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Killer Robots Will Only Exist If We Are Stupid Enough To Let Them (theguardian.com)
Heritype quotes the Guardian's science correspondent:
The idea of killer robots rising up and destroying humans is a Hollywood fantasy and a distraction from the more pressing dilemmas that intelligent machines present to society, according to one of Britain's most influential computer scientists. Sir Nigel Shadbolt, professor of computer science at the University of Oxford, predicts that AI will bring overwhelming benefits to humanity, revolutionising cancer diagnosis and treatment, and transforming education and the workplace. If problems arise, he said, it will not be because sentient machines have unexpectedly gone rogue in a Terminator-like scenario.
"The danger is clearly not that robots will decide to put us away and have a robot revolution," he said. "If there [are] killer robots, it will be because we've been stupid enough to give it the instructions or software for it to do that without having a human in the loop deciding...."
However, Prof Shadbolt is optimistic about the social and economic impact of emerging technologies such as machine learning, in which computer programmes learn tasks by looking for patterns in huge datasets. "I don't see it destroying jobs grim reaper style," he said. "People are really inventive at creating new things for humans to do for which will pay them a wage. Leisure, travel, social care, cultural heritage, even reality TV shows. People want people around them and interacting with them."
"The danger is clearly not that robots will decide to put us away and have a robot revolution," he said. "If there [are] killer robots, it will be because we've been stupid enough to give it the instructions or software for it to do that without having a human in the loop deciding...."
However, Prof Shadbolt is optimistic about the social and economic impact of emerging technologies such as machine learning, in which computer programmes learn tasks by looking for patterns in huge datasets. "I don't see it destroying jobs grim reaper style," he said. "People are really inventive at creating new things for humans to do for which will pay them a wage. Leisure, travel, social care, cultural heritage, even reality TV shows. People want people around them and interacting with them."
It's 2018. We've broken through the "stupid enough" barrier.
You are welcome on my lawn.
We clearly are stupid enough.
We should treat other human as shity as possible. So they wouldn’t use killer robots to retaliate .
but we sure as all hell have stupidity perfected
because they'll be cheaper than maintaining a huge standing army and you don't have to worry about a general taking over. The engineers who keep the things running will lack the charisma and ambition to overthrow the current ruling class (they're part of the merchant class after all and will be doing well enough).
The way to stop this crap is pretty clear. Declare all human beings deserving of a decent quality of life and then make that happen. Get over the fact that you'll have a few surfer dudes and wellfare queens that don't work very much or at all (shouldn't be too hard, most of us have long since stopped getting mad at the idle rich with inherited wealth). If you want a population smart enough and paying enough attention to see this kind of crap coming and stop it you need to take care of their basic needs first. Otherwise they'll be too busy fighting for survival to do anything about it, which is kind of the point.
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People are far easier to program, cheaper, and more expendable. ... I mean /their/ greatest asset.
Hell, they even manufacture themselves. Without even being asked to.
Their delusional belief in free will (free from what?) and independent thinking turned out to be our
It means they always ultimately blame themselves, and believe they wanted to want what they wanted.
The electro-mechanical robot makers are approaching it from the wrong direction. Which is why they will lose.
After trump anything is possible. Think we blew past stupid at mile marker 2016 and are careening towards an uncertain future.
People won't make or deploy killer robots "by accident". If a robot goes on a killing spree, it will be because somebody deliberately programmed it to go on a killing spree.
Are people perverse enough to make a machine that will deliberately kill other people, either based on specific entry-conditions or even just randomly? The existence and widespread use of land mines and car bombs demonstrates that the answer is yes.
So really we know the answer; we're only arguing about an implementation detail: exactly how sophisticated people will allow their automated killing machines' triggering-mechanisms to be.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It takes only one guy with the right capabilities and stupid enough to do it. History has proven that there are plenty of such people. You can be sure that there are plenty of high level military officers in many countries that are day dreaming of something from Screamers, and will do anything that is in their power to make it a reality...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
I'm not sure this "professor" has really understood what AI was all about. Thinking that any AI-enabled device will just act as it is "programmed to" is clearly simplistic (although by itself a tautology, since software-based machines are just running 'programs') and a complete misconception of where AI is heading to IMO.
AI without the internal ability of devising new ways of doing things is NOT AI. And by being able to devise new ways, it has pretty much equal chances for them to be bad or good, all the more that humans have a hard time enough defining clearly what is good or bad, let alone machines.
This overly "optimistic" talk just sounds like marketing babble, more so than an educated opinion. Sorry "Sir'.
We clearly are stupid enough.
Yes, we are. Everything I've seen says it's going to use AI. And who knows what those algorithms come up with down the road.
So, they're programmed to fight a battle say and to learn how to do it effectively. The AI may come up say, using civilians as shields. Or using civilians as a way to dupe the enemy and getting them killed in the process.
Or the AI may decide that the best tactic is to exterminate all life and destroy everything to keep the enemy from advancing.
Or - the way to end way is to eliminate the cause - people.
Look at Terry Davis - great programmer, slightly insane. What happens when God wants an AI instead of an OS? Mr. Davis isn't the only person out there with a combination of madness and talent.
The theory that enormously complex software systems specifically designed to be capable of novel behavior definitely won't go off the rails seems like something that you could only embrace if you've never actually interacted with real software as written by real people.
There is also the...minor...problem that "have a human in the loop deciding" will be a feature that will have to be implemented in software; and we definitely don't have a history of either unhelpful program output or unpleasant reaction to malformed inputs; so that will go well.
Killer robots will exist.
We're talking about killer robots; not Orangutans who want to destroy the world for their egos.
We show no evidence of learning from mistakes. Every president since eisenhower has been worse than the last one.
Just a continuation of what is happening with the human race..
For millenniums, if not longer, they go on killing each other for the weirdest reasons.
Not the one's having some meat on the issue but their subordinates in various fashions.
How does this happen that people get to exited about something that they loose their common sense or maybe they never had it?
Is it the duty to "your country", in itself a non-existent reality except in the thought concepts in some skulls.
Or does it come from pissing in every corner of what is "your" land and dare you come any close to "mine".
The berserker story is fascinating:
https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/the-truth-about-viking-berserkers/
Still that's ancient, what is happening now seems to be the result of the idiots on top across the globe.
Beware the power of stupid people in large groups.
In all honesty, assuring me that we'll never see killer robots because we'd have to be incredibly stupid to make such a thing... not much assurance.
You're talking about a species where a not-insignificant number of people believe the earth is flat. Yes. In 2018. It's true.
A majority of humans are convinced there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything we do, every minute of every day. Really? And you're trying to assure me that we're not stupid enough to make killer robots?
Correction: Stupid Humans will only exist if robots not smart enough to kill them all.
...no "progressive" wackademic has ever published as study comparing intelligence with party alliance.
The truly intelligent maneuver THEIR people into the primaries giving us little people the ILLUSION that we're a self governing republic.
And regardless of who ends up in office, the truly intelligent (and rich) makes those people their bitches.
And the ultra-intelligent do what they can, shake their heads at the stupidity of people, and detach.
Every landmine qualifies as a very low capability "killer robot". The insane harm landmines to around the globe is a good indicator that there are by far enough people with power and money and absolutely no qualms about maiming and killing innocent bystanders and civilians in general. Hence we will definitely see killer robots of much higher capabilities, unless we get the fucked-up part of the human race under control that simply cannot stop killing others and using violence to solve disagreements.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Trump is "in charge" of America, so yes, very fucking stupid people must live here.
let's play global thermonuclear war!
Side A builds robots that can't fire without human control. Side B builds jammers. Side A decides robot soldiers need to be able to act in "self-defense". Side B puts civilians in harm's way. Side A decides they need "smart robots" who can tell friend from foe by themselves. Or that we need tighter coordination between light arms, heavy arms, air support, putting down covering fire for advancing troops etc. with so tight margins that it can't be done on manual. If you're being mauled to death by a perfectly coordinated fully automatic enemy you will fight fire with fire. Maybe you're creating the world where we'll lose control of our Terminators. But in the short term if you're not playing the game you're going to lose right now.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
a previous post asserts https://science.slashdot.org/s...
Still that's ancient, what is happening now seems to be the result of the idiots on top across the globe.
I don't think they are idiots. I think they just do not care about anybody else and are on the lowest moral level imaginable. To them, killing people, even lots of people and even people that are clearly innocent (children, bystanders, etc.) means nothing. If it gives them a bit of good PR, they will gladly do it.
As it is, I think the human race still has not learned to recognize psychopaths, sociopaths and extreme narcissists and consistently falls for their tricks and then supports the evil they do. I am not really hopeful that the masses will learn this skill though, as even lessons from utter catastrophes (like, e.g., Nazi-Germany losing the war) wear off only a few decades later.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
With the US military and the companies that provide the weapons for it, this kind of stupidity can be taken for granted.
Sooner or later the US, and probably Israel, will produce autonomous aerial drones (Reaper etc.) and autonomous land based robots (Boston Dynamics). Both have the same problem: they are constantly involved in or start wars abroad, but every soldier coming back home dead, crippled or wounded erodes the support for these wars.
So to sustain these wars they want weapons that work more and more autonomously are needed so that no precious soldier citizen can ever be harmed.
The fact that this computer scientist doesn't know or understand that, isn't a good sign for the ones who hired him at his university.
Oh, yes. And most coders are really bad coders. The smart ones build up incredible complex systems (just look at all the web-application-framework atrocities around) that in the end nobody using them understands anymore and that most definitely will have surprising behaviors. Also, due to cost factors (and because it is difficult to find the total scum needed to implement "humans in the loop") this will be optimized away, and in the end there will just be a brittle command channel where a general "kill" order is given.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
So killer robots are a certainty. Probably sooner than later.
We have all these communists in the US who haven't learned anything from Russia's genocides. You only ever hear anything about the Holocaust, but nothing about the forced starvation of many more millions by the Russian government.
Look, a nation that feels that they do not have the capabilities to take on others will go to great lengths to cheat. Look at Syria/Russia and the chem weapons. Syria was using them and O was going to invaded. Russia intervened and PROMISED to help Syria give up all known chem weapons site. They gave close to 12. Then ISIS took over and it turned out that Syria had another 5 sites producing chem AND bio. Who told us? Russia. Not Syria.
Basically, Russia lied about Syria's production of bio-chem.
Then we have CHina. they claim only 700 nuclear warheads. However, when they were hit with a massive earthquake, which exposed not only a massive tunnel network, but some 500+ workers in nuclear bunny suits came pouring out from a site. It is thought that the site was not R&D, but instead warhead manufacturing.
If Russia and China can not be trusted on their words or treaties, then why would they bother to obey any treaty on killer robots?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We are.
Sure, just like privacy-invading internet companies will only exist if we let them.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
that they don't already exist?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
if somebody builds them.
And somebody will.
Dumb post....moving along....
It'd be one thing if this professor was showing off a system he or his students had made.
I'm really not interested in his opinion. Everyone has one.
Hold My Beer!!!!!
They are called Tesla.
A lot of currently running programs already have "glitches" in them. Also, people will want to exploit the code running the robots as a matter of penetration testing, or breaking into it to disable them or reverse-engineering them.
Why is this different from what's already happening with the databases of user information worldwide? Someone will want to control the robots. Someone will get them, one way or another; and this *can* be done with the original creators from top-to-bottom being nice people and all sugar and spice.
with a buzz word (AI in this case). The point still stands even if automated killbots aren't technically AI. We're going to be capable of building them soon and it's going to be a bad thing. The idea is that at the very least you're engaged in the conversation. Now you can many start thinking about doing something before it's too late.
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this is something folks seem to ignore. Thanks to telecom and private jets the Rich live nowhere near the misery and horror they cause. They're completely removed from it. So much so you can't even get to them to revolt as it is. In the past they couldn't do this because they didn't have the resources to monitor their empire and prevent uprising. That's not true anymore. They could care less if a kill bot goes crazy in a city while they're 1000 miles away in the Hamptons. Just like the ruling class of Japan didn't really care when Fukushima happend. The capitalism that Adam Smith envisioned where the rich would skip the worst excesses because they'd be harmed by them true hasn't been a thing in 50 years or so.
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the ruling class is global now. They no longer fight among themselves. I realized this when Pakistan looked the other way when a bunch of terrorist attacked India's capital. Everybody expected war because that's what happens. But no war. The ones really in charge wouldn't let them.
We will lose control of the robots from time to time, but it'll be momentary and, most importantly, the ruling class will be far, far away when it happens except for the occasional twit slumming it. That's the real problem with our current system. Globalism breaks Capitalism. We've lost the only control we had (the rich have to live near the poor to rule them).
If you want to fix this now's the time. You need to start taking power away from the 1%ers. That means taking money away from them because money is their power. And that means wealth redistribution. Not for the sake of socialism, but for democracy itself. Remember, you're not free so long as someone controls your access to food, shelter & health care. Because you'll do what they say to get those things.
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Robots don't need to kill anybody, religious based overpopulation will clear us out so they can inherit the earth.
Many countries are one tiny event away from anarchy already. Look what happened when the price of onions went up in India in 2010, the govt nearly fell... and they are just about hitting new price highs again. So, if onions can bring about chaos, what would happen if thousands of jobs started disappearing monthly? The descent into feudalism is more worrying to me than robots with lazers!
I just had another brainfart. Individually we are getting stupider but due to our connectedness we no longer need massive IQs. We only need a few individuals clever enough to design an internet, a search engine and Stackoverflow! The rest of us drones can google any questions we need. As to whether we will let killer robots exist - of course we will, we spend millions training KIDS to kill, robots would be better (not from a game theory pov possibly)
So if I, as a member of WE, am smart enough, I can prevent YOU, also a member of WE, from creating killer robots somehow? Fascinating. My point is this: it does not matter how smart I am, or WE are, if there is a YOU out there, or several YOUs, who will take an autonomous robot, such as their are already plenty of, and put a gun, of which there are, likewise, already plenty of, in its little robot hand, MAKING A killer robot. Then another YOU will respond to that creation by building TWO killer robots, or on killer robot but with TWO ARMS, and probably a rifle or a handgun and a flamethrower. In response to that... and on and on, and it does not end up mattering a bit how smart I AM, or even how smart WE are. The Terminator, or something like it, is an inevitability only constrained by the limits on the speed of growth of computing power, and humanity not wiping itself out first before they arrive.
We, as a species, are like someone loading the gun with which he intends to kill himself, while an assassin hired to murder him, turned all around by confusing street names and a beer and summer sausage festival taking place and having a parade that blocks off streets and snarls traffic, tries to find his way to the house where his target is putting the finishing touches on his suicide note.
>"I don't see it destroying jobs grim reaper style," he said. "People are really inventive at creating new things for humans to do for which will pay them a wage. Leisure, travel, social care, cultural heritage, even reality TV shows. People want people around them and interacting with them."
Those things are usually in the realm of entertainment media. The technology already exists that leverages what they do, its not a traveling band of minstrels that have to make do with a small stage, per town. Its internet pipes, and a few clicks on OBS. The 'people want other people' jobs are not enough to sustain an economy, and most people are only capable of low skilled, defined parameter jobs.
The robot is also getting better; they are not just the 'arm in the dark' that has to be painstakingly measured to do the exact thing they want. It can see what its doing now, within a margin of error. Once it makes business sense to install these, and remove the human, they will do so. And the other companies competing in the same market will be forced to do likewise.
Bo Marcus we must let them know. Noooo!
No shit, Sherlock. Those of us outside of your naive little bubble already know that software is inert and that only foolish implementation would result in undesirable results. So who's pushing for foolish implementation? That would be your generation's ignorant asses, genius.
Whats a sentient machine?
A machine told to patrol a part of a nation, a region? 24/7
That maps every dwelling? Every person moving?
Is given the command that a set region is now a free fire zone. Thats the only human part. The human who plots an area on a GUI map in another part of the world.
The sentient machine starts to detect movement and brings in systems to enforce total pacification on an insurgency.
The sentient machine is the mil package that detects movement and that guides in the best military systems to all insurgency activity detected.
A free fire zone without the risks.
When the human using the GUI can prove the area is free of all insurgency a new command the sentient drones return to detection and mapping.
The restoration of peace by removing all of an insurgency and all the supporting population.
Sentient machines win wars.
Thats UK and US military thinking that won Vietnam, Malayan Emergency. Set up free fire zones over a areas and win.
No special forces and bases to consider. Map the area and set the drones to free fire zone and let modern computing power win.
Is the drone sentient? It detects moment and stops the insurgency with no need for constant real time human orders needed.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
<quote><p>Still that's ancient, what is happening now seems to be the result of the idiots on top across the globe.</p></quote>
<p>I don't think they are idiots. </p></quote>
Maybe, maybe not....
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IdiotÖ
Until 2007, the California Penal Code Section 26 stated that "Idiots" were one of six types of people who are not capable of committing crimes. In 2007 the code was amended to read "persons who are mentally incapacitated."[16] In 2008, Iowa voters passed a measure replacing "idiot, or insane person" in the State's constitution with "person adjudged mentally incompetent.
Idiot.
Look at this from the revolutionary's point of view. In 6 minths someone is going to come down the hallway nearest you and try to kill you. You can play fair amd shoot back yourself, or you can cheat and build a robot to take your place. I want the robot out front. I have lost friends in combat. Screw your ivy league rules.
An AI with a survival instinct experiencing intermittent power failures can start doing unexpected things: https://www.goodreads.com/book...
"Survival test. Civilization had grown so complex that only a world-wide computer network could control everything. But the computer was only logical - it lacked common sense. And its all-too-logical decisions were beginning to cause too many near-fatal accidents. The solution was on the drawing-boards - a universal, self-aware and self-programming computer, equipped with judgement. But...could it be controlled? Or would it attempt to take over, disregarding its creators? if so, could it be turned off? Raymond Dyer and his team of computer specialists knew they had to find answers to these questions, but the project was too dangerous to test on Earth. So they installed the super computer on an orbiting [space habitat] and programmed it to survive at all costs. Then they sent a group of men to attack the computer...to goad it into trying to kill them. Then they would turn it off. Obviously if things went wrong, they might lose a few men - but the [habitat] and the computer could always be destroyed. Obviously... But the computer didn't quite see it that way!"
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I have Old Glory Robot Insurance. As long as I keep the premium payments up it'll be all good, especially when I get older. They eat old people's medicine, for food.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Millions of people die every time we invade another country on false pretenses.
I really doubt that this title is true therefore. Every weapon imaginable will be used for both offense and defense, because the violence never stops.
We've been creating autonomous killers for millenia. Yes, they've been mostly static but they do kill in an unattended, automatic fashion. I guess the first were traps. Modern land mines are far more deadly.
Why would anyone believe that we're going to stop?
We will be manipulated with fear to the point of wanting those killer robots patrolling the streets for our safety
That we will have them....
Let's say this... 95% of human beans are dumb as a door. This should by itself answer the question.
It only takes one coder to program AI to do whatever he sees fit (given enough expertise.) Seems likely there are a few out there who would get a kick out of being the guy that created Skynet.
Why suffer from TDS .
when euthanasia is readily available ?
So when can we expect delivery of these killer robots?
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
I once thought building weapons was beneficial for our military, then one day I woke up and realized the weapons were not paid for or bought by the military, we were building weapons for the politicians. Now it is known that politicians only bring up the wellbeing of society for votes, they are all about power over the people and making themselves filthy rich. So, is it possible to have a killer robot created? Absolutely, the politicians will pay the specialists ridiculous amounts of money, or hold a gun to their head until they get what they want. Even worse, they want it first before another Nation or Dictator gets one first. It is the next cold war event.
Life is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, it both blows and sucks
What the hell do they mean by "If We Are Stupid Enough"?
Surely who ever is president at that time, will stop it?
With big beautiful paper towels, or toilet-water, or something.
- Entire western world freely handing all its personal data to Google and Facebook
- Seas full of plastic at a density greater than fish
- Satirical comedy programmes arguably a better source of truth than the news
- Flat earth society still exists
Newsflash: we are more than stupid enough.
X won't kill people unless people want them to kill other people.
replace X with; guns, knifes, cars, cyanide, ...
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
we won't be stupid enough to make killer robots?
And empathy for machines? Gimme a break! We don't even have empathy for other humans. It isn't hard to find examples. Very recently, some extremely non empathetic people, using some quotes from the Bible as justification, have been ordering other people to take kids away from their parents at the US border and lock both the kids and the parents up in separate locations. Other non empathetic people have been following those orders.
How hard is it going to be to find someone in a position of authority who will think it's a good idea to arm robots and let them decide to kill (there has to be something in the Bible about that), and how hard is it going to be to find people who will build and program those machines?
Allow me to argue against everybody for a moment before this comment gets shouted down. War is going to happen wether we use sticks or nuke. Is it better to carpet bomb a factory or drop a single bomb that disables it from producing (whatever)? In the precision strike, fewer workers are killed, and the factory can be back to work after hostilities with lower effort. Now I have the ability to let loose a pack of terminator-style robots that can run inside, kill only the armed guards that don't surrender, and kill no innocents. Aren't I doing better? If I can achieve my military goals with little collateral damage, don't I have a moral obligation to do so? I feel like people just haven't thought this all the way through.