Russia Says It Will Ignore Any UN Ban of Killer Robots (ibtimes.com)
According a report from Defense One, a United Nations meeting in Geneva earlier this month on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) was derailed when Russia said they would not adhere to any prohibitions on killer robots. "The U.N. meeting appeared to be undermined both by Russia's disinterest in it and the framework of the meeting itself," reports International Business Times. "Member nations attempted to come in and define what LAWS' systems would be, and what restrictions could be developed around autonomous war machines, but no progress was made." From the report: In a statement, Russia said that the lack of already developed war machines makes coming up with prohibitions on such machines difficult. "According to the Russian Federation, the lack of working samples of such weapons systems remains the main problem in the discussion on LAWS... this can hardly be considered as an argument for taking preventive prohibitive or restrictive measures against LAWS being a by far more complex and wide class of weapons of which the current understanding of humankind is rather approximate," read the statement.
Everyone knows what the US is going to do, bans or no bans.
If a nation truly wants to ignore the UN, it can ignore it. The repercussions for Russia are negligible because they're on the Security Council as a permanent member, they'll veto any resolutions that have any teeth attempting to sanction them.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Russia says, "STFU. We WILL build killer robots. Sooner the better!"
It almost sounds like Russia might not want to ban the weapon they have been developing. Or, the headline and summary are complete bullshit. That happens a lot on Slashdot, misleading clickbait headlines.
I've only seen ONE in my lifetime.
https://youtu.be/Grdev5ktOGw
LAWS should have the same sort of restrictions as mines (and other lethal non-autonomous weapons systems). However Russia isn't a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty either (along with China, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US)
lethal autonomous weapons systems)
Does anyone really feel strongly that these advances in autonomous robotics will not be exploited militarily for the extracurricular shortening of human life?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The only difference between a cruise missile and a drone is that the drone comes back. I'm not really sure what the uproar over killer drones are. Obviously war is bad and we should have less of it, but it seems to me it allows us to at least kill more of the people we want to kill, and less of those we don't (non combatants and our own soldiers). The problem with nuclear weapons are their innate, indiscriminate, and lasting destructiveness on a massive scale, there is good reason to limit their use and stockpile. Intelligent semi autonomous weapon systems are the exact opposite of that.
As we reach the end of the level of population that this planet will support we either learn to live and work together or we are doomed as a species and will be replaced.
Such a war could well last until the end of time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is a good thing - or rather, it could have been much worse.
Anyone remember the Washington Naval Treaty? World powers sign agreement to limit the size of battleships, and several powers secretly ignored it, most notably Japan. This arguably contributed to the length of the Pacific theatre as the US had to play a little more catch-up than they otherwise would have.
At least Russia is being upfront about it.
The only difference between a cruise missile and a drone is that the drone comes back. I'm not really sure what the uproar over killer drones are.
Then pay closer attention to the word "autonomous". Both the cruise missile and the drone have a human being who decides what the target is. An *autonomous* drone picks its own target.
is ok just as long as it can't launch missiles.
Russia is aware it's next to China, which, besides proximity and potential for conflict, has the electronics, AI capability, and industrial/manufacturing capacity and people power to be a problem in this exact area, right?
Meanwhile, Russia's main electronics hub is a European enclave, which Russia openly likes to admit from time to time they put nuclear missiles in to threaten European countries, so a considerable amount of their electronics base is already on some countries nuclear hit list to take out, so there's no additional coordination there.
Guess it's back to selling Germany steel. What could ever go wrong here.
There you go. Russia says no need to worry, and Trump thinks he's a great president.
The only difference between a cruise missile and a drone is that the drone comes back. I'm not really sure what the uproar over killer drones are.
Then pay closer attention to the word "autonomous". Both the cruise missile and the drone have a human being who decides what the target is. An *autonomous* drone picks its own target.
It is not uncommon for the military to want to keep a human in the loop, though with fewer humans controlling more devices the amount of attention given to any one decision to fire or not is no doubt going to go down. I doubt we will see truly autonomous killing any one day, at least from the United States military. Most likely we will gradually get closer and closer till we are effectively there, with perhaps some thin layer that prevents that last step.
Eventually of course once we are at that point, some event will occur in the right political climate, which will probably remove that last little bit of human involvement, possibly via a software update. That all being said, I suspect humans will remain in the loop for at least ten years or so, possibly longer, since the political blowback of mistakes when a human is not involved will be much higher.
There already are "killer robots". What do you call a Tomahawk cruise missile that can fly hundreds of miles and independently identify it's target then dive in and blow up. What do you call an AEGIS cruiser in full "auto" mode that identifies threats and fires off missiles as required to neutralize them. The only thing worth discussing is exactly how much automation would be permitted.
AC re I'm not really sure what the uproar over killer drones are.
Think of it terms of US mil success in Vietnam.
Remove the refugees to camps and try and win the hearts and minds of people kept in camps.
The rest of a nation becomes an autonomous drone patrolled free fire zone.
All the good people are in camps. Only bad people move around outside camps and the autonomous drones will find them all.
A new look Second Boer War idea to sweep a country bare of everything that could give sustenance to bad people using autonomous drones rather than risking troops.
US directive 3000.09 has some of the thinking from the US about autonomous weapon systems https://cryptome.org/dodi/dodd...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Show of hands . . . .
Who here believes ANY COUNTRY is going to adhere to a " terminator " ban ?
I'm pretty sure none of them will. . . . . they just won't be as blatant about it :D
In Mother Russia Trump is Putinâ(TM)s bitch ..... just like here in America.
intermediate range nukes, which were eliminated by treaty with the US and of which they have just deployed a very new version.
The problem with pieces of paper written by, and celebrated by, diplomats is that they become meaningless as soon as any party posesses real hardware, as the late British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain discovered far too late (and too late for the French and the Poles and the Czechs of that era too). It turns out that as a basic matter of human nature, the sort of people who grow up to become diplomats are the very sort to have a congenital spine defect that renders them incapable of enforcing any of the papers they sign.
Step 2: Ban chemical weapons
Step 3: Build large supplies of VX "just in case"
Upshot-- Buy stock in robotics companies
This is the statement that leads to the development race for autonomous killing machines.
I'll probably be dead before the tech improves to widespread bot killing squads; but I won't be afterward, for sure.
... we first have to build the Terminator so that we understand how to regulate it.
Has any non-existing weapon ever been banned?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
seems more like they have looked at the ridiculousness of what was proposed and said... yeah no, count us out! Seems about as well thought out as Elon Musks comments on AI or that the planet Nibiru will crash into the earth. they don't even have a proper definition of what constitutes LAWS, but whatever definition the UN comes up with you can also guarantee it will exclude all current autonomous or remote weapons systems as neither the US nor any major power is going to start dismantling cruise missles, UAV's etc etc.
and then exhibit that drone as a working example. Negotiations can then start, yay!
BTW: no, I don't like Trump either. Nor Erdogan, nor Orban. And not very much Merkel, May. Not at all Rajoy. But what I find most appalling is that all those disgusting monstrosities are even possible in (so-called?) democracies.
RED THURSDAY SALES
Killer ROBOT FOR SALE !!
NOT VERY EXPENSIVE
pls contact me in private :
president Putain
(yes i changed my name to something more appropriate)
At least they say it openly.
You think any UN treaty would stop the US military? The only effect would be that the research is done secretly. You simply cannot afford to not have these things, at least on paper, when the enemy potentially does.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Since 1991 I've seldom felt so proud of my country.
as when reading this news.
Anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves into thinking this world is something it's not. In war, it's the winner who gets to write the rules, and in war for survival, any country is going to use every resource humanly possible to do so.
This is no different that a bunch of legislators passing yet another gun control measure.
The first country will build a robot to kill the humans in the opposing army. Eventually they will justify the killing of civilians using one of the typical excuses like destroying their will to continue the war or that the civilians are aiding the war effort.
Except for chemical weapons, every weapon ever invented has been used to kill civilians (and Saddam may have crossed the line on that one).
hm.. hasn't South Korea had killer robots deployed on the DMZ for years?
Didn't the UN also ban landmines?
Using explosive rounds on humans (Collateral Murder video anyone?)
It seems this is newsworthy because it's about Russia. Booga Booga Booga!!!
Cheap and stupid killer robots have been around for decades.
The kill hundreds of innocent people annually.
Theyâ(TM)re called landmines.
Ghostery Blocked 44 trackers, adblock caught 178 ads in the time it took me to read that article. This is basically an attack site. Alternate sources?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw
"There ought to be a LAW!"