Once you have two sides with automated offensive capability, we are one bug away from the kind of mistakes that, during the Cold War, were intercepted by humans in the loop. I'm not sure how this can NOT end badly.
Once you have two sides with automated offensive capability, we are one bug away from the kind of mistakes that, during the Cold War, were intercepted by humans in the loop. I'm not sure how this can NOT end badly.
A culture has computer simulated war and “casualties” must report to euthanasia chambers.
This was the end result agreed to to stop actual bombings.
Of course, the officers disrupt it in the end. But it’d be interesting if they returned and nothing was left but craters.
More on topic, iron dome is an automated missile interception system and works well to protect Israelis from missile attacks. Just because a system is automated doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea, but obviously there’s high risk.
There is a massive difference between guns on automated fire control and an AI aiming missiles.
One could argue that, by making the fire control guaranteed, the border might stop being challenged and deaths thus go down. (Nobody to taunt, either.)
Landmines work by the same principle. Many killed by landmines are children.
> 87% of the casualties were civilians and 47% were children (less than 18 years old).
Not really. Mine fields are not certain death. They don’t always have the opportunity to announce themselves. Guns on automated fire control have the option of announcing themselves prior to engaging. They can also be turned off, something not easy to do with mines.
It’s painful but necessary to note that Hamas have a track record of weaponising children [1]. A child approaching the border is thus not guaranteed safe, and could reasonably be fired upon by a human or a gun on automated fire control. (Not arguing for killing kids. Just that “kids could get killed” isn’t an effective argument against this weapons platform.)
War is terrible. I don’t think automatic guns make it significantly more terrible. (Landmines do.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_child_suicide_bombers...
In particular, you don't set up a few thousand roboguns and then leave them there when the conflict is over, which is responsible for most of the civilian deaths you're referring to, including those of children.
That makes no sense to me. Children being killed by landmines is an example of a lack of fire control. If the land mine had fire control it could detect enemy soldiers then children wouldn't have to die.
Except it's not a border, it's more like a massive concentration camp. Plus, the kill zone is hundreds of meters inwards.
Defining an area as a kill zone and a bomb that is dropped on a particular area aren't all that different.
They are.
And a centralized AI will be needed to coordinate all of the autonomous weapon systems and react faster than the bad guys--SkyNet is coming too.
Why?
At a tactical level, an AI to coordinate a battlefield makes sense. (Speed of light means local computing has an advantage, particularly with directed energy weapons.) And an AI to advise on strategy, and coördinate those battlefield AIs, makes sense.
But while battles are mechanical, war is political. At the point that the human becomes replaceable we’d have an AI substitute for government, which is a long way away.
For grand strategic concerns, we have nukes, and those still fly slowly and detectably enough that an AI commanding counterstrike is unnecessary. (Unless submarine platforms become detectable and thus destroyable in a first strike.)
I think this will further reduce conflict between advanced nations (robots killing robots just becomes a stalemate) and will intensely escalate any asymmetric conflicts where one advanced nation can crush whoever without having to pay the price of deploying humans (think CIA drone strikes).
Atomic weapons are forties technology, and even nations as locked down, and downtrodden like North Korea, or Israel (as it was in sixties) can not only make one, but seemingly genuinely capable of keeping it hidden against modern spy, and nuclear detection tech.
And nuclear weapons aren't a binary either. North Korea has demonstrated the actual bomb, but their delivery systems are still far from reliable. Their rockets might technically have the range to threaten the US, but what are the chances they could actually hit their target? And how many launch vehicles do they realistically have? Not likely enough to seriously threated any other nuclear powers. And this after making decades of enormous political and economic sacrifices to pursue nuclear weapons. I don't think most countries will feel tempted to follow their lead.
Much more relevant theatre range weapons are things even NK can manufacture. I was very surprised to learn that North Korea not only designed a working cruise missile with their economy, but had a working terrain hugging flight on it.
If you dropped a bomb of a certain type and strength on a random coordinate in <country> how many people do you kill on average?
A 1Mt device might only have a 50% chance of killing 1+ people if detonated at the proper altitude at a random location within the US, (47% of the US is uninhabited) but average 1000 deaths (~6mi lethal radius, US overall population density of 90p/sqmi).
Of course we will. It's not as though they're programming themselves. Somebody has to tell the computer what to do.
We program our robots with our prejudices[1]. If you don't control the machines, you can't change their programming. It's entirely possible that such prejudices are cemented through machines that cannot be influenced or changed except through actions of their owners.
What happens when the owners of these machines are indifferent towards, or outright supportive of, prejudice? History is rife with owners of companies, industries and governments exploiting and furthering prejudice for their own benefit.
[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/publications/jud...
I don't think the problem is with AIs acurrately identifying friends and enemies. You can't solve that 100% anyway, but if it can aid humans and prevent mistakes, all the better. The problem is when you start to build absolutely relentless border drones that can one-shot the enemy, without any possibility for mercy or negotiation.
With weapons, the desired outcome is not to kill, not in most circumstances anyway. In circumstances where it is, it is almost always the desire of an individual wielding a weapon. Normally, the desired outcome is deterrence or defense, and when used proactively, to lessen the enemy's ability to continue to wage the conflict. With deterrence, the threat of death is the deterrent, with defense, killing is the machanism by which the threat is neutralized, and with proactive aggression the goal may or may not include killing, and is more likely to include killing if the enemy's ability to wage conflict is dependent on manpower. In all three scenarios, the desired outcome of developing autonomous military capability is to save lives.
One maybe stupid example is when there were lots of Syrian refugees on the way through Europe in 2015. We learned the hard way that, if people are pushing against your borders, the only way to keep them out is to eventually use force. We were not willing to do so, so we had to accept that and grant people asylum (which I think was the right decision).
Imagine (a bit scifi but for the sake of argument) "border patrol 2000", which will give a warning, then give a more stern warning, then raise a wall, then try rubber bullets, then try to keep you from climbing the wall with a grappling arm, and finally using live rounds. If you are really determined it will eventually have to shoot. Human solderies did shoot in the past but they did also sometimes not shoot, and it always had a political aftermath. But with automatic systems, it is too easy to psychologically detach, and to say it's e.g. the refugees own fault.
Also, having people in the loop reminds at least someone that this is 'real' and that we need to carry on thinking about it. If you can obliterate enemies' bodies and the only duty on people is to restock the ammo I think that reduces the moral burden of conflict in an unacceptable way.
Its time governments around the world invest in quality gamers to help them fight their battles.
I can't help but think, in a war between two nations fighting exclusively with such tech (not too far fetched for my generation or my kids generation), war itself becomes comical and essentially a measure of economic strength. How quickly can you build these robots and how quickly can you deploy them.
Imagine a general shouting orders over a bunch of acne-faced teenagers trying to win a war for his country.