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.

Comments

Europe

[Vinegar Joe]

Spends a lot of time trying to ban, regulate and/or tax things in other countries.

Re:Europe

[sabri]

Europe spends a lot of time trying to ban, regulate and/or tax things in other countries.

This. It's about time the EUSSR reconsiders what it tries to do. The EU as an institution is an undemocratic entity. Its "constitution" was illegally adopted, despite its citizens overwhelmingly voting against it.

I had to seek refuge on another continent.

Re:Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

He makes only makes two claims and they're both true

He claims its constitution was illegally adopted. This is true. The French and Dutch rejected the European constitution in referendums in 2005. The EU renamed the "Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe" to the "Treaty of Lisbon" and changed the wording a bit to bypass the need for a referendum in France and the Netherlands, thus robbing those people of their legal right to a referendum.

He claims the EU is an undemocratic entity. This is true. The most powerful branch of the EU is the European Commission which has the power to set laws. Members of the European Commission are not elected by the public. The second most powerful branch of the EU is the European Court of Justice, where the judges are also unelected. Of the seven institutions of the EU only members of the European Parliament are elected, but this is largely for show as the parliament has no power to create laws, only block laws passed down by the Commission. The forcing through of the European Constitution shows how undemocratic the EU is.

How, then, is what he said not true?

EU and its bans

[AHuxley]

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.

Re:EU and its bans

[rtb61]

A missile is technically an autonomous weapon once fired. They will get smarter and longer ranged (powered all the way to the target and beyond) and will go for the ram kill because that way, the various counter measures fail, they try, try, try again until they hit something. So a limit on how smart a missile is, or when a missile becomes a drone, or drones that hunt down targets and then explode upon impact.

I am trying to imagine why the consider people murdering people to be better than robots murdering robots, because they are not doing the fighting and dying I suppose. I mean once your robot army has been beaten to a mangle pile of spare parts, you just give up. I suppose those at the top, still want the millions at the bottom to die bloody and mangled defending those at the top.

Most air defence systems are largely autonomous, you switch them on, allow them to fire but they do the rest themselves. Of course the US wants to ban anyone else's air defence systems because the ones they sell are back doored and will not shoot down American aircraft, so they can attack you when you are their frenemy, which everyone. Wow do they kick up a stink when you buy Russian gear because yeah sure to shoot down F35 Flying Pigs.

Do you know the main reason for the desirability of autonomous weapon systems, to reliably kill your own citizens without remorse, once the digital command is given, by whom ever controls it. Do you know the main reason for why autonomous weapon systems are bad because they will reliably kill your own citizens without remorse, once the digital command is given, by whom ever controls it. Isn't there a delightful sense of symmetry in that, a real balance of insanity ;D.

So why is the US military industrial complex so desperate for autonomous weapon systems, has their conspired delusion of democracy become too much of a hassle and they just well, want to issue demands and have them obeyed, else there will be an incident.

While a resolution may sound nice

[guruevi]

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.

So...

[Locke2005]

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.

Say whaaat?

[msauve]

"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.

Oh sure.

[godel_56]

I'm sure the Chinese and the Russians (not to mention the US) would strictly abide by such a ban.

North Korea & Iran

[rsilvergun]

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.

Agency and culpability

[ezdiy]

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.

downright not insightful

[aepervius]

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.

Terminator 7: The EU will sue back

[jools33]

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

Actually explaining

[DrYak]

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.).