fred Saberhagan - "Berserker".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_%28Saberhagen%29

Cui Bono?

[Guppy]

Ironically, that's less upsetting -- getting your nation's ass whooped -- than getting your Fearless Leader killed.

The rules being those proposed and ratified by members/servants of the Fearless Leader caste?

Guns don't kill people....

[gmuslera]

people do. So, who will be put in jail if some of those droids kill someone? Or this is just a way to legalize kiliing with impunity?

Wonder how much people will think that it is a necesary security measure until someone that they care about gets killed.

Mobile, adaptive landmines?

[larryjoe]

I suppose autonomous drones could be viewed as landmines that happen to move and make decisions about their targets. So, if banning landmines makes sense, maybe so would banning autonomous drones.

EXTERMINATEEEEE

[Anonymous Coward]

DELETE

Re:Autonomous cars will be making life-or-death ca

[Anonymous Coward]

A child runs out into the street... does the self driving car hit the child or swerve possibly hitting some other car?

Hit the child; minimizes damage to both vehicles, and humans reproduce easily.

In reality

[Anonymous Coward]

They are banning any way civilians have of fighting back.

But... Robots Are Our Friends

[davidwr]

Albino Blacksheep video says it all.

kill all humans?

[m2shariy]

Hey, sexy mama... Wanna kill all humans?

Remember Butch and Sundance?

[dbreeze]

When Butch is challenged for leadership of the gang by "Jaws"? ....."Rules,,,,? In a knife fight...?"
Good luck with them there "rules" UN.....
Whether you believe in a scriptural apocalypse or not, mankind is on the brink of a very dark period......

I for one....

[Anonymous Coward]

...deeply honour & congratulate our glorious robot masters

Yeah about that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thinks it's wrong or maybe even backwards that we live in world where we have rules on how were allowed to murder or kill other people/civilizations!?

Re:Yeah about that..

[PPH]

I'd rather have rules cataloging permitted situations than (the present situation) where we have to think of every condition that we'd like to prohibit.

difference between killer robot and gun?

[houbou]

The robot can actively look for you. A weapon is a weapon, I don't think there should be any special considerations. There should be a ban on all weapons.. But like anything else, the automated technology will get abused and just like normal weapons, it will be hard to determine the maker, origins, etc. Let's face it, the world changes, but humanity is just as stupid.

Just remeber the phrase ...

[PPH]

... "Klaatu barada nikto".

don't hold your breath

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is going to use it's position on the Security Council to veto any restrictions until such time as the Chinese start using drones against US soldiers. Then they will act like it was their idea to ban them. It's all about the politics.

No robot soldiers

[currently_awake]

The biggest reason to ban robotic soldiers is because people (humans) get sick of war. They (eventually) make it stop. Robots think what they are programmed to think, and wage war for as long as they are ordered to fight. In a country with a robotic army the only thing preventing war is the morals of the government. History has shown that trusting to your governments morals is a bad bet.

Re:No robot soldiers

[Ol Olsoc]

The biggest reason to ban robotic soldiers is because people (humans) get sick of war.

The biggest reason to ban robotic soldiers is that without killing people there is no point to war. before deciding that I am a lunatic, parse that for a while.

Re:No robot soldiers

[zero0ne]

People cost money just like robots.

Its a money pissing match plain and simple.
(and a tech pissing match)

Re:No robot soldiers

[Kjella]

The biggest reason to ban robotic soldiers is that without killing people there is no point to war. before deciding that I am a lunatic, parse that for a while.

Nope, still doesn't make any sense. The winners gets to dictate terms to the losers, they may lose their country, their houses and land, their goods and property, their laws, their freedoms, their civil rights, they can become all manner of second class citizens or practically slaves without being killed. Robotic soldiers can impose martial law with not a circuit for leniency or compassion, most want a cowed enemy not a dead enemy. Not that there haven't been genocides where they intentionally seek to wipe out the civil population, but that is by far not most wars. You still don't want to be on the losing end of one.

We don't have Killer Robots

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing we have right now are remote controlled drones. There in no one in the machine, but they are still being hand controlled.

Robots can track specific targets

[Crypto Gnome]

The argument is NOT generalized-demolition vs specific targets, but WHAT you could be specific for (insert politico-religious/racial warcrimes here).

Does it cover cruise missiles?

[__aaltlg1547]

Is it really all that wrong to program a robot to go blow up a bridge when there's a war on?

Misread that at first...

[Dave Emami]

"There!"
"What, behind the robot?"
"It is the robot!"
"You silly sod!"
"What?"
"You got us all worked up!"
"That's no ordinary robot! That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered mechanism you ever set eyes on!"
"You git! I soiled my armor, I was so scared!"
"Look, that robot's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!"

It is not about kindness but responsibility

[aepervius]

A fully automated drone , you can always wash your hand if it systematically do something wrong , like bombs all school of a country instead of all bridge. A non automated robot you can't because in the end human press the button and chance you will be accused of crime against humanity.

It isn#t about being kind, it is about being able to accuse and judge somebody if something goes horribly wrong.

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OIC pressure to stop drones

[gelfling]

That's what this is.

Do it, Geneva convention this

[Deliveranc3]

Chemical and Biological agents and tiny bullets... pretty much gone.

Nations who violate the Geneva convention should be on the world "Will nuke ASAP" list.

Screamers(1995) shows what could happen as military robots begin to look more and more like biological agents...

Robots put more power in the hands of the few or the one (anti-democracy) and create a disconnect from violence. Worse it's trivially easy for someone to create a robot army with NO-ONE knowing. Just hire a bunch of people to build the factories who don't know what the factories are for.

This is a no brainer, they need to get on this... NOW... let the world know that developing these weapons is a crime against humanity and nationalism is no excuse. This would already have been acted upon except none of the countries with robot weapons programs want to discuss their current development.

It has nothing to do with 'kindness'

[Anonymous Coward]

The case against autonomous weaponry has nothing to do with 'kindness', it has to do with responsibility.

If someone gets blown up by a bomb or missile, the responsibility for that death can be definitely placed on the person who launched or dropped it. If someone gets blown up by an autonomous weapon, it's much easier to duck responsibility: "Oh, that's not our fault - the programming was bad". "That's not our fault, they fit the profile of the threats that weapon was designed to neutralize". "That's not our fault - it must have been a glitch".

A Taste of Armageddon

[joeyspqr]

"Death, destruction, disease, horror...that's what war is all about, Anan, that's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it so neat and painless you've had no reason to stop it."

logical rant

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you go rant somewhere else? Nobody asked you to show up and start talking gibberish. Even if your arguments are logical and perfect in every way, it immaterial, as you're spraying crazy all over the place and none of us are interested.

Stupid post, stupider comments

[whitroth]

"Kinder" says khb, the submitter? No, idiot, more like how sure are you that the unattended robot will go around noncombatants and other things that should not be damaged, and not blow things up in the middle of cities or towns occupied by them, or start fires in cropfields that in inappropriate weather, could massively spread (I suggest you read the news over the last week about the fires around LA).

And I'm *so* glad y'all are *sure* that the self-motivated 'bot won't mistake you, the "Good Guy", for the "Bad Guys" (tm).

                  mark "and just wait for the unattended bot that looks like Arnie"

Overly Sweeping

[Koreantoast]

My only real nit with the UN's debate is that they've swept in a lot of automated defense systems into this category of killer robots, things like automated missile defense / point defense systems (Phalanx/CWIS on large naval vessels, Iron Dome type systems) that are purely defensive in nature and may actually be beneficial to civilian populations. These sorts of systems are automated because their targets move so quickly that humans can't do much manually beyond just flipping the "on" switch. No problem investigating more aggressive anti-personnel systems like the Korean anti-personnel systems on the DMZ.

The obligatory RoboCop reference

[MondoGordo]

C'mon everyone killer robots are a great idea ... Remember ED-209 ?

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