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I find it interesting the way this was described at the end of the article. The idea that this is a necessary development in the case that some enemy uses ECM t

I find it interesting the way this was described at the end of the article. The idea that this is a necessary development in the case that some enemy uses ECM to disrupt the link between the robot and its human controller. Because that will probably sound reasonable to most people. "Hey, hey, hey now. We're not sending unmanned terminators out to battle to search and destroy any living thing. This our cute little droney-drone drone. We call him Charlie the unicorn. Now if the bad baddy bad terrorists do something bad to Charlie and make it so he can't receive orders, don't you want Charlie to be able to protect himself?" And the robot apocalypse begins. Not with an army of soul-crushing t-1000s, but with an M-79 grenade launcher dressed up as a puppy. My guess is that by 2035, we will be mostly okay with it though. Putting AI in charge of driving cars is, by definition, letting AI make life/death choices. If we're okay with that, we are inherently accepting that these ethical situations can and will be accurately modeled. If you can tell a car how to make a decision between hitting an old lady in the street vs. crashing into a tree and killing the passenger and get that right enough to please the public, I'm sure we can figure out how to tell a robot in a battle situation which person to shoot . . . well enough to please the public.

paulsutter 11y ago
Sounds like Wing Attack Plan R. How could that go wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8qCkVklFWE&feature=youtu.be&t=208 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8qCkVklFWE&feature=youtu.be... It's Dr Strangelove all over again. (Dr Strangelove was about a crazy general who launched a nuclear attack, using a provision that he was able to do so on losing contact with Washington)
- Joof 11y ago
  This happened to a Russian nuclear submarine that got caught in a US training exercise near Cuba. 2/3 officers voted to authorize a nuclear attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
Ciantic 11y ago
I would argue US should start training their AI already, in combat situation human senses becomes more suspectible for finding threats where there isn't any. They could use the AI for real-time analysis of video feed in helicopters etc. Highly publized incident comes to mind where the poor camera man was gunned down mistakenly when human operators thought he was wielding RPG, whilte it was likely a camera he was holding. Could the AI have detected it?
- XorNot 11y ago
  An AI doesn't need to. An AI can wait, take the hit, then send in a fleet of tazer armed drones to subdue the guy, and another helicopter to extract him.
MrQuincle 11y ago
A car is not the most effective weapon, so I think it matters with which robots get equipped. It's an interesting word choice: "accurate ethical modeling". Given certain "ethical priors" what we do depends on what we have encountered in life. Soldiers are humans with siblings, parents, wives, pets, homes, etc. that allows them to train what they ought to do in a wide range of situations. If we start to train robots only in the art of killing people, or even only in deescalating dangerous situations, this is a very impoverished dataset. I would never want an AI that is able to kill people, but that I don't trust to hold my baby.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Well put. That's a great smell test.
the_ancient 11y ago
By 2035 anyone that is not OK with the AI running things I am sure will be sent to a reeducation camp, or killed.... so it is all good.
newman314 11y ago
> If you can tell a car how to make a decision between hitting an old lady in the street vs. crashing into a tree and killing the passenger and get that right enough to please the public, I'm sure we can figure out how to tell a robot in a battle situation which person to shoot . . . well enough to please the public. I have not seen any indication that this is a solved problem and a major reason why I'm against autonomous cars as they stand today. I'm extremely concerned that in the rush to get to self-driving cars that issues like this are swept aside in the typical Valley attitude of asking for forgiveness later. To be clear, I would love an autonomous commute vehicle that lets me work on the way to work but only if it's safe. At the same time, I love diving for pleasure and do not want a future where that's out of the question. It's a big dilemma.
- ianamartin 11y ago
  I may not have been clear enough. Perhaps I should point out that I think the "If" in my hypothetical is a really big if. Except for the part about it being good enough for the public to go with it.

paulsutter 11y ago

Sounds like Wing Attack Plan R. How could that go wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8qCkVklFWE&feature=youtu.be&t=208 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8qCkVklFWE&feature=youtu.be... It's Dr Strangelove all over again. (Dr Strangelove was about a crazy general who launched a nuclear attack, using a provision that he was able to do so on losing contact with Washington)

Joof 11y ago
This happened to a Russian nuclear submarine that got caught in a US training exercise near Cuba. 2/3 officers voted to authorize a nuclear attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

Ciantic 11y ago

I would argue US should start training their AI already, in combat situation human senses becomes more suspectible for finding threats where there isn't any. They could use the AI for real-time analysis of video feed in helicopters etc. Highly publized incident comes to mind where the poor camera man was gunned down mistakenly when human operators thought he was wielding RPG, whilte it was likely a camera he was holding. Could the AI have detected it?

XorNot 11y ago
An AI doesn't need to. An AI can wait, take the hit, then send in a fleet of tazer armed drones to subdue the guy, and another helicopter to extract him.

MrQuincle 11y ago

A car is not the most effective weapon, so I think it matters with which robots get equipped. It's an interesting word choice: "accurate ethical modeling". Given certain "ethical priors" what we do depends on what we have encountered in life. Soldiers are humans with siblings, parents, wives, pets, homes, etc. that allows them to train what they ought to do in a wide range of situations. If we start to train robots only in the art of killing people, or even only in deescalating dangerous situations, this is a very impoverished dataset. I would never want an AI that is able to kill people, but that I don't trust to hold my baby.

hellbanner 11y ago
Well put. That's a great smell test.

the_ancient 11y ago

By 2035 anyone that is not OK with the AI running things I am sure will be sent to a reeducation camp, or killed.... so it is all good.

newman314 11y ago

> If you can tell a car how to make a decision between hitting an old lady in the street vs. crashing into a tree and killing the passenger and get that right enough to please the public, I'm sure we can figure out how to tell a robot in a battle situation which person to shoot . . . well enough to please the public. I have not seen any indication that this is a solved problem and a major reason why I'm against autonomous cars as they stand today. I'm extremely concerned that in the rush to get to self-driving cars that issues like this are swept aside in the typical Valley attitude of asking for forgiveness later. To be clear, I would love an autonomous commute vehicle that lets me work on the way to work but only if it's safe. At the same time, I love diving for pleasure and do not want a future where that's out of the question. It's a big dilemma.

ianamartin 11y ago
I may not have been clear enough. Perhaps I should point out that I think the "If" in my hypothetical is a really big if. Except for the part about it being good enough for the public to go with it.