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...

Comments

Chemical and Biological Weapons

[monkeyxpress]

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.

Re:no longer need trained civilians

[Dareth]

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.