5 ms·

IANAL but does it matter whether it can be enforced or not? There are plenty of types of crimes that cannot be easily detected or prevented and are indeed commi

IANAL but does it matter whether it can be enforced or not? There are plenty of types of crimes that cannot be easily detected or prevented and are indeed committed at high rates. But they are still forbidden and should remain so.

johnisgood 8y ago
So what exactly is the point?
- delinka 8y ago
  Consequences. You risk suffering the consequences if you commit a crime. Society deems something as Bad (calling it crime), punishes those who commit crime. We’re hoping society agrees that making autonomous lethal robots should be Bad and deserve punitive consequences. And hopefully, those who commit this crime will be caught and suffer the consequences.
  - ptero 8y ago
    IMO having any law that is rarely enforced is a bad idea. That gives authorities the choice of whom to pursue and whom to let go, which is often used to hound parties (people, groups or countries) for arbitrary reasons citing the law in question as a reason for persecution. Laws should be clear and non-burdensome for the majority. And violations caught at the high rate. My 2c.
    - rhizome31 8y ago
      A typical example of a crime that is very rarely punished is rape. I hope you'll agree that it should nevertheless remain banned.
      - Nasrudith 8y ago
        There is a difference between rarely enforced and rarely punished. In antiquity before forensics if someone murdered someone on a country road and cleaned their clothes and cleaned or disposed of their weapon nobody would ever know who did it without a confession. However if they saw someone murdering a man in the street they would mob the assailant and capture or kill him. The first case they may bury bodies and set an armed patrol of some sort for roving bandits but the murderer would never be punished per say. However if nearly everyone drinks and alcohol is illegal but bars operate openly yeah that law is bad it is only being used as a pretext.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        It's rarely punished because it's hard to prosecute. When an actionable case is dropped in a prosecutor's lap they're happy to take it to court.
    - teawrecks 8y ago
      No one said don't enforce it, they said it's difficult to enforce. Those are very different.
    - dwighttk 8y ago
      eh... I'm glad there is a speed limit on the road in front of my house even though a lot of people drive 10 mph faster.
      - ptero 8y ago
        OK, but in a similar situation (speed limit that most people exceed by 5-10 mph), I would prefer that the speed limit was raised by 5 mph, and then enforced all time time (e.g., via a well-calibrated speed camera), not randomly when the town needs extra cash and places a traffic cop nearby to extract a tax.
  - mc32 8y ago
    In principle yes, but what happens when a pariah state like Venezuela or Iran decide to do this, no amount of international ostracizing and sanctions will deter them. What leverage are you going to use to enforce this?
  - ataturk 8y ago
    True, but like with all these stupid gun laws, people are just ignoring them now. The left blew its wad. The left wants all drugs to be legal and holds up people who break drug laws to be some kind of heroes. The left wants to let rampant illegal immigration take place, in other words, they want to treat our legal system like the Old Country Buffet, pick and choose what they want from it. But when it comes to a civil right, the right to self preservation, or free speech, all of a sudden you're a madman if you don't abide by the ridiculous laws. Yeah, whatever.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Society only punishes you if society knows about it and has enough power to do something about it. If the US signs a treaty to ban killer robots but builds them anyway then nobody can force them to stop.
    - reitanqild 8y ago
      But then the rest of the world can agree it was evil. Just like the world can mostly agree it was evil to arrange a civil war in Eastern Ukraine or invade Iraq etc etc: There will always be people who more or less genuinely argue that the last invasion of Iraq was necessary or that a certain superpower next to Ukraine has nothing to do with the well supplied rebels in their back yard. For the rest of us we can all agree to despise both of these.
      - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
        I don't think the World agrees that it was evil to invade Iraq. A lot of the World participated in that invasion actually... At the end of the day Saddam was not exactly a peaceful dictator. I think hacker news should be above inflammatory posts like these.
        reitanqild 8y ago
        Have my upvote. I did not intend it to be inflammatory, in fact I rewrote it once before posting to make sure it wasn't. I posted something I was sure most HN-ers could agree on, - but as someone who frequently disagrees with many of you I probably should have known better.
    - atoav 8y ago
      This is to binary IMO. I think imany ban is about increasing the cost of a certain behaviour and by these means decreasing the likelyhood of an actor to adopt it. No human agreement will ever be able to stop a 100% of anything. But that doesn’t imply it isn’t worth increasing the cost (financial, social and otherwise) to certain types of behaviour. People seem to agree quite uniformly with banning and punishing murder for example, although these laws and punishments don’t seem to stop murder as has been proven over centuries. Few would murder their neighbour over a small dispute, because the cost for doing so is extremely high. Much more people would e.g. kill the rapist of their child, because the notion of cost might be irrelevant under such circumstances and it is much more socially acceptable to do so. Of course there is more than just cost. It can also be a matter of culture. If you live in a culture were getting shot for miniscule reasons is not something that happens, you are also far less likely to see shooting at somebody for miniscule reasons as an option
- rhizome31 8y ago
  The point is that when people get caught they can be sent to court and sentenced. Some people are scared of that and don't do the forbidden thing. Take the act of stealing for example. It is ridiculously easy to do and indeed it is committed a lot. Yet most societies prefer to ban it, hoping that fear of sentence will prevent some people to do it.
- atoav 8y ago
  The point is that we were able to mostly get rid of chemical weapons and landmines, which is also not easy to enforce. The effectiveness of enforcement is no argument.
  - Just_Smith 8y ago
    It is indeed an argument, and the idea that the laws around landmines and chemical weapons are what caused them to occur less is very selective reasoning. Those two cases are weapons that have a blowback towards those who wield them (Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan are still cleaning up landmines), and it's just as likely that their diminishing was due to there being less costly ways to kill people. Inability to enforce is exactly why prohibition has been a colossal failure, so how is the ability to enforce irrelevant to a law's success?
    - sergioj97 8y ago
      I don't think he has said it was irrelevant. He said it was no argument for not banning them.
    - atoav 8y ago
      Things like these are hard to judge, but a ban is a sign of intent and not a perfect solution to prevent a certain situation. We collectively agree to ban certain things (e.g. murder), because there are multiple reasons to do so. Some of these reasons are humanitarian, some rational, some economic etc. Yet we see proof each day that neither laws nor punishment will stop murder from happening. The idea of a ban is not to stop things — but to increase the (social, economical, ...) cost of certain behaviour. Any actor who fears that cost will abstain from chemical weapons for example. But just like with murder you will always have actors that either decide it is a prize worth taking, or they never ever thought about it at all. Hard to say how effective those bans were, but they certainly helped to nudge some actors into adopting higher standards. And once there is a standard the majority agrees on it is hard to go back to a lower standard..
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      "and it's just as likely that their diminishing was due to there being less costly ways to kill people." Politicaly costly, as more and more people pressured for more human ways of war. Because mines are a very effective and cheap military strategy. (where mines are you don't need so much troops). I say it was the boulevard pictures of children without legs, that did it. And maybe will so again after the first killbots gone rouge.. Because I doubt any big military would miss out the opportunity to at least be able to flip the switch to let them operate and shoot autonom, when you have more cheap massproduced robots than operators and need them and or the enemy is jamming you and the situation is critical.
Nasrudith 8y ago
There is an older theory of law that only things which are enforcable (which detectability is a requirement for) should be illegal otherwise it only breeds contempt for the law. This was way back when the concerns were more "could a king enforce it" than any notion of natrual rights. Personally I think that philosophy is not wrong at very least even if other valid frameworks could exist.

johnisgood 8y ago

So what exactly is the point?

delinka 8y ago
Consequences. You risk suffering the consequences if you commit a crime. Society deems something as Bad (calling it crime), punishes those who commit crime. We’re hoping society agrees that making autonomous lethal robots should be Bad and deserve punitive consequences. And hopefully, those who commit this crime will be caught and suffer the consequences.
- ptero 8y ago
  IMO having any law that is rarely enforced is a bad idea. That gives authorities the choice of whom to pursue and whom to let go, which is often used to hound parties (people, groups or countries) for arbitrary reasons citing the law in question as a reason for persecution. Laws should be clear and non-burdensome for the majority. And violations caught at the high rate. My 2c.
  - rhizome31 8y ago
    A typical example of a crime that is very rarely punished is rape. I hope you'll agree that it should nevertheless remain banned.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      There is a difference between rarely enforced and rarely punished. In antiquity before forensics if someone murdered someone on a country road and cleaned their clothes and cleaned or disposed of their weapon nobody would ever know who did it without a confession. However if they saw someone murdering a man in the street they would mob the assailant and capture or kill him. The first case they may bury bodies and set an armed patrol of some sort for roving bandits but the murderer would never be punished per say. However if nearly everyone drinks and alcohol is illegal but bars operate openly yeah that law is bad it is only being used as a pretext.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      It's rarely punished because it's hard to prosecute. When an actionable case is dropped in a prosecutor's lap they're happy to take it to court.
  - teawrecks 8y ago
    No one said don't enforce it, they said it's difficult to enforce. Those are very different.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    eh... I'm glad there is a speed limit on the road in front of my house even though a lot of people drive 10 mph faster.
    - ptero 8y ago
      OK, but in a similar situation (speed limit that most people exceed by 5-10 mph), I would prefer that the speed limit was raised by 5 mph, and then enforced all time time (e.g., via a well-calibrated speed camera), not randomly when the town needs extra cash and places a traffic cop nearby to extract a tax.
- mc32 8y ago
  In principle yes, but what happens when a pariah state like Venezuela or Iran decide to do this, no amount of international ostracizing and sanctions will deter them. What leverage are you going to use to enforce this?
- ataturk 8y ago
  True, but like with all these stupid gun laws, people are just ignoring them now. The left blew its wad. The left wants all drugs to be legal and holds up people who break drug laws to be some kind of heroes. The left wants to let rampant illegal immigration take place, in other words, they want to treat our legal system like the Old Country Buffet, pick and choose what they want from it. But when it comes to a civil right, the right to self preservation, or free speech, all of a sudden you're a madman if you don't abide by the ridiculous laws. Yeah, whatever.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  Society only punishes you if society knows about it and has enough power to do something about it. If the US signs a treaty to ban killer robots but builds them anyway then nobody can force them to stop.
  - reitanqild 8y ago
    But then the rest of the world can agree it was evil. Just like the world can mostly agree it was evil to arrange a civil war in Eastern Ukraine or invade Iraq etc etc: There will always be people who more or less genuinely argue that the last invasion of Iraq was necessary or that a certain superpower next to Ukraine has nothing to do with the well supplied rebels in their back yard. For the rest of us we can all agree to despise both of these.
    - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
      I don't think the World agrees that it was evil to invade Iraq. A lot of the World participated in that invasion actually... At the end of the day Saddam was not exactly a peaceful dictator. I think hacker news should be above inflammatory posts like these.
      - reitanqild 8y ago
        Have my upvote. I did not intend it to be inflammatory, in fact I rewrote it once before posting to make sure it wasn't. I posted something I was sure most HN-ers could agree on, - but as someone who frequently disagrees with many of you I probably should have known better.
  - atoav 8y ago
    This is to binary IMO. I think imany ban is about increasing the cost of a certain behaviour and by these means decreasing the likelyhood of an actor to adopt it. No human agreement will ever be able to stop a 100% of anything. But that doesn’t imply it isn’t worth increasing the cost (financial, social and otherwise) to certain types of behaviour. People seem to agree quite uniformly with banning and punishing murder for example, although these laws and punishments don’t seem to stop murder as has been proven over centuries. Few would murder their neighbour over a small dispute, because the cost for doing so is extremely high. Much more people would e.g. kill the rapist of their child, because the notion of cost might be irrelevant under such circumstances and it is much more socially acceptable to do so. Of course there is more than just cost. It can also be a matter of culture. If you live in a culture were getting shot for miniscule reasons is not something that happens, you are also far less likely to see shooting at somebody for miniscule reasons as an option
rhizome31 8y ago
The point is that when people get caught they can be sent to court and sentenced. Some people are scared of that and don't do the forbidden thing. Take the act of stealing for example. It is ridiculously easy to do and indeed it is committed a lot. Yet most societies prefer to ban it, hoping that fear of sentence will prevent some people to do it.
atoav 8y ago
The point is that we were able to mostly get rid of chemical weapons and landmines, which is also not easy to enforce. The effectiveness of enforcement is no argument.
- Just_Smith 8y ago
  It is indeed an argument, and the idea that the laws around landmines and chemical weapons are what caused them to occur less is very selective reasoning. Those two cases are weapons that have a blowback towards those who wield them (Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan are still cleaning up landmines), and it's just as likely that their diminishing was due to there being less costly ways to kill people. Inability to enforce is exactly why prohibition has been a colossal failure, so how is the ability to enforce irrelevant to a law's success?
  - sergioj97 8y ago
    I don't think he has said it was irrelevant. He said it was no argument for not banning them.
  - atoav 8y ago
    Things like these are hard to judge, but a ban is a sign of intent and not a perfect solution to prevent a certain situation. We collectively agree to ban certain things (e.g. murder), because there are multiple reasons to do so. Some of these reasons are humanitarian, some rational, some economic etc. Yet we see proof each day that neither laws nor punishment will stop murder from happening. The idea of a ban is not to stop things — but to increase the (social, economical, ...) cost of certain behaviour. Any actor who fears that cost will abstain from chemical weapons for example. But just like with murder you will always have actors that either decide it is a prize worth taking, or they never ever thought about it at all. Hard to say how effective those bans were, but they certainly helped to nudge some actors into adopting higher standards. And once there is a standard the majority agrees on it is hard to go back to a lower standard..
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    "and it's just as likely that their diminishing was due to there being less costly ways to kill people." Politicaly costly, as more and more people pressured for more human ways of war. Because mines are a very effective and cheap military strategy. (where mines are you don't need so much troops). I say it was the boulevard pictures of children without legs, that did it. And maybe will so again after the first killbots gone rouge.. Because I doubt any big military would miss out the opportunity to at least be able to flip the switch to let them operate and shoot autonom, when you have more cheap massproduced robots than operators and need them and or the enemy is jamming you and the situation is critical.

Nasrudith 8y ago

There is an older theory of law that only things which are enforcable (which detectability is a requirement for) should be illegal otherwise it only breeds contempt for the law. This was way back when the concerns were more "could a king enforce it" than any notion of natrual rights. Personally I think that philosophy is not wrong at very least even if other valid frameworks could exist.