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Killer Robots In Plato's Cave

Posted by samzenpus on from the what's-in-a-name? dept.

Lasrick writes Mark Gubrud writes about the fuzzy definitions used to differentiate autonomous lethal weapons from those classified as semi-autonomous: "After all, if the only criterion is that a human nominates the target, then even The Terminator...might qualify as semi-autonomous." Gubrud wants a ban against autonomous hunter-killer weapons like the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile and the canceled Low-Cost Autonomous Attack System, and vague definitions surrounding autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons that will allow weapons that should be classified as autonomous but aren't. Existing definitions draw a "distinction without a difference" and "will not hold against the advance of technology." Gubrud prefers a definition that reduces autonomy to a simple operational fact, an approach he calls "autonomy without mystery." In the end, Gubrud writes, "Where one draws the line is less important than that it is drawn somewhere. If the international community can agree on this, then the remaining details become a matter of common interest and old-fashioned horse trading."

91 comments

  1. anythings better than the current system by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    AGM-129 cruise missile Hey guise! i found your target and ill be there in about 7 minutes :)
    USS Rosevelt OK cool.....er...hang on a second that target might not be legitimate...it might be friendly?
    AGM-129 o...k...guise im going 500 miles per hour here so i kind of need an answer...
    USS Rosevelt: so heres the thing, we supported the guy in 1991, but then we invaded in 2002 and we thought he had chemical weapons, see...but...its complicated
    AGM-129 How complicated, complicated like Jeopardy or like my INERTIAL GUIDANCE GPS TRACKING thats about to intercept the target you told me to find. because its coming up REAL QUICK. I just passed that starbucks the other AGM mentioned...
    USS Rosevelt:OK OK new story. this is about freedom...patriotism...
    AGM-129: for the last time IM NOT A PATRIOT hes still on the ship im an AGM-129 dear lord please make a decision
    USS Rosevelt: You know what? screw it. we'll just tell people we're bringing democracy, or quarter pounders, or something. whatever.
    AGM-129 so is that a yes or what because I har3@$T(^&*[CARRIER LOST]
    USS Rosevelt: Yep. Democracy.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:anythings better than the current system by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Funny

      As explored in Dark Star (1974), ship on a mission to destroy unstable planets, intelligent bomb has decided to blow up in the ship

      [Doolittle convinces the bomb not to explode]
      Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
      Bomb #20: Of course.
      Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
      Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
      Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
      Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
      Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
      Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
      Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
      Bomb #20: Hmmmm... well... I think, therefore I am.
      Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know that anything else exists?
      Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun.

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    2. Re:anythings better than the current system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I only saw that movie once, and I was a child too young to really appreciate it, but I seem to recall that the conclusion of the bomb's introduction to solipsism had a fittingly narcissistic conclusion:

      Bomb #20: Let there be light.

  2. idiotis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the writer didnt understand platos allegory...

    1. Re:idiotis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please enlighten us, noble coward.

      This is your opportunity to score some karma by being informative. Or maybe you are just full of shit. I don't know which for I am a idiot.

    2. Re:idiotis... by s.petry · · Score: 2, Informative

      I am not the AC, but the analogy is quite powerful and I agree TFA does not touch it. Extremely paraphrased so missing a lot, here goes.

      Imagine a Government that oppresses you, it tricks you daily to keep you oppressed. You, are in the dark on literally everything.

      What happens when an oppressed person escapes? They are so shocked they become physically ill, but eventually will be amazed and explore. After a while, they will attemp to free others. Probably to their demise, because people are more content to be oppressed than to fight for freedom. So much so, they will kill the people that try and free them and argue that their oppression really isn't that bad.

      Philosophy as defined by Socrates included the statement "seeks the truth at all costs". He also stated that it was a Philosophers duty to free people from their mental prisons, and that it would probably cost them their lives to do so.

      Athens killed Socrates because he pissed off an rich asshole. The first of many stories in history showing the trend. People are so content in their oppression that they allow this to occur. Today is no different. You are in a cave too!

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    3. Re:idiotis... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Your joking right? Please tell me you are kidding.

      The only other alternative I can see is that you had never heard of 'Plato's cave' and decided you were smart enough to just make it up as you went along.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:idiotis... by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Too funny! I have 3 different translations of "The Republic" and have read far more. Try "The Cambridge Texts" version of "The Republic", it's an excellent linguistics translation.

      I should add that I have seen a whole lot of bastardized translations. I have seen some pretty f-d youtube videos claiming to be about the subject too.

      The history lesson I mentioned is also in Plato's works. Start with "The Apology" to see why Socrates was killed, and read the rest of Plato's works for what he thought of Athenians.

      Since you attacked my post with a vague generalization, I'm guessing that you will simply dismiss the actual works and claim "no uh uh". Then again, I am occasionally wrong.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    5. Re:idiotis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK clever cunt, what does it really mean?

      P.S. "You're", not "your"

    6. Re: idiotis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see you opted for "no uh uh"

    7. Re:idiotis... by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      /. 2015 - what a great place

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  3. A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-face-recognition-algorithm-that-finally-outperforms-humans-2c567adbf7fc

    If people are willing to trust autonomous cars to do a better job than people, why not target recognition, Seems to be a cognitive disconnect.

    1. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      An autonomous cars' job is "don't hit those people, other cars, or other obstacles in the road." It doesn't need to know Person A is fine to hit but avoid Person B or else. Autonomous weapons need to make this decision and might decide that the wrong person is OK to kill.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    2. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Autonomous weapons need to make this decision and might decide that the wrong person is OK to kill.

      So? The important criteria is whether they will make MORE mistakes than humans. Human soldiers make lots of mistakes, they become fatigued, angry about their best friend's leg getting blown off, etc. A robot would not have massacred civilians at My Lai, or No Gun Ri.

    3. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Target recognition is a harder problem than obstacle avoidance.

      As a trivial example an obstacle avoiding car doesn't need to be able to distinguish between a person and a lamp post It only needs to know that something is there. Whereas a self firing missile needs to be able to distinguish between individual people, buildings, etc. so that it can fire only when one that is classified as an enemy is detected and not when any object or even any person is detected.

    4. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by amRadioHed · · Score: 2

      Don't crash into anything while moving from point A to point B is a fairly unambiguous goal which computers should be able to handle, even if the details in reality are fairly complicated. Only kill bad people is not the same thing at all.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    5. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed the point entirely and went off on an unrelated tangent.

      That post is not about autonomous cars, it's about computer systems being able to better identify individuals than people can. Autonomous cars are supposed to be better than people because they make fewer mistakes. Likewise, computer identification will make fewer mistakes than people in misidentifying the target. They won't be perfect, but they'll be better than people.

    6. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why does it matter if robots are better identifying bad people which was the point of the link.

    7. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      Why does it matter if robots are better identifying bad people which was the point of the link.

      Because letting the robots make that decision never works out well. Cmon, haven't you seen [insert almost any robot-based scifi here]?

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    8. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by dougmc · · Score: 1

      Don't crash into anything while moving from point A to point B is a fairly unambiguous goal which computers should be able to handle, even if the details in reality are fairly complicated.

      Given the number of computer games I've played with horrible pathfinding ... I'm guessing that this must be an even more complicated concept than we are aware of. (Scott Adams had something to say about that ...)

    9. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      I agree. I'd much rather see a large drone release a little drone that homes in on one guy and shoots him than I would see that same drone release an explosive missile that blows up the guy and the seven people standing next to him. If we're going to kill people with drones (and, I'm not saying we should, but it sure looks like that's going to be happening), we should use all the technology we can to reduce collateral damage as much as possible.

    10. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by fractoid · · Score: 1

      The problem domains are different, and current AI is far better at "calculate a trajectory for this physical object that avoids other physical objects and follows a set of rules" than "identify a random human or group of humans, assess their level of involvement (both now and likely future level) in a given conflict, and determine whether they are legitimate combatants."

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    11. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by kylemonger · · Score: 1

      True, but let's not make the perfect an implacable enemy of the good enough. Consider that we're already willing to launch a Hellfire missile at terrorist leaders and count the 10-15 "maimed and also deads" as collateral damage. Shooting only one wrong person in the head every fifty kills would be a huge improvement over the missile.

    12. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      "Autonomous cars are supposed to be better than people because they make fewer mistakes."

      The actual minimum safety mark for autonomous cars is to be about 2/3 as good as the human average.. That's actually a very high level because the human average is very high and pretty close to zero crashes per unit of driving time. The thing with people is that when we are sub-par we tend to be far bellow the average, and since the machine hopefully attains a fairly constant level of safety and doesn't get tired it achieves a far higher level of cumulative safety as a result. I.e. the person drives when they feel like it and hands over to the machine if tired or drunk or too stressed or whatever.

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
  4. Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is this hippie faggot and why should anyone give a shit what he wants?

    1. Re:Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Bennetts new pen name.

  5. Human In The Loop Abort by bughunter · · Score: 5, Informative

    I once worked on the camera portion of a semi-autonomous weapon which, once a target was designated, would continually analyze the live image to maintain, track and intercept that target. A key part of the system was a human in the loop abort, which would cause the system to veer off target before impact should the operator see something he or she didn't like: not the intended target, high probability of collateral damage, etc.

    The point is, all judgements about selecting the target and aborting the mission or changing targets were in the hands of a human. The automated parts were vehicle operations, corrections for terrain and weather, tracking an operator-designated object, etc. — all things that required no risk assessment, moral judgment, ethical considerations, etc.

    That's the difference between autonomous and semi-autonomous: A human identifies the target, and monitors the system to issue a stand down order as new information becomes available.

    (It's also the only weapon system I ever worked on, and it caused me great conflict. Though the intended use had merit, the possible unintended uses made me very uncomfortable. No, I can't be more specific.)

    --
    I can see the fnords!
    1. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is that automating a process of killing a human is a problem while a process of automating this human's job out of existence (and possibly causing him do things that made him a target pf autonomous killer system) is not?

    2. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

      (It's also the only weapon system I ever worked on, and it caused me great conflict. Though the intended use had merit, the possible unintended uses made me very uncomfortable. No, I can't be more specific.)

      Shouldn't every weapon have a moral conflict inherent in it's use? Whether it is wondering for a fraction of a second if you should pull the trigger of a rifle(am I aiming at a target or a civilian), or deliberating for a week on whether or not to launch a strike on a compound (good intel, collateral damage, etc), there should always be a period of reflection and wondering if the weapon needs to be employed. The act of taking a life is not a decision to be taken lightly, and if when killing becomes second nature or even enjoyable you run the risk of having a very severe problem.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    3. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

      This is a key point. No military in the world is going to want a weapon system that they have zero control over. Limited control, maybe - but we've had that for decades in the form of long range guided cruise/ballistic missiles, and even then there's a human "in the loop" (in the decision to launch/fire). Some of those may also have a self-destruct/abort, but the early ones certainly didn't.

      Furthermore, trying to draw an artificial line between a present-day cruise missile that gets launched from a ship, flies to its target and blows up, and something like the X-47 drone that launches from a carrier, flies to its target, drops a bomb that blows up, then flies back to the carrier... I'm not really seeing the difference, nor the a reason why countries are going to want to ban one and not the other, or at least why every advanced country would want to ban one, and not the other.

    4. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      For a second, I thought you were arguing that the moral conflict should be built into the weapon. I envisioned a weapon version of Clippy. "It looks like you are trying to kill someone. Do you want me to help?"

      On the plus side, building Clippy into every weapon would ensure that they are never used. (On the minus side, using the weapons as clubs until the weapons were destroyed would increase a thousand fold.)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    5. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't with a drone that flies to a set of GPS coordinates, drops a bomb, and flies back. It's with a drone that flies to a set of GPS coordinates, waits around until it sees something in the general vicinity it wants to blow up, drops it's bomb and flies back. The issue is with the "something it wants to blow up" part.

    6. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      I still do not know what is wrong with zone defense automated systems. Sometimes, you WANT segregation as a tactical diplomacy method, and we're to the point of "If it moves and is in the zone, kill it" technology far in excess of the low tech minefields of yesteryear.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    7. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      This is a key point. No military in the world is going to want a weapon system that they have zero control over.

      Militaries? No.

      Powerful despots who want armies who not only won't, but literally can't disobey orders? No matter how incomprehensibly immoral? Oh, very much yes.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    8. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

      No, the problem is in how you:

      A) Definite it clearly enough to include one and exclude the other
      B) Make it sufficiently in the interest of all countries to want to do so.

      It's B that's really going to be the hard part. Weapons generally don't get banned because they're morally horrifying or repugnant, they get banned because countries come to the conclusion that using them really just isn't worth it, and that we'd be better off agreeing to not do so, EVEN IF SOMEONE ELSE DECIDES TO VIOLATE THAT.

      Consider Chemical Weapons, something that despite their widespread proliferation, generally was never employed in warfare with the exception of WWI and the Iran-Iraq war. In both of the wars CW were employed in, they were generally indecisive in the outcome of the war. They're also rather prone to affecting your own troops, and one can employ countermeasures without employing the weapons yourself. In short, they're not worth the trouble, expense, and time to maintain them.

      Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are clearly quite potent, and useful as a tool of state preservation (or at least perceived to be). Despite how horrible these weapons are, and how incomprehensibly awful it would/will be if they ever get used again, the best we've managed to do is reduce the number of them (because again, they're expensive, and we can spend less while still maintaining the same effect).

      Now consider another weapon - Land Mines. These are banned by the Ottawa Treaty, which has an impressive number of signatories... but notably lacks the participation of the USA, China, or Russia, or of certain countries with significantly hostile borders such as India/Pakistan and North and South Korea. Basically, anyone who still thinks they might need these weapons.

      So where does that leave highly autonomous combat systems? Well, my take is that war has long been a factor of three things - population, technology, and production capacity. We're talking about something that takes one of those almost entirely out of the equation. Does that seem like a potentially powerful thing, or something that no one would have any interest in ever using?

    9. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if the drone does a better job at distinguishing the what to blow up better than a pilot can?

      The argument for autonomous cars isn't that they are perfect, only that they are better than a human

    10. Re:Human In The Loop Abort by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

      Not terribly different than the non-intelligent weapons we already deploy.

      Take mines ( both the land and sea variety ) for example. A human deployed them ( or made the decision to deploy them ) and they pretty much just sit around until someone crosses paths with it. At least the autonomous version can have some logic built into it to discriminate against its targets.

  6. Drop the term by Extremus · · Score: 1

    Giving a clearcut definition to "autonomy" that is inclusive of all its uses is downright impossible. Authors in engineering argue that the term is at least context dependent (things are autonomous regarding task, environment, etc). Perhaps the best way here is to stop using "autonomy", and invent new ones.

  7. It's just simple Greek... do you speak it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With just the Greek etymology*: "autonomous" is the... auto-nomous! No "semi-auto-nomous" can exist logicaly. But also no autonomous robots (weapons systems or any other kind) can exist! So...

    * Antisthenes, an ancient ancestor of mine said (roughly translated by me): "The beginning of wisdom is the examination of words/names"

  8. Semi-autonomous robots?! by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

    I KNEW it!
    The Illuminati are controlling our new robot Overlords!

    --
    Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
  9. If you're killing people, you're doing it wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But you want an end run around that, don't you?

  10. Every time there is a better weapon... by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Every time there is a better weapon, someone will seek to ban it. It started at least as long ago as 12th century, when Pope Innocent II banned the use of crossbows (1139).

    It is futile... And, with the particular example of precision weapons, it is also foolishly immoral — because precision helps reduce fatalities. If you no longer need to flatten the village to destroy an artillery battery, or a demolish a high-rise to get that sniper, you kill fewer by-standers and cause less mayhem...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Im not sure about that. I mean look at the wars we fight with precision weapons. They just go on and on, there is no surrender. The one benefit that collateral damage has is it breaks the will of the opposing population, and by doing that forces a surrender.

      So while we do kill a lot more innocents in the beginning we get to the point of rebuilding faster. With precision weapons we just seem to keep fighting the same damn battles over and over again. I am not so sure that precision weapons are more moral.

    2. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Kochnekov · · Score: 1

      Extending on your line of thought, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was morally justified because the collateral deaths of the innocents in those cities caused the Japanese to surrender to the Allies, thus ending the war and limiting further casualties. My grandfather supported those bombings using the same line of thinking. I'm not so sure it was, though.

    3. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      The biggest problem with banning anything, especially weapons, is that only the people who feel morally obligated to follow the ban will do so - leaving them unprotected from those who don't.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    4. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Extending on your line of thought, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was morally justified because the collateral deaths of the innocents in those cities caused the Japanese to surrender to the Allies, thus ending the war and limiting further casualties. My grandfather supported those bombings using the same line of thinking. I'm not so sure it was, though.

      The Japanese were training school children and the elderly to go down and defend possible landing beaches with spears. The Japanese military tried to stage a coup to depose the Emperor and any in the pro-peace faction before the bombs. The Japanese military elite was willing to watch the whole country burn and every last Japanese citizen killed all so they wouldn't have the shame of having to surrender. They were necessary.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    5. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By John Stuart Mill's view or morality, which is the basis for current day liberal politics, then the atomic bomb could very well be justified because it stopped the war and prevented a greater amount of deaths that was have resulted from invading the home island.

    6. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      Counterpoint: the more "safe" and sure a weapon is perceived to be, the more likely it is to be used.

      You'll notice over the past forty years the US has been moving the moral repercussions of warfare further and further from public view. When you could be drafted to go kill foreigners and maybe get killed yourself, moral outrage was high. Protests in the streets, the burning of draft cards, fleeing the country. So they moved from a draft to an all-volunteer army. Now when soldiers die, or get PTSD, well, they did kind of know what they were signing up. They volunteered! So it's still "bad" but not nearly so bad... Much easier to convince the public to send troops.

      And "collateral damage" is so distasteful. But look at these smart bombs! It's like a video game! I guess bombing is okay, because you're only going to kill the bad guys...

      None of this is still good enough, though. People don't like seeing soldiers come home with their limbs blown off, or not at all. So now it's robots. Drones. Bomb day and night and there's no risk to a soldier, so it's an easy sell. People are getting blown up every day in Pakistan by US drones and it's not even a blip on the news.

      Except for that one drone pilot who grew a conscience. Well we'll get rid of that. Now the drones will be autonomous. No taxpayers' kids will get maimed by IEDs, nobody to grow a conscience and say "maybe we shouldn't be doing this..." and the bombs will rain, rain rain...

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    7. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree its somewhat futile to resist technology, but I have to point out that `better' is a very relative concept.

      The problem with the crossbow is that it was, in some respects, worse: it didn't make regular people more dead than the other weapons that already made them dead, but it could easily pierce plate armour and kill the respectable sort of people, while requiring negligible training in comparison to the bow. It is not surprising at all that churchmen would be opposed to it, since it shifted power away from the established structures towards the ignorant rabble.

    8. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Japanese were training school children and the elderly to go down and defend possible landing beaches with spears.

      Sounds a lot like the (British) Home Guard to me.

    9. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And, with the particular example of precision weapons, it is also foolishly immoral — because precision helps reduce fatalities. If you no longer need to flatten the village to destroy an artillery battery, or a demolish a high-rise to get that sniper, you kill fewer by-standers and cause less mayhem...

      I think that you should take a look at the use of so-called precision weapons in the last couple of decades. Start with Israel in Gaza in 2014, flattening UN schools full of children with precision, back to a precision cruise missile strike on a restaurant in Baghdad killing only civilians, all the way back to drone striking a wedding with precision.

    10. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's usually why everyone involved in the banning still keeps a couple of thousand copies of the bloody things around!

      Well, that and all those maintenance contracts in their states...

    11. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by mi · · Score: 1

      When you could be drafted to go kill foreigners and maybe get killed yourself, moral outrage was high. Protests in the streets, the burning of draft cards, fleeing the country.

      Except there was none of that during Koran War just a few years earlier, when weapons were worse, not during WW2 even earlier.

      No, the protests you are alluding to were due simply to the enemy action and little else.

      Your premise is wrong — the US, for better or worse, still fights plenty of wars. They are just far less devastating for both sides — because we have better weapons.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    12. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by mi · · Score: 1

      Citations, coward?

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    13. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      Your premise is wrong — the US, for better or worse, still fights plenty of wars. They are just far less devastating for both sides — because we have better weapons.

      Well that's kind of my point. Do the better weapons mean they're more likely to be used? When there's a conflict with a foreign party (over anything. Resources, ideology, whatever) you have many options, with different trade-offs. You've got economic, diplomatic, or military solutions to the problem. And the "cost" of an option is of course not just measured in dollars, but political capital at home, diplomatic credibility abroad, etc.

      But better weapons make the "cost" of choosing a military option lower and lower. You don't have to sway public opinion in favor of a decades-long ground campaign. We'll just send some killer robots and only "the bad guys" will die. There's a lot less public scrutiny, then, of the nature of the bad guys, and whether killing them in the best option. Or the repercussions. Killing Saddam seems like a no-brainer, but then you wind up with a power vacuum, and ISIS.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    14. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by mi · · Score: 1

      Well that's kind of my point. Do the better weapons mean they're more likely to be used?

      Yes, I understood your question — and the answer is "No". The US is not demonstrably more/less eager to enter into a shooting war now, than it was during the 20th century, for example.

      There's a lot less public scrutiny, then

      The protests against Iraq-war were the largest ever — public "scrutiny" (or hysteria, rather) was immense. We went in anyway.

      Killing Saddam seems like a no-brainer, but then you wind up with a power vacuum, and ISIS.

      It was not the killing of Saddam, that caused the power vacuum, but the premature withdrawal of US troops — a nice-looking (at the time) gesture, that had little to do with weapons-quality...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    15. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      Children with spears and broomsticks against trained soldiers with aerial bombardment, tanks, machine guns, and flame throwers, etc. No wonder we were so afraid of going in. The real reason for the hurry at the end of WWII had less to do with Japan and a lot more to do with the Russians..

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
    16. Re:Every time there is a better weapon... by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      That's an argument FOR fully autonomous weapons not against them..

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
  11. Booby traps? by careysb · · Score: 1

    If I booby trap my house to kill intruders, is that autonomous?

    1. Re:Booby traps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you end up in the trap.

    2. Re:Booby traps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Mines" as they are often known, are very old as far as warfare goes. Explosive mines appeared early on, and the US still uses them exclusively for deterrence in Korea. In other areas of the world, children find mines with their legs. They are seen as a human rights issue, so unless you are Macaulay culkin, I would recommend against booby trapping your house. You are VERY likely to hurt yourself, a loved one, or someone with a legitimate concern to tresspass, such as a delivery person, a police officer or, well, anyone, and you will go to jail for this. IANAL, but it's pretty obvious.

    3. Re:Booby traps? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      Based on the definition in the article, it would seem "no" would be the answer, since no target recognition or decision-making is occurring. The government's definitions are roughly that "semi-autonomous machines" are instructed to engage a target and can then do so without subsequent human interaction, whereas "autonomous machines" are those that are simply let loose and make their own decisions about who or what to engage. Currently, no one has autonomous machines, based on those definitions, though we'll be deploying semi-autonomous machines within the next 2-3 years.

      The article's author suggests that the distinction between semi-autonomous and autonomous is a useless one, since when you get down to it the important thing about these machines is not who sets the target, but rather how they identify the target. After all, we could have a "semi-autonomous" machine that's told to target "hostile forces", and it'd be indistinguishable from an "autonomous" machine. Each of them would be just as likely as the other to go on a killing spree or be abused. The distinction is a worthless one, since the important thing is their target recognition and engagement capabilities, which is something that both of them can do without human intervention.

      Of course, I suppose you could make the argument that a dumb booby trap is just an autonomous weapon with a malfunctioning target recognition system that reports back a positive test result every single time. ;)

    4. Re:Booby traps? by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      If I booby trap my house to kill intruders, is that autonomous?

      The Engineer's answer is yes, most certainly!
      It is a "horrible example" of everything that is dangerous about autonomous weapons, to the extent of having no target recognition at all.

      That opens the question: Do the existing laws banning mines, in at least some areas, also ban robot weapons?
      I would think so...

  12. Under "autonomous weapons" should be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Land mines - they detonate no matter who comes by.
    deadfalls
    unexploded bombs ...

  13. Plato's Grave by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I read the headline as finding robots in Plato's grave. Which sounded like a much better movie than the last Indiana Jones flim.

  14. Shall we play a game? by TiggertheMad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems to me that these weapons are morally equivalent to a land mine. A land mine is an autonomous weapon, that has the following logic: 'Is trigger depressed? If so, detonate'.

    Putting more complicated logic on a robot armed with machine guns is pretty much the same thing. If you have morale problems with land mines, you probably should have the same problems with kilbots. (Also, expect the exact same classes of problems to occur).

    Most civilized countries are realizing that landmines are rather deplorable weapons, it seems interesting that they would be ok with robotic weaponry...

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
    1. Re:Shall we play a game? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the moral equivalent, perhaps. But a landmine will remain lethal for decades, if not longer, and as far as I know there are none that have been deployed that can be easily turned off. Nor did those who placed them keep any real record of where they were for retrieval later.

      There's little chance of a couple hundred killbots being left in place and active after a conflict ends. And hopefully they won't default into a kill children, puppies, and anything that moves mode. Plus they won't be as cheap an plentiful as mines either.

      The truly deplorable part about landmines is that a civilian who wasn't even born before the conflict ended could be killed or injured by one 30 years after a peace treaty was signed.

    2. Re:Shall we play a game? by sjames · · Score: 2

      In some ways, the autonomous weapon is far worse. At least the landmine stays put. Imagine landmines roving randomly around the countryside.

    3. Re:Shall we play a game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And hopefully they won't default into a kill children, puppies, and anything that moves mode

      Let's say you have an autonomous sentry gun programmed not to engage puppies. A technologically unsophisticated but highly determined attacker might train puppies or other livestock to walk up to these sentry guns with a bomb to destroy them. Ultimately, one would need to program the sentry gun to engage said puppies or livestock and, were a human to be operating that sentry gun, s/he would have to do the same.

      Let's say you have an autonomous sentry gun programmed not to engage children. A technologically unsophisticated but highly determined attacker might trick, brainwash, or coerce children to approach the sentry gun to disarm or destroy it. Ultimately, one would need to ... yep, you guessed it.

      Many of the cases for static and semi-static automatic defenses boil down to the equivalent of a landmine.

    4. Re:Shall we play a game? by khallow · · Score: 1

      Most civilized countries are realizing that landmines are rather deplorable weapons, it seems interesting that they would be ok with robotic weaponry...

      It's because landmines have limited value, but robotic weaponry is a game changer. For example, we may be a few decades away from obsolescence of traditional human piloted fighter aircraft due to higher cost per seat, lower acceleration tolerance, and possibly slower reaction speeds.

      Sure, you can ban the weapons, but then the initiative for their development and use will just go to those who break the rules.

    5. Re:Shall we play a game? by s.petry · · Score: 1

      I personally don't see it as a game changer. Radars are detecting them easier, and jammers are bringing them down easier. Iran has dropped quite a few from the US and Israel.

      It is a real moral dilemma having to kill someone, and especially if your life is not in danger. It is that dilemma which is leading to the desire for autonomous systems by people in power. No risk of guys like Manning or Snowden being disgusted with the morality of the situation and dumping information to the public. Immoral politicians will push the button themselves, or tell the immoral military guys they allow to stay on staff to do the work.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    6. Re:Shall we play a game? by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      A technologically unsophisticated but highly determined attacker might trick, brainwash, or coerce children to approach the sentry gun to disarm or destroy it. Ultimately, one would need to ... yep, you guessed it.

      I guessed "use the undeniable propaganda to undermine local support for the enemy, while simultaneously increasing the deployment of such weapons, so the enemy has to waste more time trying to find children to pass through territory, and perhaps deploying a few non-lethal everyone-targeting devices nearby to interrupt the clearing process, since such automated sentries are a system for area denial rather than offensive capabilities, and they aren't really expected to stop anyone indefinitely.

      What do I win? Another ride down your slippery slope?

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    7. Re:Shall we play a game? by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      That would mean they'd have a power source that would be rapidly depleted, rendering the mine inert. Considering the difficulty of effectively hiding such a mobile mine, it'd also be more easily detected, allowing for proper cleanup once the conflict is resolved.

      In some ways, a randomly-roving land mine is far better than a stationary one.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    8. Re:Shall we play a game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll be perfectly okay with it until we hang enough of them for it that they're no longer okay with it.
      Landmines might be considered atrocious, but mass consent and the accompanied threat of what will happen to the families of those that deploy them is the only thing keeping them from being used.

      Any autonomous system that can be used will have some monster demanding we spread "freedom" through it for as long as they can avoid it becoming dangerous (politically and personally only) to do so.

      Ideally (to some) these systems could and would remain utterly top-secret, for as long as possible. Especially if there's a way to use those very systems to quiet down those who'd spill the beans!

    9. Re:Shall we play a game? by khallow · · Score: 1

      I personally don't see it as a game changer. Radars are detecting them easier, and jammers are bringing them down easier. Iran has dropped quite a few from the US and Israel.

      Easier than what? There is nothing else in the role these current drones are being used for.

      It is a real moral dilemma having to kill someone, and especially if your life is not in danger. It is that dilemma which is leading to the desire for autonomous systems by people in power. No risk of guys like Manning or Snowden being disgusted with the morality of the situation and dumping information to the public. Immoral politicians will push the button themselves, or tell the immoral military guys they allow to stay on staff to do the work.

      And you're telling me that's not a game changer either?

    10. Re:Shall we play a game? by Kiuas · · Score: 1

      A land mine is an autonomous weapon, that has the following logic: 'Is trigger depressed? If so, detonate'.

      A land mine is not autonomous anymore than a hole covered with leaves and a sharp stick at the bottom is "autonomous". A land mine is a mechanism, a trigger, which will do one thing if acted upon, ie. if stepped on. The landmine will not suddenly move on its own, or decide that it will not explode if the person stepping on it isn't an adult etc.

      Autonomy implies the capability of a weapon to affect its own behavior, a mine has none of that.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    11. Re:Shall we play a game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do I win? Another ride down your slippery slope?

      You are the proud winner of a contemptuous snort of amusement and a shake of the head. Congratulations!

      Re: "use the undeniable propaganda to undermine local support for the enemy", really, do you know anything about history or even keep up the news? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children.

    12. Re:Shall we play a game? by TiggertheMad · · Score: 1

      I think they are called 'cruse missiles'.

      --

      HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
    13. Re:Shall we play a game? by s.petry · · Score: 1

      First part, drones were game changing when they were immune to detection and shutdown. No longer the case.

      Second part, no there is nothing new here either. History is full of people holding power trying to use all kinds of tricks to "wipe out those other guys". Drones are no different than aircraft currently. They require a human to pilot and shoot, so morality still gets involved. Autonomous is the push because it breaks that, and I gave the logic for why people holding power want it. You seem to be pretending they are already here and in use, or ignoring the reality of current drones.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    14. Re:Shall we play a game? by khallow · · Score: 1

      First part, drones were game changing when they were immune to detection and shutdown.

      Drones were never immune to detection and shutdown. Nor is that their draw at present.

      Drones are no different than aircraft currently.

      Aircraft that are many times more expensive than drones and which contain a human pilot.

      . They require a human to pilot and shoot, so morality still gets involved.

      The same reasons that morality would get involved in a weapon system with a human pilot, would get involved with any other weapons system. We see it with landmines, for example. The cost/benefit of remote or autonomous systems is different, but your morality should apply equally.

      And humans would still be involved. It's not like they'll throw away all information about the kills the autonomous robots are making. After all, they'll want those robots to be more effective, and you can't make anything more effective by ignoring it.

    15. Re:Shall we play a game? by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Drones were never immune to detection and shutdown. Nor is that their draw at present.

      BS to both of those. Drones could not be seen or detected, hence used as assassination devices. Iran is successfully killing drones, they are no longer immune to detection. As a guess, you are going to attempt to claim that "cost" is the main factor. That is extremely wrong on every possible level. Study up on DOD and Military expenses, money has never been an object, ever in the history of the military.

      To the last part, I think we are close to agreeing except for where you claim autonomous systems would still require humans. That last part is what certain people are trying to achieve. I gave the logic for why they want to achieve it. You don't discount the logic, and in fact you must agree because you have not countered it.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    16. Re:Shall we play a game? by khallow · · Score: 1

      Drones could not be seen or detected, hence used as assassination devices. Iran is successfully killing drones, they are no longer immune to detection.

      The US wasn't using drones to assassinate people in Iran. And so what if Iran can do it? It's not the same as someone elsewhere achieving the same feat, particularly without creating a military target in the process. Keep in mind that the US strategy is to always have drones in the air. So it's not that useful to be able to detect drones, because you will always be able to detect drones. Merely detecting drones tells you nothing about whether the controllers of those drones know enough to commit an effective assassination strike.

      Study up on DOD and Military expenses, money has never been an object, ever in the history of the military.

      The Second World War and the Cold War are obvious counterexamples. The US won both wars in large part because its opponents could not afford to match the US's industrial/economic strength. I don't see that working at all with China in the next few decades. And even ignoring the competition from that emerging superpower, we still have that the US military and its ongoing activities are a huge drain on the US.

      To the last part, I think we are close to agreeing except for where you claim autonomous systems would still require humans.

      I think a completely autonomous system will eventually be feasible. But then how would you know that it is working as intended? That implies the involvement of independent sensory systems, which would eventually have humans in the loop.

      Further, it runs completely contrary to how modern military systems and strategies work. A key aspect of US military development is the combination of improved intelligence of the enemy with more accurate and precise delivery of military force. Manufactured ignorance which impairs decision makers' knowledge of ongoing military activities runs completely counter to that approach. I don't buy that anyone would allow the entire US military to run autonomously and unsupervised (especially given the many constraints that have been put on the US military over the centuries) just so they could have marginally better plausible deniability when it comes to killing innocents.

  15. Different problem by Britz · · Score: 1

    I think the issue isn't really autonomous robots. The problem is the declared and clearly defined battlefield. Inside the battlefield, autonomous and semi-autonomous systems are already at work, there is not much you can do about that. Ships, for example, have anti missle systems that are completely autonomous. And decisions to kill or not to kill are often made on the spot and quick. Humans err a lot in these situations, leading to lots of horrible mistakes.

    Outside the declared battlefield, e.g. around the whole globe, the story is quite different. If we could simply decide to require a legal trial before execution, we would have much more moral ground to stand on.

  16. Programming language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need a whole new programming language just for robts. A language that includes the 3 laws as a default, and will allow additional laws starting at number 4.

  17. "Let there be light" by Martin+Spamer · · Score: 1

    Why does this topic remind me of Dark Star

    In particular this bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    The major of media coverage of this topic is just bullshit.

  18. Who subscribes to bans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So... seriously, I may possibly create an autonomous weapon system. It will walk around the garden, punching snails to death. No fancy lasers, just a compressed-air cylinder that discharges to shoot a piston less than foot. If it accidentally punches a person or even a small dog, it shouldn't hurt much unless it gets a lucky hit to the eye or something. But against a snail shell: lethal crack.

    I'll watch it for a while, but in the end, it's only worth doing if I can let it go and not have to spent my time dealing with it. That's the whole fucking point: to relieve me of the mass-murder drudgery. And you know what? I am not going to check with the UN or whatever. I'll just do it. Or not, if I don't have the time.

  19. All Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, this is all bullshit brought to you by the armchair philosophers who haven't read any philosophy. The premise behind these arguments is complete bollocks; they foolishly assume that civilian casualties are avoidable and unacceptable. In reality, civilian casualties are unavoidable and therefore must be accepted. The target is to minimize civilian casualties while still not losing the war. The yanks are experts at not winning this way; they've done it in their last seven wars.

    1. Re:All Bullshit by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      Also note that they know absolutely nothing about fully autonomous machines as weapons, or about Strong AI. Ie they are 100% incompetent to make an informed decision. The real joke is that such weapons don't even exist yet so how could they know so much about them ?
      Its like planning to fight off an alien invasion by looking at old movies..

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
  20. Fully Autonomous Torpedos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There have been fully autonomous torpedoes for quite a while -- trained to sink to the bottom of the ocean and start up again when they hear a particular screw sound and then home in on that sound. Why the debate now? Just because they can fly?

  21. Torpedos are the drones of the sea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like torpedos have been doing this since at least 1979...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_60_CAPTOR

  22. Do Weapons Developers and Lawmakers Read? by RyuMaou · · Score: 1

    Hasn't anyone developing these weapons read any science-fiction? Is Fred Saberhagen so far out of vogue that no one has read *any* of the Berserker novels or stories?
    How about Phillip K. Dick? He's been pretty popular with Hollywood recently, and his story Second Variety was not only about this very thing, but made into a movie starring Peter Weller called "Screamers". You can read it for free via Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook...

    --
    Oh, the trials and tribulations of a network geek! Read about them at: http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/