No one will use autonomous fire in some backwater proxy war skirmish (which is where superpowers meet) if the response would be the same as it would be to a nuclear first strike.
On the battlefield, it will be impossible.
The only difference between a system with a human firebreak and a fully autonomous weapon is the flip of a bit.
Treaties will not be effective at preventing the development of these weapons. Any illusions will be shattered by the first bad actor.
An arms race in this space is inevitable; realistically it has already begun.
Still - using what amounts to a nuclear first strike is a dangerous game to play, so it might at least make superpowers think twice if it's made clear that this is how it's seen. Russia wouldn't try to use a bioweapon or tiny nuke and claim it was conventional, because it's a risky gamble.
Are you under the impression that the major powers don't have biological warfare capabilities?
> and that the gloves are off once they are used.
So, China uses autonomous killbots in Tibet to control an uprising. The US "takes its gloves off", and...sends a strongly worded letter? Sends the world economy into a freefall?
Further, China and Russia could do some limited testing, and then stockpile millions of killbots/killdrones. Once the gloves have already "come off", they can then rule the battlefield, since their opponent(s) won't have a similar massive force.
I think the combination of cheap and effective will be impossible for the less scrupulous countries to resist...and possibly the more scrupulous countries as well.
It is also a slippery slope - the US is already working on autonomous anti-ship cruise missiles that search an area and look for the correct ship (think "Chinese aircraft carrier"). That implicitly means the missile will autonomously "decide" which ship containing hundreds or thousands of sailors gets hit. Full autonomy will also be a requirement for any effective UCAS capability.
I expect that regardless of what treaty is signed, the various powers will make sure there are loopholes permitting what they wish to do - or they will simply ignore the treaty. A concrete example of such behavior is Russia's long-term violations of the INF Treaty.
No, but that they are extremely careful with using them since it’s considered an extreme escalation to do so even on a small scale.
> China uses autonomous killbots in Tibet...
Replace “autonomous killbot” with “small tactical nuke” and you see what I’m getting at. They could. But they won’t - because they can accomplish any military goal with conventional means. So why risk the backlash? That’s the kind of threshold I’d like for the deployment of autonomous weapons of this type. And it’s difficult given how easily deniable they are, compared to e.g bioweapons.
> ...autonomous cruise missiles...
This is an interesting gray area. No one thinks a fuse that ensures a weapon doesn’t blow up a friendly is a bad thing. But we still think of these weapons as being “launched” by a human, even though they can make terminal decisions on their own. I’d draw the line for what’s ethically acceptable at the point where you no longer have a human launch weapons “at” a target but instead launch a weapon to roam. The cruise missiles are still just clever fuses, they don’t linger waiting to autonomously attack ships. The reason this is a gray area and a slippery slope is of course only down to the short flight time of the missiles. If they could fly for a year (like the Russian nuclear experimental missile) then it’s useless against predesignated targets - so effectively a roaming killbot. With current cruise missiles, a human still makes a decision to attack even if it’s only a rough area thought to contain the target. They know what they are trying to attack and there is a human to take the blame if the weapon subsequently makes a mistake and hits a tanker.
> ...stockpile millions...
Yes. Comparing again to nukes that’s very similar. So would I prefer a world without nukes to one with? Sure. But the best we could do was superpowers stockpiling to ensure mutual destruction. I think that’s the best we can hope for here. I don’t think these weapons won’t be built by the millions, I just hope they will be used reluctantly.
> The cruise missiles are still just clever fuses, they don’t linger waiting to autonomously attack ships.
That is not correct. The cruise missiles will be given an area to search. They will then traverse that area looking for targets. Anything that matches their programming will be hit. I'm sure they're flexible enough to take orders like "attack any destroyer, cruiser, or aircraft carrier". It will be up to the sensors and software to make sure the target isn't a civilian ship, for instance.
> I don’t think these weapons won’t be built by the millions, I just hope they will be used reluctantly.
They are already being pitched on the open market by the Chinese:
>> The Blowfish A2 “autonomously performs complex combat missions, including fixed-point timing detection and fixed-range reconnaissance, and targeted precision strikes.”
>> Depending on customer preferences, Chinese military drone manufacturer Ziyan offers to equip Blowfish A2 with either missiles or machine guns.
>> Mr Allen wrote: “Though many current generation drones are primarily remotely operated, Chinese officials generally expect drones and military robotics to feature ever more extensive AI and autonomous capabilities in the future.
>> “Chinese weapons manufacturers already are selling armed drones with significant amounts of combat autonomy.”
>> China is also interested in using AI for military command decision-making.
https://www.technocracy.news/china-releases-fully-autonomous...
IMO the closing window of opportunity, that is, the fleeting opportunity that still exist, would be a culture of intellectual honesty and getting rid of moral double standards rather than goosestepping, so maybe people in Russia, China and elsewhere might think hey, maybe we'd actually like to be free, too. But, instead let's just play another round of this game. Remember the cold war, how giant that was, yet when it ended, the military budget just stayed as big? It's a racket.
While I see your point on the ever present escalation risk in these things, are you sure you're not taking an overly restrictive view of "pull the trigger"? Take long existing weapons like just plain old guided missiles. In one respect it could be argued a computer system is making the kill choice there, after firing there will be a long period where the computer is seeking the target and the computer is what actually detonates the warhead that makes the kill. But in practice it's hard to argue that a human isn't still "pulling the trigger", making the decision that "this target should be killed" and then the level of intelligence the weapon employs to accomplish that order afterwards isn't so relevant. The real comfort factor seems come from there being inherent limits in terms of time/space (a missile only has so much run time and range) and specificity (a missile is going after a specific designated target).
If we consider the most problematic weapons of modern history, I think the real uniting factor is when they get away from all those limits at once. Landmines can linger a long time and activate indiscriminately without further human intervention. Chemical and bioweapons also not well controlled in terms of time, space or specificity despite no AI. Project Pluto, the early Cold War R&D by the US military to create a hypersonic nuclear scramjet cruise "missile" (more of a autonomous bomber) that could be launched then linger flying over the ocean for months (due to nuclear reactor power) was abandoned precisely because it was considered far too destabilizing even for then. Despite still being a "missile", the longer time/space/area effect made a difference. Heck, even cluster munitions on conventional missiles, while not considered in the same category as landmines exactly, are still pretty hotly debated.
By the same token in a future conflict with more advanced NN/ML weapons, isn't there still room for operator decisions? Ie., "here are cryptographically authenticated orders to kill targets matching X profile within Y geographic area for Z time period". It would seem like setting international restrictions on X, Y and Z there (requirements for safety interlocks and for any given kill authorization to be valid for no more then 20 minutes over no more then 400 km^2 to toss something out) could be a viable approach. So in the specific minutes and seconds and milliseconds of machine/machine conflict there'd be no disadvantage, but humans would still be need to be constantly "involved" at a higher level. Having killbots just roaming around or lying in wait (and potentially lasting after the conflict is totally over, ala landmines) would be banned, but sending robot tanks to attack a specific fortified position on one single day with active strategic direction would not be.
Basically moving humanity "up the chain" a bit seems like something countries could practically agree to without feeling massively behind and could be monitored/verified.
Edit: updated to add some comparison to non-AI weapon systems that have been agreed to be restricted with some success.
The real use for chemical weapons is to terrify civilians and poorly organized/equipped militias. Most of all it’s a way to murder a large number of civilians without destroying infrastructure. Needless to say that’s not something you’d typically do in a war, where destruction of infrastructure is typically step one! As a result most countries recognize the economic and social burden of chemical weapons and their use, and strongly oppose them.
See Vietnam War, Napalm, Agent Orange etc.
You can't see software.
[1]: http://www.aurora.aero/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ALIAS-Broc...
Edit, found a reference for the autonomous helicopter:
Unlike chemical/nuclear warfare, no factories, material transportation, etc. out of the ordinary observable by other countries. Sensors needed for the systems would be entirely justified for other reasons and software to change behavior can be loaded invisibly.
There would be no way to police it.