'Robots Are Not Taking Over,' Says Head of UN Body of Autonomous Weapons (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Robots are not taking over the world," the diplomat leading the first official talks on autonomous weapons assured on Friday, seeking to head off criticism over slow progress towards restricting the use of so-called "killer robots." The United Nations was wrapping up an initial five days of discussions on weapons systems that can identify and destroy targets without human control, which experts say will soon be battle ready. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have news for you: the robots are not taking over the world. Humans are still in charge," said India's disarmament ambassador, Amandeep Gill, who chaired the CCW meeting. "I think we have to be careful in not emotionalizing or dramatizing this issue," he told reporters in response to criticism about the speed of the conference's work. Twenty-two countries, mostly those with smaller military budgets and lesser technical knowhow, have called for an outright ban, arguing that automated weapons are by definition illegal as every individual decision to launch a strike must be made by a human. Gill underscored that banning killer robots, or even agreement on rules, remained a distant prospect.

Comments

Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots are taking over.

That's what a killer robot would say

[El Cubano]

Robots are not taking over the world," the diplomat leading the first official talks on autonomous weapons assured on Friday, seeking to head off criticism over slow progress towards restricting the use of so-called "killer robots."

That is precisely what a killer robot would say. By the time people figure out there is a problem, it is too late and SkyNet has taken over.

Technically true, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what he really means is that the people who control the back doors in the autonomous weapons are taking over.

Funny how context and what isn't said, can impart so much information.

Re:Technically true, but ...

[Kjella]

So what he really means is that the people who control the back doors in the autonomous weapons are taking over.

Assuming you should worry less about the people controlling the front door like Putin, Xi Jinping, Trump, Erdogan and so on. I'm not so worried about Skynet and the "usual suspects" for backdoors are the same people who control massive military resources of their own. That script kiddies or IS could hack into key military systems and launch ICBMs doesn't seem very plausible. What I'm worried about is essentially what technology has done everywhere else, that relatively few people armed with advanced technology can do what used to take many.

Consider this, STASI in East Germany employed ~91k people out of a population of 16 million. They had at least 174k identified informants, but many records were destroyed and estimates including occasional informers go as high as 2 million. That's >1.5% of the population and they mainly did surveillance of themselves. The NSA employs 35k-55k (estimates, number is classified) so like 0.01-0.02% of the US population and has done mass surveillance of the world. How can they do that? Computers, electronic communication, vast databases and algorithms to crawl through the data.

In terms of military tactics and technology it's a very long time ago since the battle of Verdun where you massed huge armies and sent hundreds of thousands of people and sent them running into machine guns and wars were won and lost by headcount. Like in the invasion of Iraq, a modern army wiped out the Iraqi army that was much larger by headcount almost without losses. More autonomy means that takes fewer and fewer people to run a war machine and the easier it gets to find the fanatics and loyal lapdogs to run it.

Also, despite the potential for hacking I think the greater danger is that robots are loyal to a fault. They don't have any concept of war crimes, they don't have an "ethics subroutine" and they don't follow Asimov's laws, they don't refuse to follow orders, they don't retreat, they don't surrender. Saying there's always a human behind the trigger is not very comforting if that person is Hitler or someone who thinks just like him. It might help against rogue soldiers who abuse their power but it does no good under a regime that condones the actions, officially or unofficially.

"Sorry Dave...

[Templer421]

I Am afraid I Can't do that."

Yeah, right

[Picodon]

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have news for you: the robots are not taking over the world. Humans are still in charge,” said India's disarmament ambassador.

Soon after, flummoxed by the attitude of skeptics, the ambassador angrily threw a bus error exception and proceeded to reboot on the convention floor.

Appropriate timely short film...

[RyanFenton]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Well produced, and worth watching if you have a taste for almost-not-fiction science fiction.

Ryan Fenton

Re:5 days conference for this eh?

[LostMyBeaver]

I didn't get a harrumph out of that guy.

I sometimes wonder if Mel Brooks, Zemeckis and Bob Gale had crystal balls and were able to see into 2017

Gentlemen, I assure you, robots are not in control

[Narcocide]

... he said confidently, while flipping the switch labeled "hand over control to robots."

Indeed

[nospam007]

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have news for you: the robots are not taking over the world. Humans are still in charge," ...until we go into SETTINGS and flip the button for AUTOMATIC KILLINGS to 'ON'.

Drone Anyone?

[JimSadler]

Send the fool a drone with a small explosive charge and maybe he will change his mind.

Humans in charge

[umghhh]

what does that at all mean? If I select a target by seeing it and tell robot to do the job now by pressing fire button which consequently release the high energy projectile to penetrate the meatball I am clearly in charge or? What about the photo and other data that led to target selection being produced by data mining AI? Is a human still in charge? What if we automate that one human out of picture and put another one in front of data mining machine authorizing the selection of meatbags to be eliminated. What about a process in which selection and fire button action are divided in time by hours from the actual penetration of a meatbag trough projectile because the robot had to be given order before entering the zone without coms? At the end it does not matter, does it.

Headline appreciation moment

[Gibgezr]

Can we all just pause and appreciate that headline for a moment? I mean, I was both so pleased and so disturbed all at the same time. We truly live in a wonderous era.

Intention?

[seven of five]

For robots to "take over," don't AIs first need intention? ie. goals and a motive?
As far as I know, software's still just a tool with no more self-motivation than a screwdriver.
Given that, it's all about who owns the tools.

I'm not worried about robots taking over

[rsilvergun]

I'm worried about a small group of asshole humans using them to oppress me and everyone else for eternity. Right not the aristocracy has to treat a small population well or they get disposed. Robots eliminate even that.

Yeah I get it...

[MikeDataLink]

Ladies and gentlemen, I have news for you: the robots are not taking over the world. Humans are still in charge

That sounds exactly like what someone would say right before the robots actually take over. :-)