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Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#81

Post by SamaraMichi »

jMyles wrote: post #3

The article doesn't directly talk about robot-to-human violence, but presumably if root access at the software layer allows absolutely any command, it is possible to cause the described botnet to physically attack humans. I realize that Azimov's three rules are subject to enormous ethical quandaries and rethinkings (and that this is after all the point of them in the first place), but is there some disadvantage to ha…

The Three laws of Robotics seem to be a good idea though in reality, as Asimov portrayed in his works, are nothing more than fallible plot device.

The nuance a humanoid machine intelligence needs is way above what the current state of the art is capable of. Ultimately, we need each autonomous robot's action to fall back to a real human for accountability purposes, just as heavy machine operators today.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#82

Post by stubish »

stocksinsmocks wrote: post #64
est wrote: post #31

> We published the cryptographic keys in July Everyone should take a look at the SERP screenshot https://x.com/d0tslash/status/1969412224763498769 > The vulnerability combines multiple security issues: hardcoded cryptographic keys, trivial authentication bypass, and unsanitized command injection. What makes this particularly concerning is that it's completely wormable - infected robots can automatically compromise ot…

Could this level of incompetence be more easily explained by malice? Maybe the robots were meant to be exploited at a future time. The PRC subsidizes the robots, every US family buys one, a plausibly deniable exploit results in the robots subduing their owners with Kung Fu. America is vanquished in a bloodless coup. A 1000 year global Chinese imperium ensues. Forks and spoons hardest hit. It’s just silly enough to be…

No, because the exploit is likely to be caught before every US family has bought one. Much simpler, all malice needs to do is to roll out an OTA security update.

Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#83

Post by xp84 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #55
doesnt_know wrote: post #5

Given the security and privacy history of smart devices, you’d have to be a complete moron to let a human sized robot into your home.

Maybe by law domestic robots should be physically much weaker than humans. I want a butler bot that can tidy up and make me tea, but I should be easily able to defeat that bot in fight if it comes down to it.

Tough to achieve that in all circumstances. Someone brought up a robot holding a knife, while its target is asleep. Pretty hard to win that fight unless it has bad aim.

Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#84

Post by dyauspitr »

bonoboTP wrote: post #21
cedarseagull wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are all the videos of the robots doing combat stuff? I don't need combat stuff. All I need the robot to do is fold the laundry and mop every now and then. Less combat, please!

Kungfu demos are easier than fine hand eye coordination and manipulation of nonrigid objects. There is progress on folding too, but it's harder and impresses normal people less even if it's technically harder.

With all the stuff I’ve already seen these robots do we can’t be more than a decade away from house chore robots.

Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#85

Post by walleeee »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #45
walleeee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "natural order" is that robots are primitive, fragile, energy- and materials-inefficient contraptions balancing on the knife-edge of entropy deferred for a moment but due as soon as the power goes out or repairs prove too costly. People are better at all but the most repetitive, precise kinds of manual labor because biological bodies might as well be god-tier alien technology compared to human-engineered robots.…

> Computers are naturally better at computing. Explain the difference. > I look forward to hearing how you've delegated thought to the machines, and how that's going. We all do. That's what you do whenever you fire up a maps app on your phone to plan or navigate, or when you use car navigation. That's what you do when you let the computer sort a list, or notify you about something. That's literally what using Compute…

Certainly we have machines that can do any number of tasks for us. The problem is deciding which ones to let them.

Delegating to artificial constructs is an old habit and its effects are more apparent today than ever. It's not the principle I object to but the practice as it stands. Paperclip maximizers are a reality not a thought experiment.

Computing is what we do with a precise algorithm to solve a problem. Thinking is an open question, we know not what yet, really. That's the whole problem with letting machines do it. It's not just cleverness but wisdom that counts

Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

georgeecollins wrote: post #78
TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is older than what we call drones, or robots. Original GTA had an RC model car you could drive under your target and detonate remotely - that was in 1997, and they didn't invent this trope. US Navy trained dolphins to deploy ordnance in the 1960s; before that, together with the Air Force they played with strapping incendiaries to bats, packing them into a bomb casing and dropping from the air, with hopes of…

older than that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

Apparently even earlier than that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_ground_vehicle#Histor...

That's 1915, if we're going for remote control bombs.

EDIT:

Even earlier still - apparently, a radio-controlled torpedo was patented in 1897!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_control#History

Re: Exploit allows for takeover of fleets of Unitree robots

#87

Post by TeMPOraL »

ben_w wrote: post #76
TeMPOraL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One leads to the other. Especially with robots animated by SOTA AI models, which already show clearly what the natural order of things is: computers are naturally better at thinking, humans are naturally better as general-purpose manual laborers, especially for work that's almost but not quite repetitive and requires mixing power and precision movements on the fly. Folding laundry is one of such things humans are nat…

> And no, I'm not joking here, not anymore. The more I think about it, the more I feel we'll eventually have to deal with the problem that machines we build are naturally better at the things we want to be doing, and naturally worse at the things we want them to do for us. Perhaps, but also "what they are good at" != "what they want to do", for any interpretation of "want" that may or may not anthropomorphise, e.g. I…

> That said, I think you're underestimating the machines on physicality. Artifical muscle substitutes have beaten humans on raw power since soon after the steam engine, and on fine control whenever precision engineering passed below the thickness of a human hair.

Right. Still, same can be said about flying machines and birds; our technology outclasses them on any individual factor you can think of, but we still can't beat them on all relevant factors at the same time. We can't build a general-purpose bird-equivalent just yet.

Maybe it's not a fundamental hardship, and merely economics of the medium - it's much easier and cheaper to iterate on software than on hardware. But then, maybe this is fundamental - physical world is hard and expensive; computation is cheap and easy. Thinking happens in computational space.

My point wasn't about whether or not robots can be eventually made to be better than us in both physical and mental aspects - rather, it's that near-term, we'll be dealing with machines that beat us on all cognitive tasks simultaneously, but are not anywhere close to us in dealing with physical world in general. Now, if those compete with us for jobs or place in society, we get to the situation I was describing.

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