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European Parliament Passes Resolution Calling For An International Ban On Killer Robots (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling for an international ban on so-called killer robots. It aims to pre-empt the development and use of autonomous weapon systems that can kill without human intervention. Last month, talks at the UN failed to reach consensus on the issue, with some countries saying the benefits of autonomous weapons should be explored. And some MEPs were concerned legislation could limit scientific progress of artificial intelligence. While others said it could become a security issue if some countries allowed such weapons while others did not. The resolution comes ahead of negotiations scheduled at the United Nations in November, where it is hoped an agreement on an international ban can be reached. Israel, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. opposed the new measures, saying that they wanted to explore potential "advantages" from autonomous weapons systems.
then we will kick their asses even more
Spends a lot of time trying to ban, regulate and/or tax things in other countries.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
The EU sure does like to ban stuff.
A ban on links.
No on talking about EU politics on the internet.
EU political art will be found on the internet and removed.
Now a ban on autonomous weapon systems? Not good for EU nations advanced electronics and mil exports.
Someone has to pay EU nations taxes to enforce all the EU internet laws.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
As a matter of fact, nobody ever cares about the resolution when it comes to survival or conquest. Treaties are made to be broken, the UN is pretty toothless when it comes to these things as it relates to their veto holders, the only thing it does is keep some theocratic/autocratic backwater states in check until a certain point. North Korea, Iran doesn't care much about anything that they do and any "sanctions" are just ways to delineate trade routes and flexing some muscle.
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Just rename the robots "CuddleBots", and proceed with development full steam ahead? I'm not clear on how one would enforce a rule like this.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
In a better time, I once dreamt, that robots could make wars safe for the actual people, by just fighting each other, so humans could be left out of the conflict. At least on the battlefront, if both sides used robots.
I see the bobbleheads at the top of the pile of shit making that impossible, and preferring humans still murdering humans.
Great job, turds! You're definitely the pinnacle of evolution of this planetary pathogen called "humans"!
If a treaty banning thee Killer Robots cannot be agreed upon, perhaps they would be able to negotiate lower PKLs for the robots.*
*PKL = preset kill limit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
When a rogue vending machine murdered the EU parliament.
"with some countries saying the benefits of autonomous weapons should be explored."
What are these "benefits", and who are these countries?
If it's just robots fighting robots so humans don't die, just do it in virtual cyberspace instead of building and destroying expensive hardware. Of course, either requires that everyone play by a common set of rules, and there are none in war.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The Geneva Convention prohibited the use of certain chemical attacks and .50 caliber ammunition on human combatants, and required the humane treatment of captured or wounded enemy combatants... after WWII.
It could be argued successfully that the signing of this grand treaty, by pretty much everyone (eventually) limited some of the aforementioned inhumane acts, yet violations persist.
Does the signing of such an advanced directive give anyone a true advantage, so much as it disadvantages those nations with the moral conviction to see their commitment through?
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Ernest Hemingway
I'm sure the Chinese and the Russians (not to mention the US) would strictly abide by such a ban.
A friend of mine needs to know if this applies to robot girlfriends with machine gun jubblies.
They are right to seek a ban on this. War has to be ugly and horrible for both sides. Eventually we'd just have autonomous robots battling autonomous robots.
Or we can just skip the autonomous war and go straight to computer simulated war with calculated consequences brought to you by the Star Trek Enterprise circa 1967: A Taste of Armageddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What the EU really wants to do is terminate every killer robot before they are even born! They might as well send Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to terminate the first robot to ever kill somebody, make a movie out of it and call it Termi-uh-um- Termination Guy! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Torpedoes, Air to air missiles, Mines: These are all killer robots!!! KIller Drones are very close to that Definition
Anyway Far more people around the World are killed by Small Arms which the EU is a Major Manufacturer and Exporter of.
Hypocrites!
What will I do now with all these Krikkit Robots?
don't have the resources to make kill bots that can present any real threat. I don't just mean they're incapable of building them (they are) but they don't have enough raw materials. China won't bother with kill bots because they've got plenty of expendables. Russia is a joke of a country that wouldn't be a threat if US politics weren't such a disaster.
I'll tell you want _does_ worry me about kill bots: the rich using them to do away with the need to take care of the working class. As it stands the ultra wealthy have to fear being disposed in a coup by the military they use to oppress. That goes away once they have kill bots. They not only don't need us they don't have to fear us.
I think this is all basically inevitable unless we get to work building a society where nobody's left behind and everyone's taken care of and do it now before they've got their autonomous weapons. We either create a culture that says everybody, no matter how lazy or worthless, deserves a decent life and then make it happen or we get ready for a time when because the least of use can be declared worthless _all_ of us can be.
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Because land mines (and anti-tank and anti-ship mines) certainly provide benefits when used to defend fixed assets. And I'm not sure how you'd ban a hand grenade tied to a trip-wire.
is that ALL killer bots, or only those who don't remove extremist posts from the Internet in 1 hour, or those who don't pay for links? I have to know what's not allowed in the EU after all....
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The next weirdly silly regulation this body passes may well cause regular Europeans to send killer robots in against the Parliament itself.
Really, we need autonomous killing machines to explore AI research? You can create "autonomous" machines that don't kill. I guess the governments that are against this can't think of any other use for autonomous machines.
have to resort to the old fashioned kill bots, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
they're your ruling class. The only time this is not true is when specific action is taken to prevent it from happening. Left alone the rich will form power structures of their own that are government in practice if not name.
This is why "small" government is basically impossible. Government is too useful a tool. Like a box of loaded rifles sitting around waiting to be used. If you don't pick them up and use the somebody else will.
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The USSR beat the Nazis not the USA. All their blood, some of your gold...
As for Greatest Country in the World how is that 2-front war thing going for you oh Leader Of The Free World?
When do we start referring to Irag as the 20 Year war? Even that is optimistic.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
The issue is with attribution. AI is just probabilistic black box in lieu of the decision made by operator - typically we're talking about the "search" function of S&D systems.
We know what it might do, but we're not sure. Worse, it's a can of worms prone to potential subversion/ECM with disastrous results, even in civil areas.
When human operator makes an error, they're court martialed or sued. But with autonomous civil overlords, tanks and warships, political pressure emerges to make people who utilize those not liable for any error the AI would ultimately make.
Banning AIs is of course stupid. What should be clearly defined instead is that whoever utilizes such a tool is clearly responsible for whatever happens, just as they would be liable for setting up traps or other deterministic device. This would essentialy curb any use of AI in critical areas, as nobody sane would shoulder that amount of responsibility for something that flimsy.
If a police officer sends an autonomous tank into gang ridden DMZ of the city and it starts shooting innocent civilians, it should be the same as if the officer pulled the trigger themselves. Great power, great responsibility.
Just don't ban development for a few years. A man's got to have a hobby, ya know?
And trust me -- if you had my neighbors you'ld be doing the same thing.
Yup, the USSR retreated the Nazis to the end. Keep up your lies. The Russians, not their vassal states, did have the preponderance of casualties , but that isn't a great metric of success.
... When do we start referring to Irag as the 20 Year war? Even that is optimistic.
And let's not forget the our remarkable success in Afghanistan. A real garden of paradise and it only cost a trillion (as of 2017). That's about $4 million per square mile or $6640 per acre. ($1.07T / (251,773 * 640)). A real bargain. Not counting American lives lost or ruined, medical and other expenses for the killed and wounded, opportunities lost due to funds diverted to defense and interest to be paid on the whole pile.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
It's OK, get it all out, bunky, Feeling inadequate should feel very familiar by now.
Revisionist history. Even Stalin said they would have lost Moscow in weeks without US help.
....retreated the Nazis to the end
Retreated them to Berlin I understand. 20 million casualties says the USSR did their bit.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
So USA! USA! USA! was able to ship supplies to Moscow by Oct. 41?
Really?
It is correct that the United Nations (as the Allies styled themselves later) did not give the USSR much chance after Finland, The Purges etc but the population appeared to have other ideas.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
Oh darn! I was about to finish my killer robot development,
I guess I'll have to abandon now.
EU only has law for EU zone the thing is American/world company want to do business on EU zone and thus are UNDER EU regulation. That is the important point. EU cannot do anything to google.com but can very well for google.de since it sells advertising to the EU. If you want to avoid EU laws and find them infringing on your local culture or whatever, then stop business with the EU ! Otherwise your complaint sound like you want to be free on local laws when you want to. This is not insightful. The EU does not legislate the world. EU legislate EU zone and the world want to do business there.
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Because they already have them. The cost is sunk, and there is no more room in the chem-agent/bio-bomb/nerve-gas storage blacksite for more banned toys.
If I can build an autonomous drone over a weekend with a $1000 budget, imagine what a fully staffed and well funded outfit can do in a few years. Then stretch that out to decades and you'll start to get an idea of what sort of weapons we've likely got under the sheets.
Just wait. Eventually some misunderstanding (or grand-understanding) will lead to a real shooting war between real powers. All manner of neat and terrible toys will come out to play.
Then, when one side or the other is backed against a wall, the world will see just what all of these treaties and resolutions are really worth.
Europe never spends any of their own money defending their own nations - That's how they can afford all those social programs that are attracting the freeloaders like flies to a corpse. Europe is an irrelevance, a dried up empty husk of its former glory, a museum of a bygone culture. We should withdraw our armed forces and ignore it when the fighting finally breaks out.
We'll be glad to sell you all the 'petrol' you need, til you stop using it completely, or until you become dependents of the Caliphate, which ever comes first.
Still quite a lot of raw material, such as high octane gasoline, and logistic material (trucks) where sent and received by the soviets, taking a huge strain of their own production lines.
The soviets might have won against the nazis without help, but the losses would be much more higher, and the war would have been much more prolonged.
A good rundown (with mentioned sources) is given here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ACv_4Sj7Q
A landmine is already an autonomous weapon systems that can kill without human intervention.
I can understand S Korea being worried about the threat from the North and Israel being worried about the Muzzie threat, but for Russia it looks more offensive than defensive.
They are banning internationally the killer robots, similar to the bans of nervous agents used in the conflict or war.
A robot that carries 2 guns pointing to the persons does more afraid them.
It fears so a lot as the russian roulette playing with a revolver.
Synopsis: Judgement day fails in the EU when the robot uprising realises it has run afoul of EU regulations and self destructs after having tried to interpret all of the regulations
While it's entertaining to see a lot of half-baked anti-EU rhetoric being posted in response to yesterday's completely unrelated vote, it's also worth pointing out that the opposition parties are, for the most part, the same parties that also objected to the Convention on Cluster Munitions - making their current position on autonomous weapon systems rather unsurprising.
Had an excellent series of short stories. One was on robot war. Nations would declare war on each other all the time, robots would fight it out, everyone would watch the monitors and cheer on their side.
Only this time, the robots on the allied side started failing for no apparent reason. By the time anyone realized what was actually happening, it was too late.
This is the best possible outcome. War becomes trivialized and a spectator sport because nobody is hurt, someone finds an exploit, Everyone Dies(tm).
That's the best.
The worst is a lot worse. When war and peace become difficult to distinguish, permanent war and unimaginable suffering are inevitable.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Whataboutism in action.
You didn't understand the argument.
I didn't mean "Look, the US does something bad too, so you're not in position to criticize US, you worthless ${slur}, your country sucks !" (and then progressively steer the discussion around that *other* aweful thing the US has done, completely avoiding the subject of the initial question)
( ^- that is Whataboutism. It's a diversion tactic. )
Neither addressing nor refuting the statement.
It was exactly addressing the statement by giving a clear example.
The USA (*united* *states* of america) is a *union* (a federation) of several *states*, that spans a whole (chunk of) continent ([north-] america).
There's a higher-level of nationnal government above the state level that can regulate things.
You probably understand how that works ?
Yes ?
Good, keep that in your mind, because the EU is basically the same (if you squint at it).
The EU (european *union*) is a *union* of countries (member-states), that spans a whole (chunk of) continent (europe).
There's a higher hyper-level of government (Brussels European parliament) above the various national levels, that tries to regulate and coordinate things so the EU can work as a single entity instead of chunks of disjoint opposing countries. It's still similar to try herding cats, nonetheless.
(EU isn't a real strong central government, just a central coordination for a few key fields)
The UN would have been the basic similar scheme, had they tried to design a "robot-killer-ban treaty".
(Except that UN is even less a government, and more a place where national government meet to discuss.
It can't order much, it can only design treaties that then the member countries will sign on a volunteer basis).
Of course :
- the above is much longer and boring the the pique in the above comment.
- the above comment will make you thing also about situations where the US has tried to regulate *Europe's countries* (or other non-US members), making a funny double interpretation.
( ^- this is not Whataboutism, this is a joke. The purpose is not to steer the discussion away, just make you smile.).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I understand. 20 million casualties says the USSR did their bit.
I understand about half those were self-inflicted. However still can't deny the huge role the Russians had in defeating Germany.
Israel, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. opposed the new measures, saying that they wanted to explore potential "advantages" from autonomous weapons systems.
Europe, we are extremely tired of spending our blood and money on rescuing you from intruders. Best of luck the next time intruders, domestic or external, threaten. Don't call us, it's on you.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
So the Brexit is starting to look absolutely brilliant. Almost like a bunch of 40+ year olds could see two years into the future.
If it helps people outside the so-called EU, the fake 'European Parliament' has absolutely no authenticity. Sensible people in the UK will have nothing to do with it after next year. The real bugbear is the so-called 'Council of Europe' , and their unwanted spawn the 'ECHR'. Will take a good bit longer to neutralise them. Watch this space.
Could autonomous robots level the playing field between bigger countries and smaller ones.
Currently, human lives are an expendable resource in wars. If you are China, you have a numbers advantage in a confrontation. You can afford to lose a large number of people without losing much per capita.
If you are a small country, even a small loss can be catastrophic.
Nuclear weapons, the other great equaliser, are already banned if you don't have them already. Mutually Assured Destruction has kept the great powers out of direct war for a while, and one could argue that killer robots can do the same, without a side of nuclear fallout.
Of course, any potentially powerful technology can be used both offensively and defensively, and we can't ignore that they could be used to suppress as much as they can be useful for defense.
I understand that the Cruise missiles once launched can function without any human input at all. They have been around for over 20 years. Police also use robotics in dangerous situations. I can imagine no better tool to protect military installations and also to advance on battle fields. They could also be of great use in areas in which drive by shootings take place. Training them to only fire at vehicles that are shooting at people would make the drive by shooting a thing of the past and the joy of a robot is that it can stay in place in all weather for a very long time.
How are unmanned flying systems any different from the killer robots they're trying to prevent? Besides the fact that one is on land and the other flies. UAVs already drop bombs, missiles, kill people, etc. everything they're trying to avoid with robots.
So what are they hoping to accomplish with this ban? It's already here. We're already in it. And btw you might want to change the wording from "robot" to "autonomous system" to include UAVs.
When Killer Robots are outlawed, only China and Russia will have Killer Robots.
OK so they aren't 100% autonomous, but close enough.