No government or regulation can strop entropy, and given the tools and the knowledge, a Robocop is inevitable. The best we can do is prepare the rest of the world to deal with these things, and the time when without a doubt they get hacked, or become self-aware. The question is, what are we going to do?
Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
21–30 of 59 posts
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#22I 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.
Mines are simple robots. They kill for decades after a war. Killer tank robot is much less dangerous.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#23Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think you can realistically detect predator - satellite comms
Unless they have a specialized directional antenna, it's simple to triangulate where the source of a signal is with drones.
They fly pretty high and the antenna points towards the sky not the ground, and yes they do use specialised antennas. You'd much easier find a predator using radar.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#25I 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.
I've heard it argued that cruise missiles are robots - at least as much as a Roomba is - and hence that 'killer robots' have been with us for decades.
"This isn't a new thing! Look we already have this superficially similar thing!" is a common argument in favour of changes to the status quo, especially when people believe the change is negative. It's intellectually dishonest.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#26On 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.
I'll grant you that there weren't much ethical considerations to speak of in the last world wars, and perhaps my naive view has been unrealistically colored by sci-fi TV shows, but my point is simple: a broken autonomous killing system won't know when to stop. Even unethical war makers have affinity to humankind and know when to stop. And despite the meaning implied by the MAD doctrine, it never meant that humans will nuke themselves to oblivion; it simply says a nash equilibrium will be achieved with both conflicting parties staying out of each other's way.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#27I 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.
I've heard it argued that cruise missiles are robots - at least as much as a Roomba is - and hence that 'killer robots' have been with us for decades.
And already we have all sorts of problems with cruise missiles (fired by mistake, locking on the wrong target, misbehaving in flight...). Increasing the window of risk to ground combat is very, very risky. As the British ex-soldier quoted in TFA, even humans struggle to discern friend from foe in situations like Afghanistan or Iraq, a machine could potentially create clusterfucks of unimaginable proportions.
Not that I think someone won’t do it - if it gives even a resemblance of tactical superiority, someone will deploy it, then watch in horror as things go terribly wrong.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#28I 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.
I've heard it argued that cruise missiles are robots - at least as much as a Roomba is - and hence that 'killer robots' have been with us for decades.
Or missiles. Or torpedoes before that.
Also, targeting systems on manned vehicles etc.
I do think it can be seen as a spectrum and these are quite more primitive than more autonomous and general ones with longer lifetime.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#29Mandatory "You have 20 seconds to comply." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M *That demo with generals probably looked like this :)
Even now, 33 years later, that robot is goddamn terrifying. Props to the designers for creating the most disconcerting creature I've seen in all cinema.
Re: Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot
#30I 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.
Mines are simple robots. They kill for decades after a war. Killer tank robot is much less dangerous.
True, but it's still a slippery slope. Can't wait for the day where the decision of who to shoot is outsourced to call centre-like environments in India where people will be paid peanuts to decide who lives and dies. /s