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Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

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Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#51

Post by spangry »

joshpadnick wrote: post #31

This is really cool tech, but given the current political state, I can't help but worry about a powerful army of robots -- presumably with weapons attached -- being put into the hands of a leader we might consider to have "unreliable" judgement. I wonder: if a country can deploy an army of robots to achieve its military ends, how does that play out in the long run? Does this mean future wars will just be "our" droids…

In the short-medium term? It makes it easier for democratic countries to wage war, just or unjust. No more footage of coffins draped in flags coming off transport planes. No more soldiers coming home with PTSD or concussion-induced dementia. Just a bunch of guys in Langley, sitting in their cubicles, killing people on the other side of the world.

The domestic propaganda goes down much smoother at this point. After all, who wants peace when we can win?

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#52

Post by danbruc »

_ihaque wrote: post #49
danbruc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even the point of having a war once you are fighting with robot armies? Why not just throw a coin and hand the country over to the side that picked the correct outcome? Use an unfair coin to correct for military strength. Or each side sends its best players for a game of Risk or Rock, Paper, Scissors or Command and Conquer. You get a winer and a loser, it does not take years and costs a fortune and you avoid…

This was essentially the plot of an original series Star Trek episode, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon : In this episode, the crew of the USS Enterprise visits a planet whose people fight a computer-simulated war against a neighboring planet. Although the war is fought via computer simulation, the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside "disintegration booths" to meet the…

You get rid of destroying assets but keep killing people. It is kind of an improvement if you just compare the losses incurred in this kind of war as compared to normal war, after all you are not losing your assets. But morally it seems actually worse to me. You decide to lessen the consequences of a war but you decide to keep your assets but keep killing people.

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#53

Post by ___start »

deathhand wrote: post #27
justinjlynn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something "a certain technical elite" feels is beneath them. A very common sentiment. However, please remember that the skills to get in at the bottom of each field are radically different and don't let that colour your perception of the top of each field.

Additionally - If the elites make it lucrative enough it will be easy enough to get labor necessary to complete the tasks. Tribalism is real and if they were able to convince a subset of people to complete their ends then controlling the minority/subset would be easy. It boils down to basically why Nazi's and Aryan pride were successful.

yes but in the end they lost, nazi's were defeated, the freedom-loving humans won :o

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#55

Post by abecedarius »

joshpadnick wrote: post #31

This is really cool tech, but given the current political state, I can't help but worry about a powerful army of robots -- presumably with weapons attached -- being put into the hands of a leader we might consider to have "unreliable" judgement. I wonder: if a country can deploy an army of robots to achieve its military ends, how does that play out in the long run? Does this mean future wars will just be "our" droids…

States have always been constrained by what their soldiers are willing to do for them. It's the difference between Tiananmen Square and Russia a couple years later. I think taking away that constraint is a bigger deal than how robots might change the nature of wars between states.

This particular robot doesn't strike me as especially military, though yeah, it's kind of scary-moving.

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#56

Post by prawn »

avenoir wrote: post #35
localcrisis wrote: post #6

If I'd seen this in a horror movie 10 years ago, I'd probably have laughed. There is something about it being real that truly terrifies me.

I felt the same way. I don't know if it's the fluidity of its movements while it was moving or something else. I kept thinking of Silent Hill for some reason.

The warehouse setting, and then snowy outdoors. Just needed some exploding barrels or random crates around the place and it's a charmless FPS.

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#58

Post by spacecity1971 »

___start wrote: post #53
deathhand wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally - If the elites make it lucrative enough it will be easy enough to get labor necessary to complete the tasks. Tribalism is real and if they were able to convince a subset of people to complete their ends then controlling the minority/subset would be easy. It boils down to basically why Nazi's and Aryan pride were successful.

yes but in the end they lost, nazi's were defeated, the freedom-loving humans won :o

The elites mentioned would just use ML to war game and hone tactics, and no one has experience fighting with (or defending against) this type of mechanized warfare.

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#59

Post by amptorn »

jameslk wrote: post #11

I can't wait for weapons to be attached to this thing so it can be used against us in the future. Imagine the part where it was spinning, but instead with a firing automatic weapon. What prevents democracy from collapsing when a certain technical elite control the most powerful autonomous weapons and keep tabs on everyone's daily lives?

Wait until robot personhood makes disabling one of these things equivalent to murder, then we're in real trouble.

Re: Introducing Handle – Boston Dynamics [video]

#60

Post by danbruc »

krapp wrote: post #47
danbruc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even the point of having a war once you are fighting with robot armies? Why not just throw a coin and hand the country over to the side that picked the correct outcome? Use an unfair coin to correct for military strength. Or each side sends its best players for a game of Risk or Rock, Paper, Scissors or Command and Conquer. You get a winer and a loser, it does not take years and costs a fortune and you avoid…

If one side has the robot army, they'll target the human soldiers on the other side. If both sides have robot armies, they'll probably target one anothers' civilians. Nations are never going to rid themselves of the desire for war, or the need for war to involve bloodshed, because we're just another species of simian bludgeoning the out-group to death with extremely abstract and over-engineered rocks. We already have…

[...] they'll probably target one anothers' civilians.

Which would be a first class war crime.

Nations are never going to rid themselves of the desire for war, or the need for war to involve bloodshed, because we're just another species of simian bludgeoning the out-group to death with extremely abstract and over-engineered rocks.

While that is not an uncommon point of view empirical evidence suggests otherwise, war seems to be in decline and seems to have shifted from wars between nations to civil wars and asymmetric wars.

Some argue that advances in human behavior heavily lag behind technological advances and I tend to agree at least somewhat, but concluding that we will never manage to overcome this stupidity seems not really obvious to me. And I certainly hope that it is not true.

We already have non-violent ways to resolve conflicts between nations, we fight wars explicitly to kill people.

Force is the ultimate and only way to »resolve« conflicts if all other means fail. But I do not think we are killing people for the sake of it in wars, it is just a means to an end.

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