(The Conversation) Autonomous weapon systems – commonly known as killer robots – may have killed human beings for the first time ever last year, according to a recent United Nations Security Council report on the Libyan civil war. History could well identify this as the starting point of the next major arms race, one that has the potential to be humanity’s final one.
Autonomous weapon systems are robots with lethal weapons that can operate independently, selecting and attacking targets without a human weighing in on those decisions. Militaries around the world are investing heavily in autonomous weapons research and development. The U.S. alone budgeted US$18 billion for autonomous weapons between 2016 and 2020.
Meanwhile, human rights and humanitarian organizations are racing to establish regulations and prohibitions on such weapons development. Without such checks, foreign policy experts warn that disruptive autonomous weapons technologies will dangerously destabilize current nuclear strategies, both because they could radically change perceptions of strategic dominance, increasing the risk of preemptive attacks, and because they could become combined with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons themselves.
Not a whole lot that is new in the rest of the article, but a good overview.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Watch Thread
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 3:56 pm
by raklian
What frightens me more than anything else is a country capable of creating sufficient amount of nanobots to swarm-kill the entire population of a country.
Yesterday, military hardware company Ghost Robotics revealed that it had created a robodog with an attached sniper rifle.
Now, experts are speaking out against the heavily armed robodog, which they say marks an inflection point in the development of killer robots — and should represent an urgent opportunity to reflect on whether the tech should be allowed at all.
“This crosses a moral, legal and technical line, taking us to a dark and dangerous world,” said UNSW Sydney AI professor Toby Walsh. “Such weapons will be used by terrorists and rogue states. They will be weapons of terror.”
This raises many interesting questions. Should the US military and its contractors be pursuing armed robots at all? If it doesn't, will other militaries step in an gain the advantage? And by that logic, if other militaries start to create robots that can kill autonomously, should the US military join that arms race as well?
There is nothing those experts can do to stop the inevitable advance of autonomous weapons systems such as this one. They're ignoring the warmongering nature of humanity which is largely inherent in our genes. It's as if they get automatically expressed when there's lack of resources or a fundament disagreement with another which still are a common occurrence.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Watch Thread
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:09 am
by Yuli Ban
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Watch Thread
Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:32 am
by Nanotechandmorefuture
This is only a surprise to the average non tech enthusiast parts of the population. I think its about damn time tech starts making its presence known in our societies even if it is by little amounts like this. It may help the US population understand that society is changing again and it is not just some lip service.
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Watch Thread
Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:14 pm
by Yuli Ban
Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Watch Thread
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:59 am
by Yuli Ban
It's definitely shocking just how advanced LAWS already are, and it's equally shocking to contemplate just how more capable they'll be in 10 years. Apocalyptic stuff. We may soon fear drone swarms similarly to how we fear nuclear weapons. Indeed, they may even promise what the neutron bomb couldn't fully realize— killing people without damaging the infrastructure.
Even their deployment could be appropriately sci-fi— released as a mass, deadly cloud from an oblongate mothership.
Even lasers could be used. Not to kill but to maim and terrorize, such as blinding people anonymously or burning marks in certain objects from a good distance.
Just imagine that first terrible time a drone swarm autonomously murders. We've already seen the first autonomous kill, but when swarms are involved, it'll be the dawn of a dark age.
