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A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

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Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#81

Post by dragonsky »

browep wrote: post #60
vkou wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every technology has a spectrum of usefulness, between applications that make people's lives better, and worse. It's not FUD to point out that a particular technology will be primarily used for the latter. We generally don't hold people responsible for direct effects of their work. Working on drones that will kill people for the military is a direct effect. 'Game-changing potential', whatever that means for this kind…

sorta. the same arguments against the drone fleet is the same against the atomic bomb. What something is designed for (death in both cases) is not always their effect. For example, the atomic bombs were used to incredible devastation and death when used but it could be argued they prevented the next war with Russia since a war between two nuclear powers meant total destruction on both sides. I'll venture into predict…

Seems to me that at the moment there are a number of state and non state actors who seem happy to pull that tail of the US tiger, knowing that the consequences of the US reacting badly is the significant destruction of their country. Doesn't seem to deter them.

Expecting terrorist orginisations or rogue states to act in a rational way is the same as expecting the US to back down when their pride or national interest is threatened.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#82

Post by rxhernandez »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61
vlehto wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces. Most obvious example would be the Vietnam disaster. It was eventually shut down because of "bring our boys home". Not because of international reputation, human rights violations or the capability to win or lose the war. Another example woul…

> Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces Anything that (a) improves peoples' lives and (b) has a logistical dependency, e.g. requires or becomes better with electricity, an Internet connection, package delivery, et cetera , improves the standing of a centralized power. This will b…

All this and you couldn't see that the fault in your logic was that sufficiently enforced rules and regulations could mitigate the usage of evil things that centralized powers do. Obviously that infrastructure minimally exists now, but should we keep running as quickly in a direction that makes it more difficult to create such infrastructure?

I mean there's so much more to life than new technology and the corresponding progress in economies. But beyond that,do you genuinely believe that lawmakers are going to keep up with the necessary rules and regulations to keep sufficiently advanced AI under control in more hedonistic acting entities? Obviously that's the extreme case but it's a good thought experiment to test these models of innovation just for the sake of innovation and money.

As someone whose job is innovating where the current state of the art is, it's getting beyond ridiculous that everyone is ignoring the bloated elephant in the room.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#83

Post by linkregister »

8note wrote: post #75
imcrs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am American, and I hear this from Americans all the time. The reality is far different, though. Does the Russian military perform more humanely in war than the US military? I don't think so. Would the Chinese? Things like My Lai and Abu Ghraib are the exception with the US military, not the rule. I obviously don't want any single powerful entity to have access to this technology, but I can see the reality of it, wh…

I imagine knowledge over whether those are the exception or the rule for the US military is classified. they don't have to tell you when they've been doing evil

Yet it always comes out. Not because of a bug in code, or a document that fell off of a truck. It’s humans involved that know something is wrong and decide to report it.

The My Lai was reported by the American close air support crew, not a Vietnamese journalist.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#84

Post by vlehto »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61
vlehto wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces. Most obvious example would be the Vietnam disaster. It was eventually shut down because of "bring our boys home". Not because of international reputation, human rights violations or the capability to win or lose the war. Another example woul…

> Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces Anything that (a) improves peoples' lives and (b) has a logistical dependency, e.g. requires or becomes better with electricity, an Internet connection, package delivery, et cetera , improves the standing of a centralized power. This will b…

Well yeah.

Except the thing is that geopolitics is the dictating form of politics. Everything else comes after that.

Let's say US government needs lots of manpower to stay as global hegemon. Then say that there is culture in US where people will gladly "defend the land of the free". Now if you mimic a degree of freedom, you get that manpower relatively easily.

Then you can innovate things that connect to the grid as much as you want. As long as the DoD needs grunts, they will give you civil rights and freedom simply because they have to. They probably would do that most of the time because they want to. But given enough time, you will see clusters of bad apples to get office.

It's kinda ironic that US has to be "free" and "powerfull" compared to the enemies. If China opens up their internet bit more, US citizens will get net neutrality without fighting. Also if China produces weapons that take away the technological edge or US, then America needs more manpower to the armed forces. That would lessen political polarization, corruption etc. Nothing unites like common enemy. Except capable common enemy.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#85

Post by lostlogin »

vlehto wrote: post #58
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The technologies that will be developed in #2 will be absolutely, unquestionably used by governments to repress their own people One can go to the dawn of self-driving cars, the Internet, really any potentially game-changing technology, and throw this out. It's an inconsequential assertion that provokes no follow-on thought. Just emotion. Graduating this seed from FUD to a chain of critical thought involves asking…

Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces. Most obvious example would be the Vietnam disaster. It was eventually shut down because of "bring our boys home". Not because of international reputation, human rights violations or the capability to win or lose the war. Another example woul…

Your bit about Germany isn't correct and is a common misconception. Britain was more powerful than Germany, had a considerably larger GDP, had a vast empire which could be asked (and told) what to do in ways its own population couldn't. The population of the empire is what mattered, not Britain’s. By this measure it was roughly 60 million versus somewhere north of 450 million. Britain had a colosal and distributed industrial base at the start of the war and both countries had a very similar level of mechanisation early on. Britain only fell behind in armoured vehicle numbers around the time of the fall of France. This loss was very swiftly made up and Britain had roughly 25% more armoured vehicles in service by 1941. In no war year did Germany produce more aircraft than Britain.

Attacking Britain was suicidal and the myth of Britain, alone and standing firm is quite intentional, but untrue. The force multiplier wasn’t the tools, it was how they were used, and it took the allies a while to get the hang of things. The most surprising part is how far Germany got with such a weak position.

Britain’s War Machine by David Edgerton covers this well and somehow avoids it being a dry pile of charts.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#86

Post by lostlogin »

bmcusick wrote: post #5

It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.

Wright were 1903 and first jet was 1938 I thought. Are you meaning that it was 50 years before jet engines commercial flight?

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#87

Post by vlehto »

lostlogin wrote: post #85
vlehto wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces. Most obvious example would be the Vietnam disaster. It was eventually shut down because of "bring our boys home". Not because of international reputation, human rights violations or the capability to win or lose the war. Another example woul…

Your bit about Germany isn't correct and is a common misconception. Britain was more powerful than Germany, had a considerably larger GDP, had a vast empire which could be asked (and told) what to do in ways its own population couldn't. The population of the empire is what mattered, not Britain’s. By this measure it was roughly 60 million versus somewhere north of 450 million. Britain had a colosal and distributed in…

I meant that attacking Britain in any way would have been obviously suicidal to the point of being complete deterrent without certain war machines.

If Polad would have been taken with only infantry and field artillery and supplied by railway and horses (like WWI was fought), the conflict would have lasted way way more than one month. If the Polish campaign would have lasted long enough, Germany would not have even attempted to attack France.

Landing on British isles was correctly identified as suicidal. So what did Germany do...

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#88

Post by rjsw »

lostlogin wrote: post #85
vlehto wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that increases the destructive capacity of armed forces while lowering the manpower requirements is going to make it easier for politicians to misuse those armed forces. Most obvious example would be the Vietnam disaster. It was eventually shut down because of "bring our boys home". Not because of international reputation, human rights violations or the capability to win or lose the war. Another example woul…

Your bit about Germany isn't correct and is a common misconception. Britain was more powerful than Germany, had a considerably larger GDP, had a vast empire which could be asked (and told) what to do in ways its own population couldn't. The population of the empire is what mattered, not Britain’s. By this measure it was roughly 60 million versus somewhere north of 450 million. Britain had a colosal and distributed in…

The German army was still using horses plus the trucks left behind at Dunkirk to transport stuff throughout WWII.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#89

Post by rjsw »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #45
gok wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turboprops were developed after jets. But yeah there were other reasons planes got much safer after around the 1950s.

Turboprops were developed in the 20's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboprop#History and used in popular prop airliners like the Lockheed Electra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-188_Electra I'm guessing you're thinking of turbofans.

The Electra flew after the Comet.

Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups

#90

Post by jononor »

linkregister wrote: post #83
8note wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine knowledge over whether those are the exception or the rule for the US military is classified. they don't have to tell you when they've been doing evil

Yet it always comes out. Not because of a bug in code, or a document that fell off of a truck. It’s humans involved that know something is wrong and decide to report it. The My Lai was reported by the American close air support crew, not a Vietnamese journalist.

Some of it always comes out. What we get to see and hear about is just the tip of the iceberg.
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