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Not fully automated. These may be autonomously driving, but not autonomously shooting. The article hints that that is technically possible, but also states tha

Not fully automated. These may be autonomously driving, but not autonomously shooting. The article hints that that is technically possible, but also states that it is not implemented.

robzyb 10y ago
> The article hints that that is technically possible, but also states that it is not implemented. bool auto_fire = false; // Don't forget to set to false before deployment
- pki 10y ago
  Prod/staging environments now taken seriously
  - msh 10y ago
    As if...
scandox 10y ago
Can't we just get a kind of programmer's Hippocratic oath going here? Let's just all not facilitate autonomous shooting. I know both sides of the argument. I know it won't prevent it being done. I just mean if enough people agreed not to do it, then we'd at least generate enough disapproval for it not to be the subject of any PR Puff.
- FBT 10y ago
  Isn't it better to have robots fighting and dying than humans? War sucks, and I do wish that we could have world peace. But if war is going to happen, I'd rather it be robots that are the ones in harm's way.
  - brador 10y ago
    What would the robots be fighting for?
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Power.
  - pindexis 10y ago
    No, it's not better to have robots killing humans!
  - zorked 10y ago
    That's not what's going to happen. One side will have robots, the other will have humans. This is already happening.
    - FBT 10y ago
      That's better than both sides being humans. Seriously. Incremental improvements are worthwhile. In general, militaries never want to comprise their effectiveness. So if given the chance to implement a life-saving intervention that harms their effectiveness, they will be reluctant at best to implement it. But this is a life-saving intervention that possibly even increases their effectiveness! That's what truly makes it awesome. A way to save lives that militaries are not only willing to implement, but rather are actually enthusiastic about implementing.
      - origami777 10y ago
        That's a best case scenario. What it could do is make military intervention an even easier decision. The loss of human life is a deterrent to engaging in war. If one side isn't concerned about that, wouldn't they be more inclined to go to war?
        sharemywin 10y ago
        That would never happen... Drone operators refer to children as “fun-size terrorists” and liken killing them to “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” said one of the operators, Michael Haas, a former senior airman in the Air Force https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-say-they-were-horrified-by-cruelty-of-assassination-program/ https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-s...
        slv77 10y ago
        Conversely removing the threat to human life may reduce the probability of escalation and make a response more measured. For example two men break through a security fence. A robotic patrol would seem to be much less likely to respond with deadly force than a human patrol would in that situation. If the men were refugees or wounded soilders looking for medical care the more measured response of the robotic patrol may prevent a death and actually de-escalate conflict. Also assume that the two men were hostile and fired on the patrol. The destruction of the mech is much less likely to provoke a political and civilian response than the death of a human and may lead to a more measured response. My bigger concern is that a fully mechanized force may decrease the apparent cost of oppressing a civilian population.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    You're assuming the robots will be fighting other robots, which is... not the case.
  - chopin 10y ago
    I assume that these devices will mainly being deployed against enemies not having those. Main advantage: no chance of mercy. Extremely valuable in civil wars...
    - FBT 10y ago
      Do note that the robots described in this article only drive autonomously, and when armed, need a human to (remotely) fire the weapons. If the robot shot autonomously, you'd have a point about mercy. But the way it is described here, it's exactly the same mercy-wise as if the soldier manning the weapons was riding along in the vehicle.
      - vincnetas 10y ago
        I'm pretty sure pressing a button while sitting in the office is not the same as pulling trigger while looking someone in the eyes...
  - prab97 10y ago
    Sounds good but the problem is, once all the robots of one side are killed, the winning side robots will attack and start to kill the losing side humans.
  - ehnto 10y ago
    The issue isn't robots versus robots of course, it's robots versus humans. Robots are far less squishy and compassionate than their human friends. Now if there were a treaty stating that all wars are to be fought in a robot battle arena, and the event was available to stream on Netflix, count me in.
  - arrrg 10y ago
    We are fighting asymmetric wars where one side frequently doesn't have the resources or knowledge to use robots. These robots will make it easier to kill people by reducing your own risk. I doubt they will reduce the amount of lives lost. At the very least the calculus is quite a bit more complicated. I doubt we will see robots fighting each other …
  - TrickedOut 10y ago
    This comment does not make sense -- it isnt like the robots will be shooting at Clay pigeon -- the robots will be killing humans. Right now, most of the targets end up being civilians, that can only go up.
  - nononononono 10y ago
    ...preferrably running in a virtualized environment in a closed network so that they don't hog bandwidth off the Internet.
  - ghostDancer 10y ago
    Big powerful countries will send robots to kill people of less powerful and poor countries. Drones targeting weddings, etc ... It's already happening.
- arethuza 10y ago
  Weapons that autonomously decide when to explode have existed since WW2 with radar proximity fuses and modern guided weapons can select targets (e.g. "fire and forget" Brimstone missiles). Where do we draw the dividing line?
  - executesorder66 10y ago
    Well in that case the weapons autonomously decided how to inflict maximum damage on the target. Which generally nobody has a problem with. There was still a human that chose the target, and a human that chose to fire on the target.
    - arethuza 10y ago
      Brimstone can select its own targets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_(missile) This kind of ability to pick specific targets has been around for a while - e.g. SADARM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Destroy_ARMor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Destroy_ARMor Edit: Of course someone decides to fire these things, but isn't that similar to someone deciding to unleash an autonomous fighting system? Edit2: And what about mines?
      - executesorder66 10y ago
        Those are very good points. I totally agree with you on mines. But I would say that deciding to fire an autonomous missile in a hostile environment is not the same as deciding to unleash an autonomous fighting system. In the first case, a human decides to unleash the autonomous missile once during a single event. Whereas in the second case, you are unleashing a system that decides for itself when to fire for every situation it is placed in. The second system is placed in many kill/no-kill situations and might not have enough discernment to realize that in this one special case the person in front of it is not hostile even though it is in a conflict zone.
        dogma1138 10y ago
wepple 10y ago
yeah, the title is a bit misleading. 'military robots' != 'autonomous vehicle'

Not fully automated. These may be autonomously driving, but not autonomously shooting. The article hints that that is technically possible, but also states that it is not implemented.

robzyb 10y ago

> The article hints that that is technically possible, but also states that it is not implemented. bool auto_fire = false; // Don't forget to set to false before deployment

pki 10y ago
Prod/staging environments now taken seriously
- msh 10y ago
  As if...

scandox 10y ago

Can't we just get a kind of programmer's Hippocratic oath going here? Let's just all not facilitate autonomous shooting. I know both sides of the argument. I know it won't prevent it being done. I just mean if enough people agreed not to do it, then we'd at least generate enough disapproval for it not to be the subject of any PR Puff.

FBT 10y ago
Isn't it better to have robots fighting and dying than humans? War sucks, and I do wish that we could have world peace. But if war is going to happen, I'd rather it be robots that are the ones in harm's way.
- brador 10y ago
  What would the robots be fighting for?
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Power.
- pindexis 10y ago
  No, it's not better to have robots killing humans!
- zorked 10y ago
  That's not what's going to happen. One side will have robots, the other will have humans. This is already happening.
  - FBT 10y ago
    That's better than both sides being humans. Seriously. Incremental improvements are worthwhile. In general, militaries never want to comprise their effectiveness. So if given the chance to implement a life-saving intervention that harms their effectiveness, they will be reluctant at best to implement it. But this is a life-saving intervention that possibly even increases their effectiveness! That's what truly makes it awesome. A way to save lives that militaries are not only willing to implement, but rather are actually enthusiastic about implementing.
    - origami777 10y ago
      That's a best case scenario. What it could do is make military intervention an even easier decision. The loss of human life is a deterrent to engaging in war. If one side isn't concerned about that, wouldn't they be more inclined to go to war?
      - sharemywin 10y ago
        That would never happen... Drone operators refer to children as “fun-size terrorists” and liken killing them to “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” said one of the operators, Michael Haas, a former senior airman in the Air Force https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-say-they-were-horrified-by-cruelty-of-assassination-program/ https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-s...
      - slv77 10y ago
        Conversely removing the threat to human life may reduce the probability of escalation and make a response more measured. For example two men break through a security fence. A robotic patrol would seem to be much less likely to respond with deadly force than a human patrol would in that situation. If the men were refugees or wounded soilders looking for medical care the more measured response of the robotic patrol may prevent a death and actually de-escalate conflict. Also assume that the two men were hostile and fired on the patrol. The destruction of the mech is much less likely to provoke a political and civilian response than the death of a human and may lead to a more measured response. My bigger concern is that a fully mechanized force may decrease the apparent cost of oppressing a civilian population.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  You're assuming the robots will be fighting other robots, which is... not the case.
- chopin 10y ago
  I assume that these devices will mainly being deployed against enemies not having those. Main advantage: no chance of mercy. Extremely valuable in civil wars...
  - FBT 10y ago
    Do note that the robots described in this article only drive autonomously, and when armed, need a human to (remotely) fire the weapons. If the robot shot autonomously, you'd have a point about mercy. But the way it is described here, it's exactly the same mercy-wise as if the soldier manning the weapons was riding along in the vehicle.
    - vincnetas 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure pressing a button while sitting in the office is not the same as pulling trigger while looking someone in the eyes...
- prab97 10y ago
  Sounds good but the problem is, once all the robots of one side are killed, the winning side robots will attack and start to kill the losing side humans.
- ehnto 10y ago
  The issue isn't robots versus robots of course, it's robots versus humans. Robots are far less squishy and compassionate than their human friends. Now if there were a treaty stating that all wars are to be fought in a robot battle arena, and the event was available to stream on Netflix, count me in.
- arrrg 10y ago
  We are fighting asymmetric wars where one side frequently doesn't have the resources or knowledge to use robots. These robots will make it easier to kill people by reducing your own risk. I doubt they will reduce the amount of lives lost. At the very least the calculus is quite a bit more complicated. I doubt we will see robots fighting each other …
- TrickedOut 10y ago
  This comment does not make sense -- it isnt like the robots will be shooting at Clay pigeon -- the robots will be killing humans. Right now, most of the targets end up being civilians, that can only go up.
- nononononono 10y ago
  ...preferrably running in a virtualized environment in a closed network so that they don't hog bandwidth off the Internet.
- ghostDancer 10y ago
  Big powerful countries will send robots to kill people of less powerful and poor countries. Drones targeting weddings, etc ... It's already happening.
arethuza 10y ago
Weapons that autonomously decide when to explode have existed since WW2 with radar proximity fuses and modern guided weapons can select targets (e.g. "fire and forget" Brimstone missiles). Where do we draw the dividing line?
- executesorder66 10y ago
  Well in that case the weapons autonomously decided how to inflict maximum damage on the target. Which generally nobody has a problem with. There was still a human that chose the target, and a human that chose to fire on the target.
  - arethuza 10y ago
    Brimstone can select its own targets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_(missile) This kind of ability to pick specific targets has been around for a while - e.g. SADARM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Destroy_ARMor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Destroy_ARMor Edit: Of course someone decides to fire these things, but isn't that similar to someone deciding to unleash an autonomous fighting system? Edit2: And what about mines?
    - executesorder66 10y ago
      Those are very good points. I totally agree with you on mines. But I would say that deciding to fire an autonomous missile in a hostile environment is not the same as deciding to unleash an autonomous fighting system. In the first case, a human decides to unleash the autonomous missile once during a single event. Whereas in the second case, you are unleashing a system that decides for itself when to fire for every situation it is placed in. The second system is placed in many kill/no-kill situations and might not have enough discernment to realize that in this one special case the person in front of it is not hostile even though it is in a conflict zone.
      - dogma1138 10y ago

wepple 10y ago

yeah, the title is a bit misleading. 'military robots' != 'autonomous vehicle'