Musk, Woz, Hawking, and Robotics/AI Experts Urge Ban On Autonomous Weapons

An anonymous reader writes: An open letter published by the Future of Life Institute urges governments to ban offensive autonomous weaponry. The letter is signed by high profile leaders in the science community and tech industry, such as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, Noam Chomsky, and Frank Wilczek. It's also signed — more importantly — by literally hundreds of expert researchers in robotics and AI. They say, "The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting. If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce."

Comments

Is it possible?

[ranton]

Like the summary says, nuclear weapons require expensive and hard to obtain raw materials and a significant amount of technology not common in the civilian space. This is the only reason, IMHO, that nuclear proliferation treaties work as well as they do. How does this group expect governments to keep a lid on military tech that relies on ubiquitous technology found throughout the civilian economy?

I have no fear of AI, but fear AI weapons

[gurps_npc]

The problem is not the rise of an AI revolution.

Instead, it is the rise of a human psychopathic tyrant working with a force of soldiers that obediently kill at his command, with no chance of moral rebellion within his own force.

Re:May as well ban rain

[fche]

The moral high ground is a killzone, should hostilities break out.

Think like a soldier in the next war for a moment

[Karmashock]

... Okay... so... you have an option to use a kill bot against the enemy that wants to kill you... and if you go out there... you could be killed.

Or... you send in your terminator bot and worst case they scrag the robot.

What are you going to prefer here?

A lot of people offering opinions here are not speaking from that perspective. They're speaking often as not from the perspective of some civilian ideologue that knows they're not going to go to war.

I know that if I go to war... I am going to want the best weapons my society can make for me along with the best defenses the best training and ideally leaders that are not complete fuckwits.

That means I want the robots. I want them and I want them to be fucking vicious.

Go on youtube and you'll see US soldiers cheering when air support shows up and blows the fuck out of someone shooting at them.
https://youtu.be/1IcvjD4VVjY?t...

Now... if you are a country that has the ability to build kill bots... and you might be on the firing line... do you or do you not want to use killer robots to kill your enemies?

You have to put your brain into war mode to understand the question.

My vote... is yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

When I go to war... I go to WAR.

Re:Narrowminded Fools

[mrvan]

Just like in the good old days!
s/spammers/bad guys/g
s/spam/autonomous weapons/g

Dear Musk, Woz, Hawking, and Robotics/AI Experts

Your post advocates a

( ) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting autonomous weaponry. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Bad guys can easily use it to harvest weapon designs
(X) Defense systems and other legitimate uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the bad guys
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop autonomous weaponry for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of weapons systems will not put up with it
(X) DARPA will not put up with it
(X) The military will not put up with it
(X) Requires too much cooperation from bad guys
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Many weapon producers cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
(X) Bad guys don't care about illiegal weapons in their arsenals
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for weapons
(X) Open relays in foreign countries
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
(X) Unpopularity of weird new treaties
(X) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of arms control
(X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes (!)
(X) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of autonomous weaponry
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with bad guys
(X) Dishonesty on the part of bad guysthemselves

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(X) Why should we have to trust you and your treaties?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(X) I don't want the government limiting my arsenal
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
(X) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!