Comment by doctoboggan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by doctoboggan | Hacker News Reader

> Although the videos frequently inspire comments that the robots will evolve into scary killing machines straight out of the “Terminator” movies, Dr. Raibert has said in the past that he does not consider his company to be a military contractor — it is merely trying to advance robotics technology.

His company _is_ a military contractor. This willful ignorance is very dangerous. It is so easy for engineers and scientists to just say they are working on cool technology, not intending for it to be used as machines of war. As a profession we need to open our eyes and acknowledge that much of our work is being used for military purposes. (Especially if the military is the one paying for it!)

EDIT: Yes, I agree that some people are fully aware of what their work is being used for. If they support it then it's their decision. It is just dangerous if we try to hind behind the veil of pure pursuit of knowledge, and ignore the reality of the situation.

We, the builders of this technology, need to deal with the ethical situations before they get out of hand. I think robotocists need to develop an analog to the hippocratic oath, and embrace it as a profession.

Just to clarify, I agree with you that any company that is funded by the military is technically a military contracter. But the term has deeply negative connotation.

Anybody who is involved with DARPA funded research. In this case it might be a little easier to the see the parallels between a robot and a war machine.

The Internet itself was a DARPA funded, as was GPS and they can both be seen as tools in war at least as this was there initial intent.

So while that does classify those who worked on them as military contractors, it is important to understand that its not necessarily a negative label and the benefits are sometimes felt years onwards after the military tech trickles down.

> The Internet itself was a DARPA funded, as was GPS and they can both be seen as tools in war at least as this was there initial intent.

Which started back when they were still just ARPA, the "Advanced Research Projects Agency".

It's a bit aggravating that they had to tack on "Defense", as if their achievements weren't justification enough, but I suppose dissuading Congress from killing your budget is an important pragmatic concern.

Just because "Defense" was added later, that doesn't mean it was at some point not a military-oriented organization. 'D' or no 'D', (D)ARPA has always been about improving military technology.

Nearly all the technology in front of you right now (your computer) came from military programs paid for by the US taxpayer. Google itself was initially funded via a DARPA grant, just like Boston Dynamics. It's public investment for private profit. This is no exception. Not to turn the conversation, but Libertarians (of which there are no few of on HN) need to get a grip on this fundamental aspect of the water they're swimming in here.

> Nearly all the technology in front of you right now (your computer)

Very True!

"Like the ENIAC, the EDVAC[1] was built for the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground by the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Eckert and Mauchly and the other ENIAC designers were joined by John von Neumann in a consulting role; von Neumann summarized and discussed logical design developments in the 1945 First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDVAC

Very true although using robots in a combat situations is not necessarily bad. One nice thing about robot soldiers is that they can afford to ask questions, then shoot later if necessary unlike humans who shoot first then ask questions.

Here is a great presentation on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASDkNdhUvuU&nofeather=True

You are right that we should however acknowledge that robotics work does have military applications and that some ethical lines will have to be draw as we are reaching a point where we cannot ignore them any more.

They could ask questions perhaps if you had overwhelming superiority, such as when fighting an insurgency.

In an actual modern war scenario however they'd have to use every sneaky trick in the book or would eventually lose the war via attrition. Firing high explosive shells into buildings to kill the sniper at the top and all that.

Isn't insurgency an "actual modern war scenario"? It also tends to be the scenario where civilian casualties has the biggest propaganda impact.

For a long time, the Pentagon lumped counter-insurgency under the term "operations other than war". That bugs me. Counter-insurgency is war! We spend a lot of time optimizing for potential near-peer conflicts with countries like China and Russia. Maybe it's prudent. But counter-insurgency has become, for better or worse, a big part of what we do. We should not be so bad at it.

Sadly with drones we're moving in the opposite direction of shooting before asking.

With flying drones lobbing missiles, yes. I would hope that robots on the ground are a little better.

The standoff distance of flying drone is enormous, if we aren't doing it in the air we won't do it on the ground. Ground offensive robotics will get autonomous programming before aerial drones.

At what level do you remain responsible? If I build a faster microprocessor that enables the creation of an automated weapon that kills thousands of people am I responsible for the choice to use what I built in that way?

Huge difference between primary and secondary uses. If the the only use for your faster processor is for an automated weapon, you are responsible.

A processor is general purpose. What if you designed a thermal / visible 1024x1024 pixel camera with built in optical flow calculator in a cerdip package? Even the boss man didn't tell you what it was for you could figure it out. You would be responsible.

I honestly don't know what all those words mean when put together, but near as I can tell, that sounds like something useful for any kind of work related to robots with vision. Which part indicates that it's for killing people?

cerdip.

The thermal imaging part (think of the FLIR systems used on Predator Drones) means it will be used to pick up heat signatures, the optical part will be used to check whether it's something you're looking for.

Now that could be used to check heat distribution on a motherboard, so up that that point, it's benign, but the optical flow calculator nudges it into other territory.

An optical flow calculator means it'll be used in some kind of mobile system. That instantly cuts out most industrial processes, most consumer applications, and most scientific applications. It simply wouldn't be necessary there.

The relatively high resolution of it also points towards it being used in highly specialized applications. For comparison, consumer priced thermal imaging chips usually come at 16x16 pixel resolutions.

The last thing sealing the deal would be the CerDIP package. CerDIP stands for Ceramic Dual-inline Package, instead of the usual Epoxy that holds the world of electronics together. I haven't worked with them, but I wager they're only used in critical applications, stuff that shouldn't fail even if it's screaming along with 300mph through the sky, right next to a plane engine.

So yeah, either you're building a drone with it, or you're building a drone with it. It'd be too expensive for any other application.

Still, there'd be future consumer applications for the technology. The technology the new Kinect uses for example used to be reserved for spotting tanks in underbrush (I assume that's where tanks live and raise their young).

Correct. As the engineers we need to breakdown our technological components and realize how they will get assembled by the end users. Our moral obligation doesn't stop with "just making tools" and leave the hard problems up to the people that will ultimately be pulling the trigger.

I agree entirely, but how does this work for FOSS? IE - if we license our stuff BSD or MIT or WTF, technically we're allowing it to be used by the military or contractors like Lockheed Martin. Perhaps we need a license that basically states that our stuff can't be used for military application?

It is important to acknowledge that. It's also important to know that many people consider this a fine use of their work.

Yes, if you are fully aware of what your work will be used for then by all means, keep doing what you're doing. I was more taking issue with the fact that he does not consider his company to be a military contractor, when it clearly is.

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