The UN Will Consider Banning Killer Robots (hrw.org)

Friday the United Nations agreed to discuss a ban on "killer robots" in 2017. The 123 signatories to a long-standing conventional weapons pact "agreed to formalize their efforts next year to deal with the challenges raised by weapons systems that would select and attack targets without meaningful human control," according to Human Rights Watch. "The governments meeting in Geneva took an important step toward stemming the development of killer robots, but there is no time to lose," said Steve Goose, arms director of Human Rights Watch, a co-founder of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. "Once these weapons exist, there will be no stopping them. The time to act on a pre-emptive ban is now."
schwit1 reminded us that IEEE Spectrum ran a guest post Thursday by AI professor Toby Walsh, who addressed the U.N. again this week. "If we don't get a ban in place, there will be an arms race. And the end point of this race will look much like the dystopian future painted by Hollywood movies like The Terminator."

Comments

Meh.

[Frosty Piss]

Like many of the proclamations from the UN, such a ban will have little influence over the development and use of "killer robots".

Re:Meh.

[LWATCDR]

It is also about 60+ years too late. G7es, Mk24 Mine, V1, JB-1 Loon.... All killer robots as is every modern torpedo and missile.

Re:Meh.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Like many of the proclamations from the UN, such a ban will have little influence over the development and use of "killer robots".

Some arms control treaties have been relatively successful; but I wouldn't be optimistic here:

Somethings are just too convenient to ban; and those are usually a lost cause; but among stuff you can get support for; there seems to be a difference between hardware where you can say 'no legitimate use, period' and hardware where certain uses are forbidden; but there are enough legitimate use cases that the relevant hardware remains in stock, widely available to people relatively low on the food chain, and easily amenable to quiet 'off label' use.

Military small arms ammunition, say, tends to be pretty reliably jacketed, even disreputable outfits don't tend to produce their own dum-dums and hollowpoints; though irregular forces and police-derived paramilitaries are obviously more likely to be using weapons not concerned with Geneva convention compliance in the first place.

Stuff with both 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' uses has been harder to keep a lid on. Phosphorus is a lovely illuminating agent; and produces great smoke; but it's considered poor taste to use it as an incendiary. Hard to make that stick when a large number of people, relatively low on the food chain, have access to it because of its legitimate applications, though.

In the case of 'killer robots'; the obvious problem is that all the hardware; and much of the software for a 'killer robot' will be identical to that of a 'human directed' robot with some automation of routine navigation stuff; machine-vision-assisted targeting and IFF, and so on. So long as you pinkie-swear that a human will have to press the 'make it so' button; you can develop all the elements, navigation, targeting, etc. that an autonomous killbot would need; but make sure that the firmware running on anything pesky journalists get to see has a human pressing the red button to approve what the autonomous killbot comes up with.

"Good faith" adherents to a 'no killbots' rule will likely find themselves easing their way toward autonomy with some (admittedly plausible) special cases: "We can't keep a human in the loop for our CIWS/RAM system; human reflexes aren't fast enough for contemporary missile intercept; but don't worry, the CIWS turrets are bolted onto the ship and aren't going to go wandering off." Not false; but an autonomous killbot. Then we'll need an 'emergency defensive protocol' for human-oversight robots that lose their link to HQ, whether to technical failure or hostile jamming; which will be OK; because it's strictly for the robots to engage in defensive actions in their existing location until communication is restored!

People who don't give a damn, of course, will just stub out the 'ask human for confirmation' part and carry on with their day.

Aside from this, some lucky logic-chopper is going to have the unenviable task of explaining why existing, more or less universally accepted, 'fire-and-forget' missiles and other similar hardware that gets its activation command from a human; but thereafter guides itself to target without external intervention, isn't a killbot; but the more drone-shaped hardware that gets its initial activation command from a human; but thereafter guides itself to target without external intervention, is a killbot.

People claiming that diplomatic pressure and arms control conventions are totally useless are seriously exaggerating their case(land mines, chemical, and biological weapons certainly are way down; people have been jumpy about blinding laser weapons, etc.); but there is a lot less room for optimism when you can't draw a bright line around whatever you are trying to ban and declare it and everything similar Off Limits.

With Killbots, I'm not optimistic: too much of the tech is shared with 100% legit 'human approved, machine assisted' systems; and the excuses to get a foot in the door(even if you care enough about perception of legality to not simply quietly switch off human approval) are too plausible.

Yes, a law!

[SeaFox]

That will stop those killer robots from killing us.
If there's one thing Skynet recognizes, it's the authority of the written word.

Re:Yes, a law!

[TheRaven64]

Unfortunately, a lot of that R&D is dual use. Self-driving cars will require the same navigation systems as autonomous robots. Remote-controlled drones will require the same chassis and control hardware as autonomous versions. Even the targeting systems can be developed under the ban: the difference between the system on the Apache that can target and prioritise a few hundred targets for the human gunner and one that then fires at the highest priority targets itself is a couple of lines of code. There isn't much that you need to build an autonomous robot soldier that you don't need for something else that such a treaty would permit. It's then just the final assembly step that's needed, and doing that in secret doesn't need too many people to know about it.

Re:Automation of the military

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Generals and terrorist leaders have already been using robots for quite some time. Biological ones, that is. They haven't risked their own lives, either.

Re:We've had this before.

[arth1]

Whoever develops them anyway wins world war 3.

No one wins world war 3.

Re:Automation of the military

[Applehu Akbar]

"If you're not man enough to look the enemy in the eyes while killing him, you're... American. The term is becoming synonymous with coward, and I'm ashamed."

The objective of war is not to look "man enough" but to kill sufficiently large numbers of enemy that he will no longer be inclined to attack you.

Re:Automation of the military

[amiga3D]

The idea is to kill the enemy without getting killed. There are no points for style. We try to limit death of non combatants but if they're in the kill zone that's just the way the cookie crumbles. You fight wars to win because the alternative is something no one want to experience. American soldiers put themselves in harms way if needed but they are trained to survive while accomplishing the mission.

United Nations

[PPH]

Why not just ban war?

Re:Only if they aren't aimed

[lxs]

As for banning landmines.
There is a landmine treaty which isn't signed by a handful of nations that don't take human rights too seriously. Not surprisingly, the US is on that list, rubbing shoulders with the likes of North Korea, Uzbekistan and Syria.

After all, maiming civilians is what it's all about for these brave warrior nations.

Re:Automation of the military

[SeattleLawGuy]

The idea is to kill the enemy without getting killed. There are no points for style. We try to limit death of non combatants but if they're in the kill zone that's just the way the cookie crumbles. You fight wars to win because the alternative is something no one want to experience. American soldiers put themselves in harms way if needed but they are trained to survive while accomplishing the mission.

Wars serve a political objective, usually badly. There are points for style, primarily because style has propaganda value, and propaganda changes political support for wars, leaders, and causes--whether that means someone voting to bring troops home or someone telling a private where the enemy ambush is waiting for his unit. Even when you lose a battle or part of one, there can be points for style--Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor, Bastogne, all involved at least temporary defeats that were in some sense spun into political victories that served the war effort. On the offensive side, style matters too--the drone attack with collateral damage that injures or kills non-terrorists, for example, can create more terrorists in the next generation.

Mod Parent Up

[SeattleLawGuy]

"Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided."
Star Trek The Original Series: "A Taste of Armageddon"

Exactly. One of the consistent and reasonable critiques of modern American warfare is that because there is no draft, the influential wealthy and policy-making classes have no personal incentive to avoid war. Many people know few or even no service members. The further you push human beings away from the horrors of war, the more those people will be willing to engage in war.

I've met people who've been personally tortured by foreign heads of state. I've seen people fighting politically to pull their countries together in the face of what seems like neverending war and oppression by warlords. And I've read the stories of people who have seen their countries fall apart in the face of characteristic propaganda and strong men taking power. The less real all of this is and the less human it is, the more people will be willing to stay unengaged in matters of life and death.

Re:Only if they aren't aimed

[Ambassador Kosh]

The USA also uses limited lifetime landmines so they don't stick around after a conflict to keep killing people. I may not like landmines but I understand why they are used and having ones that self destruct is much better than ones that stay around.

Re:Automation of the military

[CrimsonAvenger]

"Your purpose is not to die for your country. Your purpose is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

If you think that making war is all about being "fair", you're doing it wrong....

Re: Automation of the military

[TheRaven64]

US gear only falls into the hands of our enemies in 2 scenarios: we sell it to them, or it gets seized from our allies

Actually, there's another third common scenario: You sell it to your 'allies' (you know, nice friendly countries like Saudi Arabia) and they sell it on, leaving you with no control over its final destination.