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Musk-Backed 'Slaughterbots' Video Will Warn the UN About Killer Microdrones (space.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the scary-movies dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Space.com: A graphic new video posits a very scary future in which swarms of killer microdrones are dispatched to kill political activists and U.S. lawmakers. Armed with explosive charges, the palm-sized quadcopters use real-time data mining and artificial intelligence to find and kill their targets. The makers of the seven-minute film titled Slaughterbots are hoping the startling dramatization will draw attention to what they view as a looming crisis -- the development of lethal, autonomous weapons, that select and fire on human targets without human guidance.

The Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mitigating existential risks posed by advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, commissioned the film. Founded by a group of scientists and business leaders, the institute is backed by AI-skeptics Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, among others. The institute is also behind the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of non-governmental organizations which have banded together to call for a preemptive ban on lethal autonomous weapons... The film will be screened this week at the United Nations in Geneva during a meeting of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons... The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is hosting a series of meetings at this year's event to propose a worldwide ban on lethal autonomous weapons, which could potentially be developed as flying drones, self-driving tanks, or automated sentry guns.
"This short film is more than just speculation," says Stuart Russell, a U.C. Berkeley considered an expert in artificial intelligence.

"It shows the results of integrating and miniaturizing technologies we already have."

8 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Pointless by Templer421 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If it can be thought up it WILL BE built!

    1. Re:Pointless by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nuclear bombs which are highly cobalt salted to increase fallout have been thought of but the evidence is that no nuclear power has built them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb. Similarly currently, we know how to make a massive number of different types of chemical weapons, but the vast majority of countries have none in their arsenals.

    2. Re:Pointless by eth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nuclear bombs which are highly cobalt salted to increase fallout have been thought of but the evidence is that no nuclear power has built them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb. Similarly currently, we know how to make a massive number of different types of chemical weapons, but the vast majority of countries have none in their arsenals.

      The weapons you mention are indiscriminate, and can easily cause just as many problems for those that deploy them as they do for the targets. There are very good reasons not to use or bother building them. The whole point of the drones is that they're cheap, surgical, and can be deployed with little to no consequence for the attackers.

    3. Re:Pointless by geekmux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      currently, we know how to make a massive number of different types of chemical weapons, but the vast majority of countries have none in their arsenals.

      Tobacco kills 7 million people worldwide every year.

      Alcohol kills over 3 million people worldwide every year.

      Countless other harmful yet legal chemicals used in pesticides and food additives. Cancer affects 1 in 3 humans.

      Every battlefield humans have ever stepped on cannot even try to compare to these statistics.

      Perhaps we need to understand that chemical warfare is a lot more fucking subtle these days.

  2. hmm by buddyglass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems pretty easy to thwart facial recognition. More concerning is the fact that most of us carry around a homing beacon in our front pocket.

  3. 20 gauge Handguns by kenwd0elq · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A 20-guage handgun with small birdshot loads would do a number on a whole swarm of microdrones.

    Better yet, self-defense anti-drone microdrones to destroy any microdrones that approach a protected target....

  4. The problem is they're too cheap by TheNarrator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not that these things are more destructive than older weapons. It's that these things give the power of a targeted artillery strike to anyone for pennies of what nation state weapons cost, so it opens up WWI type levels of destructive capability to just about anyone on any budget. WWI really caught people off guard. People had no idea the level of destruction that was going to be unleashed by the industrial revolution. Likewise people have no idea the destructive power that's going to be unleashed by the AI revolution.

  5. Re: Ob by lucm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Another racist term for a Japanese person...

    Again, the SJW mod crowd shows they are idiots, but on one thing, you're right. It is a racist term, but it's racist against white people' specially, South African and Rhodesian whites.

    Subculture slang is not relevant out of its cultural context. There's a handful of well-known ethnic slurs and we don't need more. It's possible to narrow down to cover smaller populations (such as ice chinks for inuit) but you can't use localized versions for groups that are already covered by a top-level label, otherwise you're just creating confusion.

    Also I would like to point out that an ethnic slur is not the same as a racist term. Just like it's not sexist to call a woman a cunt, it's not racist to call an Asian a chink. It's rude but that's not the same as racist. I guarantee you that there's people in nice offices that will silently pass on a resume if the name sounds ebonic or latino but that would never say "the n word", while there's blue collar workers calling each other "pollocks" or "fucking sand n-word" without an ounce of discrimination in mind.

    --
    lucm, indeed.