100 robotics experts write an open letter warning that 'killer robot warfare' is imminent

[Master Disaster]

So the thread title is a little clickbaity, basically the worry is that the tech industry is pushing robotic warfare too far too quickly and the industry is pretty much unregulated, even the military are playing catch up to these corporations.

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More than 100 of the world's top robotics experts wrote a letter to the United Nations recently calling for a ban on the development of "killer robots" and warning of a new arms race. But are their fears really justified?

 

Entire regiments of unmanned tanks; drones that can spot an insurgent in a crowd of civilians; and weapons controlled by computerised "brains" that learn like we do, are all among the "smart" tech being unleashed by an arms industry many believe is now entering a "third revolution in warfare".

 

"In every sphere of the battlefield - in the air, on the sea, under the sea or on the land - the military around the world are now demonstrating prototype autonomous weapons," says Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at Sydney's New South Wales University.

 

"New technologies like deep learning are helping drive this revolution. The tech space is clearly leading the charge, and the military is playing catch-up."

Featured in the letter is Kalashnikov's latest smart weapon, a fully automated 7.62mm machine gun that uses cameras and AI to decide its own targets with no human intervention required at all

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One reported breakthrough giving killer machine opponents sleepless nights is Kalashnikov's "neural net" combat module.

 

It features a 7.62mm machine gun and a camera attached to a computer system that its makers claim can make its own targeting judgements without any human control.

 

The company did not respond to repeated requests by the BBC for an interview, but according to Russia's state-run Tass news agency it uses "neural network technologies that enable it to identify targets and make decisions".

 

Unlike a conventional computer that uses pre-programmed instructions to tackle a specific but limited range of predictable possibilities, a neural network is designed to learn from previous examples then adapt to circumstances it may not have encountered before.

The obvious worry is that these tech firms are removing humans from warfare with nothing but profit for motivation

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"If weapons are using neural networks and advanced artificial intelligence then we wouldn't necessarily know the basis on which they made the decision to attack - and that's very dangerous," says Andrew Nanson, chief technology officer at defence specialist Ultra Electronics.

 

Automated defence systems can already make decisions based on an analysis of a threat - the shape, size, speed and trajectory of an incoming missile, for example - and choose an appropriate response much faster than humans can.

 

But what happens when such systems encounter something they have no experience of, but are still given the freedom to act using a "best guess" approach?

 

Mistakes could be disastrous - the killing of innocent civilians; the destruction of non-military targets; "friendly fire" attacks on your own side.

The worry is not about machines being to smart, its that they're not smart enough

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And this is what many experts fear, not that AI will become too smart - taking over the world like the Skynet supercomputer from the Terminator films - but that it's too stupid.

 

"The current problems are not with super-intelligent robots but with pretty dumb ones that cannot flexibly discriminate between civilian targets and military targets except in very narrowly contained settings," says Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at Sheffield University.

 

Despite such concerns, Kalashnikov's latest products are not the only autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons being trialled in Russia.

 

The Uran-9 is an unmanned ground combat vehicle and features a machine gun and 30mm cannon. It can be remotely controlled at distances of up to 10km.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41035201

 

Seems like a pretty legit concern to me, these weapons could end up being deployed without proper testing and we might end up with a tragedy on our hands.

 

No matter how you dress it up no computer is smart, that's just not possible. They follow a set of rules indiscriminately and have no way of judging if the ruleset it correct or not.

 

Removing humans from weapon deployment is not a clever thing to do.

[LienusLateTips]

[System Error Message]

removing human soldiers to reduce caasualties on one side and increase it on the other.

US drones are controlled by humans, constantly striking fear into the citizens of some middle eastern country

even if fully automated, only the bigger countries benefit from this, doing even more harm to other countries that dont have this.

I see US, russia and china deploying these on other countries causing more problems, its a military win to deploy. Max casualties on the target while only causing financial casualties on your side.

[Master Disaster]

7 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

removing human soldiers to reduce caasualties on one side and increase it on the other.

US drones are controlled by humans, constantly striking fear into the citizens of some middle eastern country

even if fully automated, only the bigger countries benefit from this, doing even more harm to other countries that dont have this.

I see US, russia and china deploying these on other countries causing more problems, its a military win to deploy. Max casualties on the target while only causing financial casualties on your side.

No one is saying automation is not a good thing, the point is there should always be a human involved to make the actual fire decision.

 

Computers are obviously better and faster than humans for multiple battlefield scenarios but a computer should never be making the choice to fire or not. Heck even soilders on a battlefield can't fire without permission so why should a robot be given that freedom?

[Teddy07]

I realy would love to work on killer robots or other weapons of war. Way more interesting than working on a toaster... 

[System Error Message]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

No one is saying automation is not a good thing, the point is there should always be a human involved to make the actual fire decision.

 

Computers are obviously better and faster than humans for multiple battlefield scenarios but a computer should never be making the choice to fire or not. Heck even soilders on a battlefield can't fire without permission so why should a robot be given that freedom?

as i was saying currently theres a human behind the US drones constantly flying around the middle east shooting hellfire missiles at the wrong people. If a robot makes less mistakes it might actually be better.

 

Monitoring drones are fully automated though but some have humans flying them.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, System Error Message said:

as i was saying currently theres a human behind the US drones constantly flying around the middle east shooting hellfire missiles at the wrong people. If a robot makes less mistakes it might actually be better.

 

Monitoring drones are fully automated though but some have humans flying them.

That's kind of the point of this letter I think, these private companies are removing humans from weapons while even the military thinks that's a bad idea.

 

I think the other worry is these weapons are not military designed and will be sold on the open market meaning they could end up being deployed by the wrong people in the wrong places to do things a human wouldn't necessarily do.

[System Error Message]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

That's kind of the point of this letter I think, these private companies are removing humans from weapons while even the military thinks that's a bad idea.

 

I think the other worry is these weapons are not military designed and will be sold on the open market meaning they could end up being deployed by the wrong people in the wrong places to do things a human wouldn't necessarily do.

i know what im saying is that fully automated may be good or bad depending on use case. You input the target into a drone and the computer will make less mistakes than a human in identifying the right target. However an oppressive government like china will make lots of use of automated weapons as their own military isnt that great. US is heading towards the same path, they have let china opress other south east asian countries.

[mr moose]

The defeatist in me say it's futile and they will anyway.   I honestly don't know why we didn't end up in world war 3 many times over already.

 

 

[Timbs]

That's fuckin radical my dude

[Jito463]

[ETHREAL1]

Now if can only figure out a “ nural helmet” like in the anime sword art online or In the movie chappie or avatar so that human directly control the robot soldiers then this would be a great idea but until then..... very very bad....

[BuckGup]

I won't believe it until I see it. Then when I do that's epic and I am fine with robo cop

[You_are_a_cunt]

18 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

I won't believe it until I see it. Then when I do that's epic and I am fine with robo cop

T800? T850? T1000? Sentinels? Agent Smith? Skynet?  ED-209?

For every Robo Cop there's another 50 T1000s waiting to "save" humanity by destroying humanity.

[TimeOmnivore]

The human race really needs to stop trying to win Genocide Bingo. Nobody wants to win Genocide Bingo. Stop it.

[ChineseChef]

While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think stopping it is feasible.  Advancing military power and ability "has" to be done by individual countries, otherwise they will "fall behind".  Essentially, if 1 country is willing to build Nukes, everyone who can has to also build them.  Or you are at the whims of the 1 country that has Nukes.

 

And Nukes are hard, killer robots are super easy.  So every major military across the globe is going to have to develop killer robots to fight off other countries killer robots.  Because if even one of "your" enemies is building them, and has any intention of using them against you.  Your options are fight back or total submission to whatever they demand at any time.

[Tech_Dreamer]

Millions of people killed by other people for no other reason other than some random f*cked up thought passing through their mind and/or because they were in disagreement  & we're supposed to be afraid this first hand??

[Beskamir]

For those that want a sensible computer scientist perspective on AI safety rather than an overhyped and usually incorrect media perspective: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLB7AzTwc6VFZrBsO2ucBMg/videos

[SCHISCHKA]

I should stop sexually identifying as a robot in case i get drafted.

Is an army full of sex bots a bad thing?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

[PlayStation 2]

I've been looking for a reason to bring this back.

[Okjoek]

War is business and business controls the governing bodies that decide to go to war. It's a recipe for disaster I think.

[Prysin]

On 8/25/2017 at 10:43 AM, Master Disaster said:

So the thread title is a little clickbaity, basically the worry is that the tech industry is pushing robotic warfare too far too quickly and the industry is pretty much unregulated, even the military are playing catch up to these corporations.

Featured in the letter is Kalashnikov's latest smart weapon, a fully automated 7.62mm machine gun that uses cameras and AI to decide its own targets with no human intervention required at all

The obvious worry is that these tech firms are removing humans from warfare with nothing but profit for motivation

The worry is not about machines being to smart, its that they're not smart enough

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41035201

 

Seems like a pretty legit concern to me, these weapons could end up being deployed without proper testing and we might end up with a tragedy on our hands.

 

No matter how you dress it up no computer is smart, that's just not possible. They follow a set of rules indiscriminately and have no way of judging if the ruleset it correct or not.

 

Removing humans from weapon deployment is not a clever thing to do.

Horizon Zero Dawn

 

[Doobeedoo]

It's done

 

[Tech Learner]

Everybody is worrying way to much. The future isn't set in stone. We the people can change the future if we believe in the right thing to do.

[ScratchCat]

Time to go build some EMP devices