How silly. How can such a ban be enforced? Will Al Qaeda and ISIS sign the treaty? Will Assad sign it? Will he respect it any more than he respected the ban on chemical weapons?
Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
51–60 of 186 posts
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#52Product page for the UAV in question: https://www.stm.com.tr/en/kargu-autonomous-tactical-multi-ro...
Does anyone know what "Indigenous National Embedded Hardware and Software" means? Domestically developed maybe?
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#53There's an interesting similarity between autonomous weapon systems and ransomware discussions. Both have just come to the attention of the mainstream audience (or audiences outside their usual niche) and discussion in those spaces is about where it was 5 years ago. Also I'd really expect HN of all places to understand why banning what is basically computer vision based targeting systems is absurd.
Technologists tend to underappreciated relative utility as a driving popularity metric -- does it accomplish a job I need, better / cheaper / faster?
My thought is that ransomware is seeing a resurgence because corporations are increasingly internetworked and hybridized with the global internet, because they have to be. So ransomware has begun to outweigh espionage as a method for extracting money from corporations.
Drones (as used so far, in the remote suicide version) solve a key problem many states have: lack of effective tactical ISR. The US and major powers do not have this problem.
Autonomous drones solve... what problem?
My inclination is that they'll deliver the same value as current-gen ML systems: mass, automated intelligence collection & basic analysis. As well as continuous monitoring and triggering on a pre-configured event (e.g. truck leaves this building, launch missile).
Killing something, once you know what and where it is, is not a problem most militaries have.
Training and paying and allocating large numbers of soldiers to do basic intelligence trawling is absolutely a problem most militaries have.
I think you see this in the US drone approach evolution. Shifting from a single vehicle approach to a survivable system with attritable assets communicating back through stealth communication hubs. Because persistence is the real value.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if fewer weddings get blown up, we'll use them more and more to kill people. I wonder whether the absolute number of killings will go up or down this way.
Wait, why will we use them more and more to kill people if fewer weddings get blown up? I'm not seeing the causal link.
The RAF's Brimstone missile is in big demand for airstrikes because it has much lower collateral damage than the bigger Hellfire and Maverick missiles that allies use. This has actually spurred its use; the number of strikes actually went up.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#55Not with current tech but let’s say 5 years from now can’t a country or even a terrorist organization deploy hundreds of autonomous drones with charging stations that will effectively shoot everyone on sight? It’s like a school massacre but at a city scale or worse. Sure eventually everyone will go inside or underground but there is still incredible damage to be made in the meanwhile. You can equip these with heat vi…
They'd have to get their hands on "hundreds of autonomous drones" and deploy them on site. Seems unlikely for any of the current terrorist organisations.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#56There's an interesting similarity between autonomous weapon systems and ransomware discussions. Both have just come to the attention of the mainstream audience (or audiences outside their usual niche) and discussion in those spaces is about where it was 5 years ago. Also I'd really expect HN of all places to understand why banning what is basically computer vision based targeting systems is absurd.
Technologists tend to underappreciated relative utility as a driving popularity metric -- does it accomplish a job I need, better / cheaper / faster? My thought is that ransomware is seeing a resurgence because corporations are increasingly internetworked and hybridized with the global internet, because they have to be. So ransomware has begun to outweigh espionage as a method for extracting money from corporations.…
>Killing something, once you know what and where it is, is not a problem most militaries have.
It would be if there was a real war with a lot of things at once. That statement is only true for peacetime "executive action" wars with a 100:1 force ratio. It is an auxiliary role that has little to do with how things would go if there was a war between somewhat equal powers.
The lessons of enforcing foreign policy on ten people who live in a country with neutral diplomatic status will probably not apply if you change the number ten or the neutral diplomatic status.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
But we can stop using drones to kill people, we choose not to. Instead, we see drones as a measure to lower the operational cost of killing people allowing us to kill people simply because they are there.
Some people need killed. Another way to look at this is improving the efficiency and accuracy of that process.
And that's the problem, there is always the Western idea that someone far away must absolutely be killed. And magically, when that person is killed, someone else pops up in their place who needs to be killed even more than the first guy.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technologists tend to underappreciated relative utility as a driving popularity metric -- does it accomplish a job I need, better / cheaper / faster? My thought is that ransomware is seeing a resurgence because corporations are increasingly internetworked and hybridized with the global internet, because they have to be. So ransomware has begun to outweigh espionage as a method for extracting money from corporations.…
> Killing something, once you know what and where it is, is not a problem most militaries have. It would be if there was a real war with a lot of things at once. That statement is only true for peacetime "executive action" wars with a 100:1 force ratio. It is an auxiliary role that has little to do with how things would go if there was a war between somewhat equal powers. The lessons of enforcing foreign policy on te…
Debatable. Armament stocks are ridiculously large, relative to value targets.
Which makes sense, because cruise missiles cost less than radar systems.
And I question whether "build one more drone" is an economically superior answer vs "build one more smart bomb."
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if fewer weddings get blown up, we'll use them more and more to kill people. I wonder whether the absolute number of killings will go up or down this way.
Wait, why will we use them more and more to kill people if fewer weddings get blown up? I'm not seeing the causal link.
The pentagon literally have lawyers that designate an acceptable amount of civilian casualties a general can risk to take out a given target. With more precise weaponry theyll be able to get under the threshold much more frequently.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Drones can't beat nylon nets or other low tech countermeasures. I think anti drone water cannons will outpace drone assassinations. And more than both, regular bombs and guns will still do most of the killing.
A motorized sniper rifle with face detection to find targets and a high rate of fire seems like it could exist with current technology, require about the same effort to deploy as a sniper with a typical sniper rifle, require less training from the person in the field, and be a hell of a lot more deadly. Same with a machine gun for closer quarters. Regular bombs and guns probably still do most of the killing for quite…
Sniping isn't that simple. The risk of counterfire is real.
I think autonomous weapons will always be more successful in area denial and holding territory. Ie landmines.