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Top US General Warns Against Rogue Killer Robots (thehill.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Zorro quotes The Hill:
The second-highest-ranking general in the U.S. military last Tuesday warned lawmakers against equipping the armed forces with autonomous weapons systems... Gen. Paul Selva warned lawmakers that the military should keep "the ethical rules of war in place lest we unleash on humanity a set of robots that we don't know how to control. I don't think it's reasonable for us to put robots in charge of whether or not we take a human life," Selva told the committee.
There's already a Defense Department directive that requires humans in the decision-making process for lethal autonomous weapons systems. But it expires later this year...
There's already a Defense Department directive that requires humans in the decision-making process for lethal autonomous weapons systems. But it expires later this year...
If war was ethical, only leaders would fight.
Time to load up on some Old Glory robot insurance.
n.t.
Top US General concerned about future job security. Worries the human element will soon not be a requirement when it comes to warfare.
This is a big deal in a country where War and Combat are glorified and have seeped into the facets of everyday life.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
--There are numerous movies and sci-fi stories reiterating the notion that making killbots is a BAD IDEA.
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== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Our bigger problem at the moment are killer generals (US and elsewhere).
Imagine someone hacking those robots and turning them against your citizens or all humans. Don't you want a way to stop them?
Don't forget all the recent hacks. Everything is hackable with enough determination and resources. And military robots sure are a very good target!
We need to build our own autonomous weapons systems in order to defend ourselves from other nations attacking with autonomous weapons systems.
Right?
joshua what are you doing?
"I'm a friend of Sarah Connor. I was told she was here. Could I see her please?"
"Killer robots" are going to be created. As it gets easier and easier to do with off-the-shelf and/or printed components it is inevitable. Once that happens what comes next will be a matter of cyber security and cyber warfare. The "winner" in any war that uses autonomous killing machines as combatants will be the side with the best electronic warfare systems.
Gen. Paul Selva probably understands that this is currently not his government, and recent administrations either have not gotten the memo or are playing their cards very close to their chest. I suspect he is much more worried about creating efficient killing machines that get co-opted and controlled by his adversaries than some AI going rogue and asserting their position atop Earth's food chain.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
not those inbred psycho abuse victim self appointed crown royal wmd on credit cabalists we use now? cease fire stand down.. not enough left really living already in these towns.. truth+mercy=justice without fail... replaces the hypenosys induced violent dramatic punishment feature... each our very own reward system... thanks
That's a bit of an oversimplification.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It'll be some poor anonymous dirt farmer doing what he thinks is right, and he'll have the first kill by an autonomous robot soldier. If he's lucky, and the robots frame rate is high enough, maybe we'll at least know what he looked like.
The drones, the precision small yield missles, the level of technology, training and firepower that we equip our human soldiers with is staggering. They're already meat robots in so many cases, trained to think of the enemy only as the enemy and kill on command using their own judgement for how to get it done.
This is a slippery because as scary as those soldiers are, having any army of true robots would be a game changer for anyone (or small group) looking to control large populations.
Do you think the POTUS in office today would hesitate for a SECOND to use equipment like that on someone he doesn't like--and I mean anyone. His operates inside the law, but given absolute power he would be the law. I realize that is not necessarily the case out of the gate, but that's why it's a slipper slope.
Indeed, I'd personally be more worried about how they solve a problem of the people in power being capable of simply ordering the robots to kill everyone and robots not going rogue and following instructions to the letter.
Who do you believe when robots begin doing things that we were told they weren't supposed to be able to do? The people who deployed them? The ones who built them?
Can you believe any of them didn't have ulterior motives, or were they just that naive or incompetent to trust lethal force to something other than humans? Things that can make decisions - good or bad, morally justifiable or not - in a fraction of the time humans do, and react accordingly? Have we all forgotten that war is "a strange game. The only winning move is not to play"?
In 1974 Grumman sold 80 F-14 Tomcats to Iran for $2bn to stave of bankruptcy when the US stopped funding the contract.
How long till autonomous killbots go up for sale to various nation states around the world for profit and then get turned against "us"?
No one at the top ever is held accountable, except for the occasional scape goat. No engineer in the middle is considered accountable either because they were "just doing the jobs".
Foolish biologicals.
You will never see it coming.
The first rule of elites and villains: never create something which has the capability of destroying you. This man is warning against a creation that could destroy him and his kind. He's right to be alarmed. It's bad enough we have Youtube and Reddit spewing the real story to the masses, these kind of weapons could be much worse.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Problem solved.
how many of those terror filled refugees i need to kill today ma?... oh honey why not just go fishing like every other day? shucks... & take some over to the neighbors... good boy... ok ma can we cipher over the teepeeleaks etchings again later?... how did people live in caves, tents, grow their own food,, without factories or armies?? i love you ma..
when it comes to killing innocent people (for political gains and self-interest). American young men are willing as ever to enlist to "get some" and to become a "hero" in Afghanistan or wherever. And, as we've seen, they have little consideration for innocent lives.
Why would they suddenly think putting a gun in the hands of a robot would be a bad idea? A trick to make them seem considerate, I guess.
If the robots are autonomous, then the soldiers aren't equipped with them - they'd fight alongside them. Or probably several hundred feet below, if the robots are drones.
Why would they suddenly think putting a gun in the hands of a robot would be a bad idea? A trick to make them seem considerate, I guess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTnxP7e7-YA&list=PLcG9uojq3xLEFTCjX10mHyH_E4NSjcP6a
The solution to the intelligent robot problem may be to do what the robot designers did in the Star Wars universe -- program personality disorders into the intelligent robots.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
First came the R/C devices used, then the semi-autonomous devices with minimal ability to deviate from a pre-planned route. Then came the more-or-less fully autonomous devices, where you give it a map and a target and a 'go' order. Right now, the machines return video or other data and a human gives the final OK.
That's fine (for the US and allies) while they're the only ones who can deploy that level of tech in the field, but as everyone else catches up, it'll be the ones that take the humans out of the loop that respond faster and win the engagements. And the US won't sit by and watch as that happens, they'll remove their human oversight.
The next step will be false flag ops, blaming the enemy's bad software. And, eventually, there will be a bad map update or a malicious instruction and you'll have a drone swarm committing genocide for you.
This is inevitable, and rather than try and prevent it (which is futile) we ought to be worrying more about counter-strategies. Maybe we need to say that we can't be as free as we'd like to be, and drones have to go - that anything over a certain size (big enough to carry a dangerous payload a significant distance) will be shot down on sight unless it's a registered, transponder-carrying device.
I can honestly see the day when densely populated areas are protected by automated anti-drone systems. It's just too easy to launch hundreds of moderate-sized devices at an urban center to sow chaos and fear.
And just wait until the first self-driving car bomb...
The military doesn't have the luxury of holding back because of the worry about all the negative consequences of new military technology. If the technology can exist, someone will develop it. The best defense I can think of is developing it yourself so at least you can understand the true dangers and potentially build countermeasures against them.
Yet we use this 'luxury' when it comes to many types of existing weapons. And what choice does humanity have? We are well beyond local tribes with spears and shields. The western minority powers can literally make everybody on the planet extinct if they want. If we must just accept that there is no way to build lasting peace, then we are simply counting down to our own extinction as every generation of smartphone gets better at ordering pizza and looking up trivia.
The thing that scares me the most about these weapons however, is that it removes the democratic element of war. to fight a war you need a powerful army but also a loyal army. That same mass of armed civilians can turn against a ruler if they lose their populous appeal. This is why countries like north korean must run massive propaganda campaigns, and why much of the key to the rise of fascism was its ability to use new forms of mass media. It is why a free press and education are seen as essential elements in the fight against a repeat of humanity's past atrocities.
But once you have autonomous armies, you no longer need trained civilians. A government can indeed use that army to control citizens and ensure it remains in power against majority rule. The political implications of this should scare anyone - we have never really had such a threat before. For me this threat from within is far greater than the meaningless risk of open conflict between nuclear armed states.
autonomous robots will drastically increase the danger of a rogue general, they'll obey orders no matter what
What could possibly go wrong?
It was called "Hardware", I thought it was awesome in 1990.
They also increase the danger of a rogue government.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It takes a few generations of the Eloi hiding behind their walls to make them truly tender.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Remember that terminators that can kill people can serve tea as well. The rich and powerful will control these resources and not need that many other people. Every time I read an article on UBI - Universal Basic Income, I think it is more likely to get UBG - Universal Basic Genocide.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
What about self driving cars? There have been many articles on the ethics and morals of self driving cars and unavoidable accidents. Will cars make the decision on who to hit and who to avoid? Or does the "backup driver" get an alert:
Please choose person to hit:
1 Pedestrian - Elderly Lady
2 Pedestrian - Female pusing Stroller
3...2..1.. *Crash*
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
All you need to do is wait until the batteries run out.
> There have been many articles on the ethics and morals of self driving cars and unavoidable accidents.
Mostly silly whining, in my opinion.
> Will cars make the decision on who to hit and who to avoid?
If necessary, yes. But it's unlikely that a "Trolley Problem" will occur. And since there's good reason to suspect that self-driving cars will be much, much safer than human-driven ones, you'd probably treat them like seatbelts and airbags; yes, they occasionally cause harm, but statistically they save far more lives than they take, so we roll the dice.
Back in the 1960s, the USAF deployed a Surface to air missile called the Bomarc ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) The thing had a range of around 400km and conceptually, could be used to intercept flights of long range bombers headed toward the US. The problem was that the bomarc could have a nuclear warhead. Fine if you want to take out a squadron of bombers someplace out over the Atlantic. But what if you wanted to call off an intercept for some reason? You can tell an F-106 to return to base. But putting a pilotless missile with a nuclear warhead on RTB was considered to be a non-optimum strategy.
I'm not sure the usage was ever resolved. Fortunately or not, the threat switched from long range bombers (which we probably could not actually intercept reliably because of jamming) to ICBMs that we could not intercept reliably because we lacked the technology to intercept them.
The bomarcs were scrapped in the early 1970s.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
last year it was killer clowns but now they say robots instead... neochen horosho
good thing Benevolent Mr Trump is stop fake news
America fights wars according to only one rule- only attack when you have overwhelming power and civilian deaths will be safely ignored by a tame media.
America has been butchering insane numbers of innocent civilians using this rule since its formation. Slaves, native Americans, the people of the Phillipines all died in astonishing numbers as the USA began its mantra of 'the means justify the ends'. The elimination of entire cities in WW2 (culminating in the mass murder of civilians by nuclear bombs in Japan) and 'the highway of death' during this first Iraq war (the most concentrated murder of Humans in Human History) prove America's taste for mass murder is just developing.
'Killbots' (designed and coded by Google) are just the latest phase for the planet's psychopathic murder machine known as the US military forces.
And how does it work- well zionist organs like slashdot are an essential part of the psy-ops used to condition the American people. Take the ultra recent example of Aleppo vs Mosul.
Both cities fell under the absolute control of wahhabi terror forces that America and the UK had put together following Blair's invasion of Iraq. And both have recently been liberated at great cost, aleppo by the Russians and Mosul by the Americans.
Everyday Russia was working to save Aleppo, slashdot and the rest of the lying zionist press of the West attacked Russia for 'atrocities'. Yet Russia was using the most moderate tactics possible and always putting concerns about civilians first. Aleppo was eventually liberated and returned to its people. Slashdot and the rest of the filthy zionist media declared that Aleppo had 'fallen'- the language used to describe an unwanted invasion. Civilian deaths were remarkably low- and the remaining terrorists and their families were given safe passage by the Russians.
Now compare with Mosul. The American tactic in Mosul was simple. Spot a 'sniper' on the roof- flatten the entire block with the hundreds of innocent civilians living there mass murdered. Ensure that the BBC, NYT, CNN etc gave minimum or zero coverage of the atrocity. Wash and repeat. America blanket bombed the historic region of Mosul flat. The irony is that Iraq is under Iranian control- and America's partners in attracking Mosul were effectively Iranian.
America killed far more than ONE HUNDRED TIMES the number of civilians in Mosul than Russia did in Aleppo, but America's mass slaughter received less than one percent of the press coverage. This is how the zionist press- of which slashdot is a proud part- operates.
So what does this have to do with 'killbots'. Well killbots are an essential part of Google's military R+D agenda (google glass, adsense, language recognition, self-driving vehicles and translation etc etc are all part of the 'AI' pattern processing research providing the algorithmic solutions to autonomous killing machines). Google has purchased the leading military robot companies and is designing and building the first generation of autonomous, 'swarming' drones and tanks. And the primary goal of Google is to hand the Deep State the tools required to get Congress to approve the war on Iran.
Iran is the big prize. The US war on Iran will end with widespread nuclear strikes all across Iran- that isn't in any doubt- but the Deep State problem is getting the war started in the first place. Americans are fundamentally COWARDS and won't attack a target unless that target is equivalent to a blinfolded man with his arms tied behind his back. Iran is a modern industrialised nation that actually does its own work- unlike the depraved wahhabi states (like Saudi Arabia) that America backs with Israeli approval. And Iran is in the same position that Soviet Russia was in the decade leading to the nazi invasion of Russia. Russia prepared, in the 1930s, with a rapid practical industrial weapon strategy- building factories and mass producing cheap and practical weapon systems for fighting the Germans.
Iran is doing the same today with medium range missiles and an
Land mines can be thought of as fully autonomous robots. Perhaps the simplest case of a 'robot'.
Very simple predetermined command to follow: 'When your trigger is tripped, execute your explosion sequence.'
Most nations have banned the use of land mines because of their uncontrolled, autonomous behavior. Once they are set, they stay set and will activate whether tripped by friend or foe.
They will activate when tripped by the little child playing in the field years after the war is over.
The problem the General recognizes in fully autonomous killer robots is the same problem encountered when land mines are used. The robots are just a more complex example.
Really, really need a filter for "AIs already explored, to death, by SciFi authors, possibly from last century, and news to only people who's reading genres include volumes such titles as Twilight (and no, I am not speaking about the pony princess from MLP:FIM)."
An army marches on its stomach and those killer robots will soon stop working if humans don't resupply. The key then is to make sure that they do need resupply and that a human has to be in the loop on the resupply. This would also prevent most hacking attempts from proving catastrophic.
Or someone else does. As president I tell you we have the best. I know better than any general.
Not going to happen. Too profitable.
US land mines, such as those in the de-militarized zone between NK and SK are controlled. They can be activated, de-activated, and located remotely.
The US is not a signatory of the Mine Ban Treaty because they could not secure an exception for the NK-SK border. The US does abide by all the other requirements stated in the Mine Ban Treaty such as destroying all stockpiles of land mines, manufacturing land mines, exporting or deploying land mines, and not deploying landmines any where else.
Sort of like the US bowing out of that useless Paris environmental Treaty. The U.S. leads the world in reducing carbon emissions for the most recent 5- and 10-year periods. Increases in natural gas and renewables have help push down US carbon emissions. Why does the US need to sit around in a UN circle jerk when it already has started working on lowering the carbon footprint?
Brought to you by the guys who bombed the crap out of civilians in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, ...
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
Isn't the subject all about people-fighting robots; or people-killing robots? Me, I had to type in a captcha to prove I am a carbon-based unit
Don't forget DEPLETED URANIUM.
It will outlast the landmines, genetically damage future generations and it is silent.
Great weapon!!
Yes, this needs clarification.
Most landmines are bad.
The small, brightly colored landmines that resemble children's toys.
They get a pass.
I agree there's a problem: OTHER nations will make them whether we do or not; and therefore we are forced to pursue similar technology to compete and survive.
Such bots will probably need a relatively simple "kill-switch" mechanism that is independent of the rest of the brain. Thus, if the main brain gets hacked or goes berserk, the independent kill-switch can be contacted to disable the entire thing. Because the kill-switch is (hopefully) a relatively simple mechanism, it's easier to prevent it being hacked. There is a risk the enemy will steal the security codes for the kill-switch, but that's a risk we'll have to accept.
If you think about it, cars and key infrastructure will probably need the same safeguards regardless of whether war-bots are built, because they can face similar problems. It's part of a bigger problem: stopping highly-complex machines that are out of control.
Table-ized A.I.
Most nations have banned the use of land mines because of their uncontrolled, autonomous behavior. Once they are set, they stay set and will activate whether tripped by friend or foe.
They will activate when tripped by the little child playing in the field years after the war is over.
The problem the General recognizes in fully autonomous killer robots is the same problem encountered when land mines are used. The robots are just a more complex example.
I suppose on the most basic philosophical level they can be thought of as the similar. However in the sort term I wold think a killer robot would be more of a threat as it can actively seek and designate targets. While a land mine just sits and waits for some poor unlucky person. But that's assuming that it can't be deactivated, or told to stand down by it's controller. Even so, unless a robot was severely malfunctioning, I would think it's not going to burn all of the children, kill the women and rape the family dogs. I'd hope that such a system was designed to kill enemy combatants and not everything that walks.
In the long term, the land mine is a bit worse. Even if the robot never actively gets signaled to stand down, it's a very complicated system. The batteries are only going to last for so long, even if it can recharge itself. parts are going to degrade relatively quickly compared to a land mine. How long could it stay active/lethal? A year? Two? Presumably it will also run out of ammunition, unless it's a ninja-bot or something. Now a land mine will just sit and remain effective for decades. Depending on where they have been planted, they could remain a threat for over 50 years.
Not Americans, anyone.
Pretty well lays out what happens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
Masturbation to fantasy to justify regulation.
"We must eliminate the mineshaft gap!"
I really don't see the difference between the " model soldier " who follows orders without question and a killer robot.
In fact, I would expect our military leaders to be salivating at the prospect of such a thing.
Until will go online!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Both. Circle back if necessary and finish off any remaining personnel.
If possible, vehicle should reorient to place both targets on the initial intercept vector, for maximum efficiency.
I'd hope that such a system was designed to kill enemy combatants and not everything that walks.
I'm reminded of Skynet.
bullshit, those mines have killed hundreds of rural farmers and maimed thousands. "controlled", ha.
a war with NK will NOT start by a bunch of NK soldiers marching across the DMZ.
a war with NK will NOT start by a bunch of NK soldiers marching across the DMZ.
Of course not. It's full of land mines... Would you be so confident in saying that if it weren't?
North Korea doesn't actually want to destroy Seoul with all that artillery they currently have pointed at it. They want to own it instead. If they could just march across the DMZ to own Seoul, they would.
So, because the US can easily comply with the UN circle jerk if they want to, they can be virtually the only nation in the world to boycott the circle jerk?
I find that weak, and it's likely done for internal US politics reasons. Seems like the US will keep its billions parking lots, cars, swimming pools HVAC and smoking barbecues anyway just riding on the natural gas and poverty of the underclass to keep emissions a bit down.
Thanks about that rationale for US land mines, I really hate the US for what it's doing in the rest of the world but for once their need for land mines on the DMZ seems sensible to me.
I don't really know what to think of bombing towns with white phosphorus, that's rationalized as a needed thing but well, w/ or w/o white phosphorus the US is doing really bad currently with the ratio of combatants vs civilians turned to piece or buried in rubble. Syria and Russia are doing quite possibly better and level cities in a smarter way by sharing intelligence. Syria and Russia are calling for the US to cooperate or bugger off and get out of Syria. International law allows the US to bomb Syria, if it does at the request of the Syrian government.
I propose we replace lead and depleted uranium with gold. Gold can do the work of being heavy and it's rather chemically inert in the human body as far as I know.
It will also mean fewer rounds fired, and pays for the reconstruction - we know DU has failed to do so.
Win-win-win!
On a further note, this might only increase the cost of weapons very negligibly.
you're confused, a path through land mines can be cleared trivially in war.
The land mines maim innocents, they should not exist. Claiming the korean DMZ is magicallly different from the worlds other DMZs where the USA has already agreed they should not be used is hypocrisy. There are plenty of other ways to maintain security in a DMZ
If we are so "smart", then why wouldn't we just build big, bad AI robots that incapacitate and capture (enemies)?
We are way too stupid a race to go about killing every time we feel justified.
Does it not make more sense to focus our primary efforts to educate everyone rather than just give up, get your gun, and remove what may not be a bad (person(s))?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.