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Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

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Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#51

Post by bufferoverflow »

Jach wrote: post #47
neuro_imager wrote: post #3

Unfortunately I don't see a way this can be avoided.There has never been a weapon humanity imagined, designed, and built that it has not used. AI will be no different. A ban would be impossible to implement. What exactly would you ban? AI? Drones? facial recognition? Once you have a certain level of capability in these technologies, weaponising these things is the easy part.

I think the proposed ban is: don't develop weapons with software that can make the killing decisions without humans in the loop. That itself isn't so impossible a ban to make something like the CWC out of, but nations couldn't even stop 3D gun printing, despite the same sort of worries. Additionally, even with that ban, you could have the exact same video with the minor difference that each drone sends its video stre…

You can't really ban software. Sooner or later someone will write it, opensource it, and it will be on GitHub/piratebay.

Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#52

Post by bufferoverflow »

tomjen3 wrote: post #50
jrochkind1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can make it considered unacceptable and against international law. Like chemical weapons. Which still happen, but not as much as they would if the U.S were, say, planning on using them all over the place, doing heavy R&D into them, and selling them to other people. Like, you know, robot kill bots.

The difference is that I can make almost all the components of a killer bot in my living room, and the rest with of the shelf components and access to a maker space with tools.

You can make a chemical weapon too, your local hardware store has enough hazardous chemicals.

We're only safe, because crazy or truly evil people are rare.

Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#53

Post by erasemus »

neuro_imager wrote: post #3

Unfortunately I don't see a way this can be avoided.There has never been a weapon humanity imagined, designed, and built that it has not used. AI will be no different. A ban would be impossible to implement. What exactly would you ban? AI? Drones? facial recognition? Once you have a certain level of capability in these technologies, weaponising these things is the easy part.

I would guess: we ban civilian drones from carrying explosives, nerve-toxins and other weapons; we invest the bulk of research effort in developing anti-drone drones. The anti-drone drones don't carry weapons that can be used against humans. Advanced drone tech would be less like nuclear weapons, against which there is no defence, and more like vaccines or antidotes.

Which is morally very different. Actually morality is an interesting aspect of the video/story. We had the bad guy white male presenter on the stage playing the good guy and claiming that his weapons could distinguish good guys from bad guys (and then of course the targeting of said weapons with a pitifully inadequate and unrealistic set of criteria).

Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#55

Post by XorNot »

The message of this film feels extremely confused - probably because it's trying to single-mindedly push an agenda rather then explore the problem space. In a world where apparently drone-swarms are this cheap...what, no one ever developed counter-drones? It's the reason grey goo isn't a realistic scenario for nanotechnology: the goo has to replicate, whereas all the counter-goo has to do is kill it.

Same issue: a world where the technology to build an incredibly cheap drone that size which can hunt humans with facial recognition based on specific parameters exists...is also a world in which an anti-drone can use the exact same technology and just ram into unidentified drone vehicles to disable them. If the swarms are cheap enough for terrorists, then the counter-swarms are monumentally cheaper.

EDIT: It's worth noting you could argue other scenarios - like only governments building these, but that's what I mean by the message being confused - it's not clear what the threat is supposed to be.

Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#56

Post by badminton1 »

erasemus wrote: post #53
neuro_imager wrote: post #3

Unfortunately I don't see a way this can be avoided.There has never been a weapon humanity imagined, designed, and built that it has not used. AI will be no different. A ban would be impossible to implement. What exactly would you ban? AI? Drones? facial recognition? Once you have a certain level of capability in these technologies, weaponising these things is the easy part.

I would guess: we ban civilian drones from carrying explosives, nerve-toxins and other weapons; we invest the bulk of research effort in developing anti-drone drones. The anti-drone drones don't carry weapons that can be used against humans. Advanced drone tech would be less like nuclear weapons, against which there is no defence, and more like vaccines or antidotes. Which is morally very different. Actually morality…

You can make any laws. But how exactly do you enforce them?

Civilians manufacture and own drones, 3d printers are consumer products now, there are incredibly affordable electronic kits (e.g: Raspberry Pi)... then, for computer vision and AI you've got a lot of free toolkits to pick from... it will be challenging to effectively prevent it even if legislation forbids it.

Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#58

Post by Santosh83 »

neuro_imager wrote: post #3

Unfortunately I don't see a way this can be avoided.There has never been a weapon humanity imagined, designed, and built that it has not used. AI will be no different. A ban would be impossible to implement. What exactly would you ban? AI? Drones? facial recognition? Once you have a certain level of capability in these technologies, weaponising these things is the easy part.

It doesn't have to be implemented 100%. Nothing is. But that doesn't stop us from banning bio & chemical weapons.

War should be approximately 'human-magnitude' in scale and proportion, or it will simply wipe us out. That's why we have built but not yet routinely used, nuclear weapons. The same strategy needs to be followed for any tech that is far more efficient and autonomous than a human would be.

Re: Slaughterbots: Stop Autonomous Weapons [video]

#60

Post by nopinsight »

XorNot wrote: post #55

The message of this film feels extremely confused - probably because it's trying to single-mindedly push an agenda rather then explore the problem space. In a world where apparently drone-swarms are this cheap...what, no one ever developed counter-drones? It's the reason grey goo isn't a realistic scenario for nanotechnology: the goo has to replicate, whereas all the counter-goo has to do is kill it. Same issue: a wo…

Complete defense is more expensive than targeted offence.

Can we afford to and do we wish to have a number of anti-drones flying everywhere in public space and our own homes?

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