4 ms·

The ever-timely: 'Fearing a rise of killer robots is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars.'

narrator 9y ago
Killer robots are already here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M "Generally, the vehicle will have a set of sensors to observe the environment, and will either autonomously make decisions about its behavior or pass the information to a human operator at a different location who will control the vehicle through teleoperation."
- backpropaganda 9y ago
  This is a strawman. Elon's idea and what Andrew is countering is that killer robots can be unintentionally created by someone trying to do good. Evil robots could always be created by evil actors, and there is nothing interesting here.
  - narrator 9y ago
    Look at the ransomware and DDOS botnet epidemics though. If these programs were to infect and control self-driving cars all sorts of science fiction level bad stuff could happen.
    - skgoa 9y ago
      Yes, but that is a computer security issue (and a damn important one!), not an ML issue.
  - Ace17 9y ago
    Not saying that creating military killer robots counts as "trying to do good", however ... if we're talking about a terminator-like scenario, let's not forget the robots from the movie initially are human-designed military appliances.
  - rytill 9y ago
    Possibly by someone trying to do good. More likely by someone just following their rational incentives. Very few people are 'evil' actors but most follow incentives.
jmmcd 9y ago
I really hate that smart comment. Two big differences are that with overpopulation on Mars, (1) we would be able to address it before it happened or while it was happening, on a time-scale of decades, and (2) even if there was a total disaster and Mars became permanently unlovable and a lot of people died, we'd still have Earth. Whereas (for those concerned about runaway AI) the time-scale could be minutes and the stakes are the end of known intelligent life in the universe.

Killer robots are already here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M "Generally, the vehicle will have a set of sensors to observe the environment, and will either autonomously make decisions about its behavior or pass the information to a human operator at a different location who will control the vehicle through teleoperation."

backpropaganda 9y ago
This is a strawman. Elon's idea and what Andrew is countering is that killer robots can be unintentionally created by someone trying to do good. Evil robots could always be created by evil actors, and there is nothing interesting here.
- narrator 9y ago
  Look at the ransomware and DDOS botnet epidemics though. If these programs were to infect and control self-driving cars all sorts of science fiction level bad stuff could happen.
  - skgoa 9y ago
    Yes, but that is a computer security issue (and a damn important one!), not an ML issue.
- Ace17 9y ago
  Not saying that creating military killer robots counts as "trying to do good", however ... if we're talking about a terminator-like scenario, let's not forget the robots from the movie initially are human-designed military appliances.
- rytill 9y ago
  Possibly by someone trying to do good. More likely by someone just following their rational incentives. Very few people are 'evil' actors but most follow incentives.

jmmcd 9y ago

I really hate that smart comment. Two big differences are that with overpopulation on Mars, (1) we would be able to address it before it happened or while it was happening, on a time-scale of decades, and (2) even if there was a total disaster and Mars became permanently unlovable and a lot of people died, we'd still have Earth. Whereas (for those concerned about runaway AI) the time-scale could be minutes and the stakes are the end of known intelligent life in the universe.