Why this soft-spoken tone?
Killer robots must be banned, period.
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Whoever bans them will be at a disadvantage militarily. They will never be banned for this one reason alone.
I think you're conflating a ban to include banning their production (not an unreasonable assumption). As we've seen with nukes, however, possession of a banned weapon is sometimes as good as using it.
I'm guessing the major countries will ban them, but still develop the technology, let other countries start using it, then say "well everyone else is using it so now we have to as well". Just like we're seeing with mini drones in Ukraine. The US is officially against automated attacks, but we're supporting a country using them, and we're developing full automation for our own aircraft.
Whoever bans them will be at a disadvantage militarily.
...and exactly this way of thinking will one day create "Skynet".
We need to be (or become) smarter than that!
Otherwise mankind is doomed.
Unfortunately this is basic game theory, so the “smart” thing is to have the weapons, but avoid war.
Once we’ve grown past war, we can disarm, but it couldn’t happen in the opposite order.
Once we’ve grown past war,
But what until then? Your ideas do not provide any solutions. You just say that it is unavoidable as it is.
I don’t think I’m smart enough to solve “world peace” lol.
The process of collective disarming is the path towards growing past war. And that first step is the collective banning of manufacturing such weapons.
I disagree. War isn’t caused by weapons. It’s caused by racism, religious strife, economic hardship, natural resource exploitation, and more. Those need fixed before anyone will be willing to put away their weapons.
War isn’t caused by weapons.
It's enabled by weapons.
And there are people who want to use weapons when they exist, simply because they exist.
And there are people - for example weapons manufacturers - who want other people to use weapons.
Obviously it’s enabled by weapons. But that strengthens my point further - the nation who reduces their weapons first loses.
When has a nation completely set down their weapons, and what was the effect? One obvious case that comes to mind is Ukraine, who fully denuclearized. Ever since that moment they have repeatedly been invaded by Russia (the nation who maintained the weapons).
What you suggest is asking for this to repeat over and over again. The only truly viable path to eradicating war, is to first eradicate the problems that cause war, then to abolish weapons.
If you have factual evidence that your method works, please present it. I shared hard evidence of my perspective.
When has a nation completely set down their weapons, and what was the effect?
You seem not to know much. It has happened often, and in very different ways.
Start your studying about Switzerland, because it is easy.
Then try to understand Afghanistan. But beware, it is already a little complicated, and you need to read about 4 - 8 decades of history, and you should not read only sources from one country (they all lie, and you need to overcome that - or stay ignorant).
Last, go for some of the African countries. They are harder to understand, the what and the why. But coincidentially :) our current topic starts there, so it may be important.
Well Switzerland does obsessively stay neutral, which is badass… Sadly that is mostly an anomaly in the world right now. I’d love for everyone to be the same, but I don’t think it’s likely - good luck convincing the US, Russia, or China to be neutral.
Not sure what you mean by the others. Afghanistan has been destabilized repeatedly by a bunch of big nations with big weapons, and they couldn’t do much about it. That fairly well strengthens my point again - the only nations whose rights are respected are the ones with the biggest guns, and everyone else gets trampled by them.
Heck, Africa is also embroiled in proxy wars caused in part (mostly? It’s complicated) by big, militarized nations.
I think very few people would call militarization good. In fact I’d call it explicitly evil. I would also label it as necessary in the modern world dynamic. I desperately hope that people learn to respect each other so we have the option of demilitarization.
Life doesn't adhere to waterfall methodology: we don't have to do one first, and then the other. We can progressively disarm as we're addressing the problems you mentioned..
Fair enough, but there’s still far too much conflict to begin demilitarization at this point in time. What the world can mostly agree on is to limit itself to being destroyed 55 times over by nuclear weapons (by UN estimates). And that’s in a world where nobody has actually used nuclear weapons (offensively) in 90 years.
These kinds of things take so many generations because the fundamental conflict between humans is not resolved. If there had been no Cold War, maybe we would have totally denuclearized by now, but I still doubt it.
"Basic game theory" says we should destroy this wacko system. jfc.
TBH these kinds of sloppy arguments are a big part of why game theory is a joke. It's fine as math (apart from misleading terminology) but a major problem is applying it to situations that are definitely not "games".
For example killer robots are not a game in any mathematically meaningful sense. The situation has been to be maximally simplified into a game between two people in order to reduce the situation into a simplistic analogy. This is neither science nor math. It's no reason to condone killer robots.
Once combat AI exceeds humans:
A ban to all war, globally. Those that violate the ban will have autonomous soldier deployed on their soil.
This is the only way it will work, no other path leads to a world without autonomous warbots. We can ban them all we want but there will be some terrorist cell with access to arduinos that can do the same in a garage. And China will never follow such a ban
Ban the state first. Every state. These wacko cultists are literally destroying the planet so they can control people with killer robots.
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Ok so we ban them, and some incel terminally online hacker on steroids turns 20 arduinos into bombs.
I agree killer robots are dangerous and ethically problematic, just I don't think banning them will keep asshats from making them, including on large scale.
China could pump them out by the billions and we'd probably not know till they were deployed.
The US is conducting live AI experiments on the people of the Global South and exposing some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world to dangerous technology it won't use on it's own citizens.
To use on it's own citizen later
Which is the only point at which Americans will start to care.
USAians already don't care about any form of violence as long as it's used on minorities, refugees, prisoners, unhoused, etc.
Americans will never care until it starts happening to them.
Outside our borders? Outside my interest in caring.
Just look at all the liberals selfishly attacking leftists for withholding their votes until the genocide stops. “we nEeD to sAvE MY ‘dEmOcRaCy’, oUr ‘dEmOcRaCy’ is mOrE iMpOrTaNt tHaN oUr bOmBs dIsMeMbErRiNg cHiLdReN!”
it wont use on its own citizens yet
I'm actually surprised it has taken this long.
What surprises me even more is that organized crime hasn't gotten on board much (yet). Like, screw drive by shootings -- drone dropped grenades on rival gangs and such.
Or that drones haven't been used for "school shooting" type mass casualty attacks.
Or that foreign countries haven't snuck in with a sea can full of drones which fan out and attack infrastructure.
Imagine a cruise missile as a drone carrier that just scatters anti-personnel drones along a flight path, each just finding a person indiscriminately.
If there's anything that Ukraine is teaching us, it's that we don't have countermeasures (yet). The autonomous versions are even scarier.
We do have countermeasures, however many countries mothballed them because we thought them obsolete.
The Gepard which has been proven to be invaluable in a close range AA role, is being pulled from scrapyards. Yes, the radar resolution has to be increased to effectively track small single use drones, but the technology is there.
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There are also a number of ethical concerns associated with autonomous weapons.
That being five sentences after the sentence
There are worries that these weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist groups if their deployment in Africa is scaled up.
I'm worried that the facebooks and elons out there will build private armies of these, not even the terrorists.
That seems to imply that Facebook and Elon are not terrorists. I could make a reasonable argument for Facebook. Elon, I think, has already established his credentials with multiple acts that have led to riots and other violence.
Tuareg nationalists and even Islamic groups in Sahel are not terrorists. UN member states they are fighting against are. That would include France, Russia and who not.
So no, more egalitarian weapon technologies are a good thing. Not ethical concern for sure. If they don't have ethical concerns over jets and tanks.
Probably going to get on a list here...
Imagine how easy it would be to setup an even dozen drones in a pickup bed. Drive to a political rally, pop the bed cover, launch, drive away.
Feed the AI dozens of your target's images and let slip the dogs of war. Or, even lower tech, have someone controlling an overwatch drone and paint your target with a laser. The drones themselves could be cheap as hell, as long as they have a camera feed going back to, uh, some automagical targeting system. Maybe just point a cell phone at the target as if taking a picture?
Only defense I got is a powerful, wide-spectrum frequency jammer. No idea what the legalities look like for the government using them as defensive platforms. I doubt there are laws concerning such tactics.
Am I oversimplifying this? Devil and details and such? Comment and join me on the government's list!
Another thought on drone defense, maybe someone can comment. Why aren't the Russians and Ukrainians carrying 20-gauge anti-drone shotguns? A single-shot unit with a short barrel is super light and the very definition of reliabilty. Seems ideal given that you can tweak a shotgun load 1,000 different ways for spread, distance and weight.
Don't know the ideal combat range, but I've got 8 shotguns of various sorts and I can get any sort of load, anywhere I want. Playing at my range, it's fun to see what I get with different barrel lengths, chokes and charges. If you really want cheap, I've loaded homemade black powder and gravel. LOL, pretty crappy and messy, but it might do for a drone. Bonus! Now you've make a giant smokescreen!
For example, I've got an absolute POS single-shot 20 that weighs nothing, folds in half, never fails to fire and cost about $100. Even has a cheapo red-dot on it, point and click interface. Probably take a day of testing, and a shitload of varied ammo, to shape up an anti-drone weapon. And while we're at it, I have a 1920s single-shot 20 that would get the job done. Lightweight and you can snap the barrel on and off in seconds, 3 parts total.
You can even get fancy and make the choke adjustable by twisting. I have such a shotgun from the 1950s, nothing new here. Choke too tight and you missed? Now it's closer? Yank the choke off and go wide with it.
Training young soldiers should be easy enough. My neighbor's 22-yo wife is hell on wheels with her 20-gauge over-and-under. She's shooting skeet at twice the range I see Russians dying from.
So again, why not load the soldiers with such a rig? At least 1 man per squad?
I remember seeing this video a few years ago, and I'm really scared about drones technology, miniaturization and AI since... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg
Oh! I'm getting right after that! We'll probably watch Alter all night now.
Ever seen Uncanny Valley?
No, I'll watch it as soon as i have some time!
Thank you! I have been showing this video to people for years and so far not a single other person has gotten how terrifying this is.
For whatever it's worth, everything they're about to do to you at Guantanamo is not who we are as a country.
Is this a copypasta?
I imagine by the time you see the tiny drone and are able to aim at it, it's likely too late. And what if it's a kamikaze drone and the explosion is bigger than anticipated?
Telling your soldiers to shoot at that sounds riskier than "take cover as soon as you think there's a drone".
Anyway my understanding is that so far drones are more useful for destroying stuff than killing people.
A much simpler countermeasure to armed drones is a net.
As for surveillance drones... I'm not sure militarily speaking they care all that much. The enemy already could be watching them with satellites, high altitude drones or balloons that would be nearly impossible to detect, or plain old binoculars, anyway.
Unless it's a covert operation, in which case the enemy launching a drone to find you is already very bad.
I have been screaming about this exact scenario for years now and I have not been able to get a single person to take it seriously. People leave such huge chunks of identity info online, it would be trivial to target someone with a detection package that could easily fit on a drone.
There's no real viable automatic defense options and for the life of me I feel it is only time before some rancid redneck terrorist does this.
The acronym "Laws" is a little too on the nose. I'd ask whether anyone involved in the development of these has seen the documentary film Robocop, but clearly they have and thought it was a great idea.
Terminator mbappe be like
Botswana
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