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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...
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.
Those are very real potential threats, but probably the most real threat is enemy nations having better military technology than us ("us" is relative). The mere existence of nuclear weapons is also an existential threat, but no where near as dangerous as only your enemies having nuclear weapons.
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.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
"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.
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.
At the very least it is inevitable that we will see autonomous support equipment. When the US first invade Afghanistan, Special Forces troops regularly used mules to move equipment. It's not hard to see a future foot patrol using a multi-legged, load bearing autonomous robot for carrying equipment, supplies, or wounded soldiers. If it is legged it should be able to go over almost any terrain a soldier could go. Autonomous drones for reconnaissance are also extremely likely, again especially in foot patrol/small unit situations.
And really, once equipment like this is perfected, it should be relatively easy to develop automated targeting technology on the side and mate the two as necessary (necessary being when encountering someone else doing it). As you said do it because someone else can and probably is. With that autonomous load bearing robot I mentioned: build it with a mount for a machine gun and a slot for whatever hardware module contains the autonomous targeting software. There is nothing making you install them unless you absolutely have too. Of course, once you do, you've opened Pandora's box and there's no closing it again.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I love the modern idea that works of fiction, specifically written to advance a particular point of view, are somehow indicative of how reality works. It's a movie, it's entertainment.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
Then we would have a society ruled by only those capable of fighting.
I know the Klingon rules of ascension sound great on paper...
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.
It wouldn't be people fighting robots, it would be people controlling robots fighting fully autonomous robots possibly. Now, I'm sure people who don't agree with me will never be convinced since dealings with ethics and morals are purely subjective, but my personal feeling is that the taking of a life should only be done by another person. Be it capital punishment or an act of war, a person should always be responsible for taking some action. The idea of automating murder sickens me and I fear that death may be trivialized if it's automated. There should be real consequences to society for killing a person. And having a person involved will weigh on their mind, barring the occasional psychopath. And even if other countries decide they want to automate it away, I don't wish to live in that sort of society. Any action that involves killing a person is a choice of last resort, you should have to be willing to deal with the emotional harm of having a person do it if you decide it's the path that needs to happen.
To bad reality doesn't support morals. A human controlled robot is simply to slow to win. I think it'll end up with humans defining strategic mission parameters and robots using programmed tactics that are adaptable withing a framework.
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
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
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.