Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
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Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#2I don't buy this.
Given a sufficiently desperate situation, I can't imagine any military with autonomous tanks taking a call to keep the autonomous shooting "disabled" when it would risk actually loosing a war.
If anyone had real ethical concerns, they would've not put a gun on a robot to begin with. Once you arm a robot, a software disable is just lipstick on a pig.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#3I don't buy this. Given a sufficiently desperate situation, I can't imagine any military with autonomous tanks taking a call to keep the autonomous shooting "disabled" when it would risk actually loosing a war. If anyone had real ethical concerns, they would've not put a gun on a robot to begin with. Once you arm a robot, a software disable is just lipstick on a pig.
Predator and Reaper drones are armed, but as far as I know humans always control the weapons systems.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#4On one hand, I'm pretty excited that something from the universe of Ghost in the Shell would become reality; on the other hand, it's a slippery slope to some dystopian reality where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#5That demo where the unmanned tank pointed its gun at the platform full of generals...... talk about your nightmare demo. I’ve done a few and even getting my network connection working at a client site can make me sweat a little when a room full of executives are waiting. I can’t imagine how the engineers felt when their baby went off the reservation like that.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#6That demo where the unmanned tank pointed its gun at the platform full of generals...... talk about your nightmare demo. I’ve done a few and even getting my network connection working at a client site can make me sweat a little when a room full of executives are waiting. I can’t imagine how the engineers felt when their baby went off the reservation like that.
Haha they did have faith in reinforcement learning or whatever technique they used for training.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#7I don't buy this. Given a sufficiently desperate situation, I can't imagine any military with autonomous tanks taking a call to keep the autonomous shooting "disabled" when it would risk actually loosing a war. If anyone had real ethical concerns, they would've not put a gun on a robot to begin with. Once you arm a robot, a software disable is just lipstick on a pig.
Predator and Reaper drones are armed, but as far as I know humans always control the weapons systems.
I guarantee they can be programmed to carry out missions without sending and receiving signals. Otherwise they can always be detected.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#8On one hand, I'm pretty excited that something from the universe of Ghost in the Shell would become reality; on the other hand, it's a slippery slope to some dystopian reality where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle.
Repeat of WWI, to be honest, with all these technologies clashing together for the first time. There weren't a lot of "ethical considerations" to using chemical weapons when the alternative was losing thousands in another doomed charge out of the trenches. Same with WWII, where the US would rather open Pandora's box of the Nuclear Age than risk a ground invasion of mainland Japan.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#9On one hand, I'm pretty excited that something from the universe of Ghost in the Shell would become reality; on the other hand, it's a slippery slope to some dystopian reality where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle.
> “where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle”
I’m surprised you say that. Having tired, squishy humans in a hot, cramped box fearing for their life is not exactly a guarantee of “ethical considerations”.
Remotely controlled weaponry removes said humans from the immediate danger. It’s a lot easier to apply ethical considerations, when you can be certain a moment of hesitation won’t cause your death.
Fully autonomous weaponry moves the ethical decision making even further up the chain. Where cold heads can do all the thinking beforehand.
Now, don’t get me wrong: There is a lot of ills with remotely controlled/autonomous weaponry. Chiefly among them that it removes certain costs from the political calculus. Politicians fear the spectacle of their troops dying. This fear moderates their decision making. Removing this cost will make the world a worse place. But i would hardly call this an “ethical consideration”.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Predator and Reaper drones are armed, but as far as I know humans always control the weapons systems.
I guarantee they can be programmed to carry out missions without sending and receiving signals. Otherwise they can always be detected.
I don’t think you can realistically detect predator - satellite comms