'The U.S.’s adversaries “use phrases that sound really good in a sound bite: Well, can’t you agree that a robot should never be able to decide who lives and dies?” Luckey said during a talk earlier this month at Pepperdine University. “And my point to them is, where’s the moral high ground in a landmine that can’t tell the difference between a school bus full of kids and a Russian tank?”'
Unlike rifles, which are the weapon of democracy and a tool of equality, automated killing is a tool of oligarchy. The ability to manufacture and deploy large numbers of landmines that will kill anyone who comes close is an industrial ability that favors the state, not the individual. Things that seem justifiable by analogy to landmines are things wisely avoided. The world would be a better place without them.
4 comments:
The inevitable end use of autonomous weapons is eliminating civilian dissidents. Every person in this country carries a target transmitter with them. Every persons political inclinations is known via big data.
They are a totalitarians dream weapon- they don't refuse orders, they will not turn on their masters, they suffer no remorse, and they are cheap. And most of all, the bullies dream, they impose no personal risk.
(save for the unintended consequences involved in retaliation.)
rifles, which are the weapon of democracy and a tool of equality
These, though, require (not merely demand) equality on the battlefield. In an environment, though, where the enemy badly out guns us in men and weapons, mere rifles aren't enough. Weapons that kill many enemies at a sweep, or whose losses don't come along with the lives of friendlies, are critical to our winning the war and so not having our survivors enslaved by our conquerors.
Efficient killing of enemy soldiers is especially important against an enemy that has no concern at all for the lives of its own soldiers.
They're also critical in winning decisively enough that we need not fight that enemy a second time for some generations, a second run at us in which they'll be better prepared and may win the rematch.
Automated weapons are Critical Items to our winning. It's the same with tactical nuclear weapons, whose potential use was critical in keeping the vastly superior in numbers Warsaw Pact armies from overrunning Europe.
Like any tool, automated weapons (or tac nukes) can be misused or abused. The fault in that, though, lies in the men using or ordering their use, not in the tool.
Eric Hines
The horse is already out of the barn- I'd be gobsmacked if China didn't already have automated killing machines of some sort. Mr. Hines also makes good points as to why we might embrace the technology as well. So the question then turns to how do we, the people, maintain control over these devices and processes? The technology is moving fast, so we'd better start thinking fast.
Excuse the silliness, but every time I read this headline it strikes me as a Yelp review of a restaurant. I thought I should share that.
Post a Comment