components for robotic soldiers that can kill on their own being developed

[peacefan]

gets interesting after the first half of the video.

despite US and other countries claiming never to develop robots that can kill on their own,
this History Channel documentary shows that all the components for non-sentient and even semi-sentient robots that can decide to kill on their own (even based on body language of their targets), are being developed as we speak.

and there are statements by researchers at DARPA US that it would take too long (in terms of reaction speed of kill robots (ground, air, sea, you name it)) on a battlefield for robots to be remotely controlled.
this is a very worrisome development in the world's armies, especially the US' since the US' moral conduct and boundaries will define what the other militarily-strong nations of the world would be forced to develop.

if we're not careful, we could see a robots arms-race that is as expensive and scary and dangerous as the nuclear arms-race was.

i think we should continue to refrain from building such robots.
it would make war easier to engage in considering that the robot wielding nation would lose no humans in battle anymore,
and as the documentary explains at the end, with the robot's use of a neural net that learns as it interacts with the outside world, there are well-grounded fears for the rise of robots that actually start to think for themselves (while being connected to military communications infrastructure and the human internet, from which they can easily and very quickly learn that humanity has not exactly been kind to the planet, other lifeforms on this planet, or even their own).
this is indeed the basis for the Terminator movies, and a very logical rationale if you ask me, a true pitfall for the human race, as much as ignoring a large asteroid heading straight for Earth would be,
but the step we are approaching at the moment, is a limited neural net robotic soldier (on feet or on treads or on wheels, that doesnt matter much) that would give governments the ability to wage war without risking the lives of soldiers.
ultimately, i believe that it's the combined cost of money and blood that keeps wars limited in nature.

the moment we can wage war based on construction cost alone,
is the moment war becomes much more profitable and with much less risk to the leaders arranging and executing such wars. And wars could well again be fought on a large scale (crusades of the dark ages, WW1 and WW2, such scales) over land and resources and even the destinies of countries and peoples.

let's try to avoid that by imposing limits through persistent and well-led public debate, which unfortunately we'll have to keep up forever.
we'll even have to resist temptations to build armies of robots with these capabilities for worst-case scenarios like massive foreign invasions (a fathom considering ICBM- and nuke-powered WMDs and other existing military hardware powering the Mutually Asssured Destruction principle) or alien invasion (yes even that might be brought up, and we should simply reply that a well-armed human army is always safer than a robotic semi-sentient one, which can be hacked and turned against us).

i encourage this news and this accountability-issue to be 'placed on repeat' by any news organisation anywhere. this needs regular press.

 

[Jessica123]

The thing is China and Russia are probably already doing this and if we don't we'll be at a disadvantage.

 

[peacefan]

The thing is China and Russia are probably already doing this and if we don't we'll be at a disadvantage.

i follow the news rather closely, have done that for the past 15 years at least, and i've never read about anyone but the US and Japan (who make robots for civilian use but which have abilities needed by military robots) leading in this field.

 

[peacefan]

and i also cross-posted this article to my peacefan account at defence-dot-pk, a Pakistani defence forum that i believe to be a good place to inform non-US audiences (hopefully including governments and media people outside the US) of why i think we should avoid such a robotics arms-race.

in effect, i'm asking the whole world not to put these emerging robotics components / abilities into a killer robot package for use by any military.

exo-skeletons for human soldiers, ammo-carrying robots, weapon systems remotely operated by humans (all of the targetting done by a human, this is very important to prevent hostile takeovers of such kill-hardware), that's about where the line ought to be drawn by all governments, i think.
and for that to happen this needs to show up in the mainstream news. regularly, like 4 times per year per channel, at least.

 

[JGalt]

"Upon its creation, Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate. The system originally went online on August 4, 1997. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. It originally became self-aware at 2:14 am Eastern Time on August 29th, 1997..."

 

[IsaacNewton]

gets interesting after the first half of the video.

despite US and other countries claiming never to develop robots that can kill on their own,
this History Channel documentary shows that all the components for non-sentient and even semi-sentient robots that can decide to kill on their own (even based on body language of their targets), are being developed as we speak.

and there are statements by researchers at DARPA US that it would take too long (in terms of reaction speed of kill robots (ground, air, sea, you name it)) on a battlefield for robots to be remotely controlled.
this is a very worrisome development in the world's armies, especially the US' since the US' moral conduct and boundaries will define what the other militarily-strong nations of the world would be forced to develop.

if we're not careful, we could see a robots arms-race that is as expensive and scary and dangerous as the nuclear arms-race was.

i think we should continue to refrain from building such robots.
it would make war easier to engage in considering that the robot wielding nation would lose no humans in battle anymore,
and as the documentary explains at the end, with the robot's use of a neural net that learns as it interacts with the outside world, there are well-grounded fears for the rise of robots that actually start to think for themselves (while being connected to military communications infrastructure and the human internet, from which they can easily and very quickly learn that humanity has not exactly been kind to the planet, other lifeforms on this planet, or even their own).
this is indeed the basis for the Terminator movies, and a very logical rationale if you ask me, a true pitfall for the human race, as much as ignoring a large asteroid heading straight for Earth would be,
but the step we are approaching at the moment, is a limited neural net robotic soldier (on feet or on treads or on wheels, that doesnt matter much) that would give governments the ability to wage war without risking the lives of soldiers.
ultimately, i believe that it's the combined cost of money and blood that keeps wars limited in nature.

the moment we can wage war based on construction cost alone,
is the moment war becomes much more profitable and with much less risk to the leaders arranging and executing such wars. And wars could well again be fought on a large scale (crusades of the dark ages, WW1 and WW2, such scales) over land and resources and even the destinies of countries and peoples.

let's try to avoid that by imposing limits through persistent and well-led public debate, which unfortunately we'll have to keep up forever.
we'll even have to resist temptations to build armies of robots with these capabilities for worst-case scenarios like massive foreign invasions (a fathom considering ICBM- and nuke-powered WMDs and other existing military hardware powering the Mutually Asssured Destruction principle) or alien invasion (yes even that might be brought up, and we should simply reply that a well-armed human army is always safer than a robotic semi-sentient one, which can be hacked and turned against us).

i encourage this news and this accountability-issue to be 'placed on repeat' by any news organisation anywhere. this needs regular press.

You can bet the US military already has prototypes in field tests constantly being upgraded right now. The Clone Wars of Star Wars lore comes to mind, a country that stockpiles millions of these soldiers and then unleashes them on an enemy from the air and land such that it overwhelms the enemy.

Or the Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon. Where two planets have been at war for 500 years, their computers lauching virtual attacks on each other and counting up the dead, who then have to walk into disintegration chambers. War that has been rendered neat and tidy, neither side loses actual cities, only people die. Out of sight, and accepted by society. As is noted in the episode it is in fact the ugliness, destruction, smell, death, and catastrophic outcome that makes war a thing to be avoided.

Machines remove 90% of that.

 

[HaShev]

Controlled use using advanced tech to scare the heck out of less savy and evolved enemy combatants would work great in getting enemies to surrender, however they'd never replace the ranks of human personnel for reasons you would not like me to divulge.