7 ms·

Anybody else sees a problem with training the AI to move troops around a battlefield, with the purpose to exterminate the opponent?

harigov 10y ago
It's going to happen anyway. I think we are better off doing such things in the open and having some visibility into it rather than be surprised when something happens.
- treehau5 10y ago
  I'm so sick of this argument. How about we have a spine for once and say no?
  - danielpatrick 10y ago
    The problem is we is not everyone... it's only those who agree with you. Everyone else will just keep on pushing ahead, hence the less-bad option of not relegating that advancement to dark corners.
  - webkike 10y ago
    All 7 billion of us? Good luck with that.
    - Mtinie 10y ago
      I agree with you, it's a virtually impossible task. The commenter I was responding to has strong ideas about it however, so I wanted to provide the opportunity for an explanation.
  - Mtinie 10y ago
    Ok, for conversation sake we all come together and say, "No, AI cannot be used for offensive or defensive military actions". How do you propose that ban be enforced?
  - dguaraglia 10y ago
    How is 'saying no' going to stop the military of this or any other country from doing it? How do you measure the disadvantage we'd be at by not allowing our military to do it, but letting other militaries (over which we have no control) do it? Having a spine has nothing to do with it.
    - pmyjavec 10y ago
      So, basically another arms race to the bottom, similar to nuclear warheads ? 1940s thinking with 2016 technology. I hear what you're saying but not all progress is good progress. The limits of our ability to think a global scale are an issue, we still have a tribe mentality, this discussion demonstrates that. "The Chinese, The British etc" We still think in terms of tribes, but we have technology change the world. Until we evolve some more we're probably not fit to wield more and more powerful weapons. It would be good if we could stop worrying about weaponry all together and focus on real issues like deforestation, poverty, pollution of the sea, climate change etc.
      - mzw_mzw 10y ago
        How do you plan to convince China and Russia to stop worrying about weaponry and thinking in terms of tribes?
      - dguaraglia 10y ago
        I get it, and I wholeheartedly support your position on the issue. The reality, unfortunately, is that we are horrid little creatures always scheming and fighting for power. Stopping nation X from doing, will only encourage nations Y and Z to develop it faster as an advantage. The only way I can see an agreement to limit the escalation of AI warfare is on the same context we saw the START treaty: once the weapons are developed by at least two key players as "deterrent" there's an incentive to reach an agreement to stop further development. Call me cynical, but if this election has shown me anything is how tiny-minded people still command an inordinate amount of power in this country.
  - formula1 10y ago
    What are you willing to sacrifice to say no? How about your immediate comfort and free time. Thats the real cost. Its not "when it happens we'll stabd togethor", Its "youtube videos or protecting the world from a potential future threat that everyone will think Im crazy for worrying about"
  - mwambua 10y ago
    I'd be curious to hear more of your argument. The world is a complex place. How do you protect the one's you love when others exist who wouldn't say no?
    - jjawssd 10y ago
      Eventually the only people left are those who wouldn't say no
  - hota_mazi 10y ago
    Scientific research and progress: just say no.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - s_q_b 10y ago
    Good luck convincing South Korea, Japan, India, the EU, Britain, Australia, Canada....
stale2002 10y ago
No? Starcraft isn't troops on the battlefield, in the same way that Risk, the boardgame isn't troops on the battlefield. Just because the 1s and 0s or game pieces represent "troops" to humans, doesn't mean that the underlying game mechanics have anything at all to do with a real war. For all we know, the problems solved by a monopoly AI, are more applicable to a real war than those solved by a Risk or starcraft AI.
- spacehacker 10y ago
  You must admit that there is an underlying aggressive theme in games like StarCraft. The visuals show clear resemblance of people being killed by projectiles and by other war technology. The AI will be rewarded for skillfully decimating the enemy, for protecting the units it has control over and for coming up with strategies like ambush, raids, patrolling etc. I am more convinced by the idea that an AI will be able generalize to the real world from playing StarCraft than from playing Monopoly. However, I think it will be quite a leap to the real world either way.
  - ssalazar 10y ago
    > You must admit that there is an underlying aggressive theme in these games. The visuals show clear resemblance of people being killed by projectiles and by other war technology. An AI doesn't know or care about any of this. Literally its applying statistics to optimize a cost function or assign labels to input states. These numbers could represent number of kills or number of dollars; the computer doesn't care.
    - chronic6l 10y ago
      The computer doesn't even know what a kill is.
    - Spellman 10y ago
      And that's what makes it ~spooooooky~. It's just absentmindedly optimizing a cold value function! No more humanity! More more external input! Just cold machine logic! We've doomed ourselves!!!! But seriously. No, there is nothing inherent about an AI maximizing wins in StarCraft than one maximizing profits on the stock exchange. Although I feel like there's a bunch of Sci-Fi where this obviously goes awry.
manux 10y ago
I do research in "Deep RL" for a living. The same algorithms (and advances related to them) that can be used in such a scenario can be used to create machine learning solutions for social good. Similarly, algorithms used to detect cancer in medical imaging can be used to do automatic targeting on killer drones. Should we stop doing research altogether?
Nadya 10y ago
There are better war simulators if that were the purpose. There also wouldn't be a need to publicize it. Finally, big data/A.I is already used by the military. It probably isn't "decision making" levels, but it doesn't need to be. "Decision helping" is a good enough advantage.
s_m_t 10y ago
If you are going to do war you should do it well. An AI commander could be programmed to maneuver troops in a way to reduce civilian casualties, reduce damage on infrastructure, and even maximize the chances of the enemy surrendering rather than having them killed. Of course, I doubt that an AI commander would replace a human making the actual decisions in the foreseeable future. It would just be another intelligence tool for military command. From this point of view you are essentially arguing for our military to be ignorant, I don't think that is a good bet.
nerfhammer 10y ago
For example, chess?
throwawaymsft 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) Legends trace the origin of the game to the mythical Chinese emperor Yao (2337–2258 BC), who was said to have had his counselor Shun design it for his unruly son, Danzhu, to favorably influence him.[64] Other theories suggest that the game was derived from Chinese tribal warlords and generals, who used pieces of stone to map out attacking positions.[65][66]
hueving 10y ago
This worry and the implication (control use of AI) is similar to the development of cryptography. Try to stop people from doing evil with it is a completely fruitless task.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
make3 10y ago
the press is going to make a huge clickbait deal about this, even if the complexity of starcraft 2, even if huge, is extremely small compared to the complexity of the world
astrobe_ 10y ago
You should be more scared of the AI that tracks, profiles, predicts and influences you.

harigov 10y ago

It's going to happen anyway. I think we are better off doing such things in the open and having some visibility into it rather than be surprised when something happens.

treehau5 10y ago
I'm so sick of this argument. How about we have a spine for once and say no?
- danielpatrick 10y ago
  The problem is we is not everyone... it's only those who agree with you. Everyone else will just keep on pushing ahead, hence the less-bad option of not relegating that advancement to dark corners.
- webkike 10y ago
  All 7 billion of us? Good luck with that.
  - Mtinie 10y ago
    I agree with you, it's a virtually impossible task. The commenter I was responding to has strong ideas about it however, so I wanted to provide the opportunity for an explanation.
- Mtinie 10y ago
  Ok, for conversation sake we all come together and say, "No, AI cannot be used for offensive or defensive military actions". How do you propose that ban be enforced?
- dguaraglia 10y ago
  How is 'saying no' going to stop the military of this or any other country from doing it? How do you measure the disadvantage we'd be at by not allowing our military to do it, but letting other militaries (over which we have no control) do it? Having a spine has nothing to do with it.
  - pmyjavec 10y ago
    So, basically another arms race to the bottom, similar to nuclear warheads ? 1940s thinking with 2016 technology. I hear what you're saying but not all progress is good progress. The limits of our ability to think a global scale are an issue, we still have a tribe mentality, this discussion demonstrates that. "The Chinese, The British etc" We still think in terms of tribes, but we have technology change the world. Until we evolve some more we're probably not fit to wield more and more powerful weapons. It would be good if we could stop worrying about weaponry all together and focus on real issues like deforestation, poverty, pollution of the sea, climate change etc.
    - mzw_mzw 10y ago
      How do you plan to convince China and Russia to stop worrying about weaponry and thinking in terms of tribes?
    - dguaraglia 10y ago
      I get it, and I wholeheartedly support your position on the issue. The reality, unfortunately, is that we are horrid little creatures always scheming and fighting for power. Stopping nation X from doing, will only encourage nations Y and Z to develop it faster as an advantage. The only way I can see an agreement to limit the escalation of AI warfare is on the same context we saw the START treaty: once the weapons are developed by at least two key players as "deterrent" there's an incentive to reach an agreement to stop further development. Call me cynical, but if this election has shown me anything is how tiny-minded people still command an inordinate amount of power in this country.
- formula1 10y ago
  What are you willing to sacrifice to say no? How about your immediate comfort and free time. Thats the real cost. Its not "when it happens we'll stabd togethor", Its "youtube videos or protecting the world from a potential future threat that everyone will think Im crazy for worrying about"
- mwambua 10y ago
  I'd be curious to hear more of your argument. The world is a complex place. How do you protect the one's you love when others exist who wouldn't say no?
  - jjawssd 10y ago
    Eventually the only people left are those who wouldn't say no
- hota_mazi 10y ago
  Scientific research and progress: just say no.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- s_q_b 10y ago
  Good luck convincing South Korea, Japan, India, the EU, Britain, Australia, Canada....

stale2002 10y ago

No? Starcraft isn't troops on the battlefield, in the same way that Risk, the boardgame isn't troops on the battlefield. Just because the 1s and 0s or game pieces represent "troops" to humans, doesn't mean that the underlying game mechanics have anything at all to do with a real war. For all we know, the problems solved by a monopoly AI, are more applicable to a real war than those solved by a Risk or starcraft AI.

spacehacker 10y ago
You must admit that there is an underlying aggressive theme in games like StarCraft. The visuals show clear resemblance of people being killed by projectiles and by other war technology. The AI will be rewarded for skillfully decimating the enemy, for protecting the units it has control over and for coming up with strategies like ambush, raids, patrolling etc. I am more convinced by the idea that an AI will be able generalize to the real world from playing StarCraft than from playing Monopoly. However, I think it will be quite a leap to the real world either way.
- ssalazar 10y ago
  > You must admit that there is an underlying aggressive theme in these games. The visuals show clear resemblance of people being killed by projectiles and by other war technology. An AI doesn't know or care about any of this. Literally its applying statistics to optimize a cost function or assign labels to input states. These numbers could represent number of kills or number of dollars; the computer doesn't care.
  - chronic6l 10y ago
    The computer doesn't even know what a kill is.
  - Spellman 10y ago
    And that's what makes it ~spooooooky~. It's just absentmindedly optimizing a cold value function! No more humanity! More more external input! Just cold machine logic! We've doomed ourselves!!!! But seriously. No, there is nothing inherent about an AI maximizing wins in StarCraft than one maximizing profits on the stock exchange. Although I feel like there's a bunch of Sci-Fi where this obviously goes awry.

manux 10y ago

I do research in "Deep RL" for a living. The same algorithms (and advances related to them) that can be used in such a scenario can be used to create machine learning solutions for social good. Similarly, algorithms used to detect cancer in medical imaging can be used to do automatic targeting on killer drones. Should we stop doing research altogether?

Nadya 10y ago

There are better war simulators if that were the purpose. There also wouldn't be a need to publicize it. Finally, big data/A.I is already used by the military. It probably isn't "decision making" levels, but it doesn't need to be. "Decision helping" is a good enough advantage.

s_m_t 10y ago

If you are going to do war you should do it well. An AI commander could be programmed to maneuver troops in a way to reduce civilian casualties, reduce damage on infrastructure, and even maximize the chances of the enemy surrendering rather than having them killed. Of course, I doubt that an AI commander would replace a human making the actual decisions in the foreseeable future. It would just be another intelligence tool for military command. From this point of view you are essentially arguing for our military to be ignorant, I don't think that is a good bet.

nerfhammer 10y ago

For example, chess?

throwawaymsft 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) Legends trace the origin of the game to the mythical Chinese emperor Yao (2337–2258 BC), who was said to have had his counselor Shun design it for his unruly son, Danzhu, to favorably influence him.[64] Other theories suggest that the game was derived from Chinese tribal warlords and generals, who used pieces of stone to map out attacking positions.[65][66]

hueving 10y ago

This worry and the implication (control use of AI) is similar to the development of cryptography. Try to stop people from doing evil with it is a completely fruitless task.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

make3 10y ago

the press is going to make a huge clickbait deal about this, even if the complexity of starcraft 2, even if huge, is extremely small compared to the complexity of the world

astrobe_ 10y ago

You should be more scared of the AI that tracks, profiles, predicts and influences you.