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I saw a demonstration of this technology a few years back, at a European military-industrial contractor for which I worked. It was being pitched as the ideal w
by fit2rule 7y ago
I saw a demonstration of this technology a few years back, at a European military-industrial contractor for which I worked.
It was being pitched as the ideal way to assassinate people in a crowd - identify them by heartbeat signature, fly a drone in to drop a small explosive package on their heads.
When I later saw that biometric information was being harvested by the same company at airports around the world, I figured - time to get a different job. So I quit.
And now, the tech of individually-targeted assassinations is coming to market.
- thrwo34234 7y agoThis reminded me of http://autonomousweapons.org/ http://autonomousweapons.org/
- fit2rule 7y agoYes, this is all too real to me. What is really scary though, is just how much support the idea of autonomous weapons has in the military-industrial sector - it seems that everyone is working on similar programs. The most shocking angle of all, is how willing people are to build this technology - like, the cool factor overrides any moral or ethical issues, and even bringing up a question of ethics around these technologies will get you segregated from the 'cool hunter' classes...
- shrimp_emoji 7y agoI'm down for it. There's no stopping acceleration. And war, especially modern war, isn't a human task. Humans are bad at it, and it's bad for humans. Cool, precise machines though? No fear, no boredom, no hunger, no sleep. What's not to love? And it's chic and cyberpunk af. They better be smart and unhackable and free of bugs though.
- supergauntlet 7y ago> And it's chic and cyberpunk af I actually can't think of something more cyberpunk dystopia we-are-the-bad-guys than mindless killing machines that uphold imperialism. > They better be smart and unhackable and free of bugs though. Damn it, this is a joke that I misread, right? Surely you're not serious?
- fit2rule 7y ago>uphold imperialism Yeah, this is the rub. Better weapons systems mean easier tyranny. I couldn't imagine what life is going to be like when there are fleets of these things patrolling cities, but I guess we're going to find out soon enough. I imagine a scenario akin to Hong Kong - 2 million people, whose leaders are suddenly rendered unconscious mid-march by a fleet of drones.
- derefr 7y agoImagine if you will, though: getting to the point where these things can be mostly-3D-printed and pumped out in garages. In est: guerilla drone war.
- jcranberry 7y agoI don't see how they're more unethical than any other weapon made to kill.
- nothrabannosir 7y agoThey aren’t. Conventional weapons manufacturers don’t have a great cool factor. See Masters of War by Bob Dylan for a popular take on this.
- cheeseomlit 7y agoWhen you order a soldier to commit a war crime he might refuse. A machine never refuses.
- 7952 7y agoOf course some crimes are committed by soldiers who are actively disobeying orders. An autonomous weapon is not going to feel any of the emotions that lead soldiers to do terrible things.
- squarefoot 7y agoThis. Also a machine doesn't come back with PTSD, wounded or in a coffin, so there are no parents, relatives and friends finally realizing the true costs of war.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThe flip side of this argument is that an effective army needs people who to a large degree don't refuse orders.
- rmtech 7y agoHe might but humans have this amazing track record of slaughtering each other. Recently (1990s) with machetes in Rwanda. Very low tech. I don't trust humans to avoid war crimes. Robots could have protections built in in a way that international orgs can verify.
- 7y ago
- analognoise 7y agoThe moral and ethical issues aren't unidirectionally bad - you're building things that keep your side safe/secure and ensure a win. Those are your friends and neighbors on the battlefield - they aren't unthinking stormtroopers, they're the people you went to school with. Even guided missiles, which seem indiscriminate, are much more precise and limit collateral damage. 50 years ago the alternative was carpet bombing - a guided missile produces much more targeted damage. You can argue that guided missiles save lives - if you want someone dead enough that you're willing to kill everyone around them, having an option to just knock them out seems much more humane (especially to the kids on the nearby playground). Plus, I'd absolutely hate to be the side that didn't uparmor with autonomous systems - you'd get creamed. Like it or not, it's a part of the battlefield now. I'm not a fan of us bringing back tactical nuclear (low yield) munitions, but that's apparently also happening. AND the work can be totally badass, the stability/pay is good, and you just get more valuable as you age (unlike being, say, a front end web developer). Plus seeing something you built go out to the range and tear apart a tank/knock down an RPG/launch into space/whatever is really, really dang cool.
- lawlessone 7y ago>they aren't unthinking stormtroopers, They aren't but the bots and drones are.
- mullingitover 7y agoThose aren't unthinking bots, those are my caretakers in my old age.
- vangelis 7y agoMaybe we can set up an automated slaughter factory for immigrants from the global south at the border. It'll be pretty dang cool.
- 15155 7y agohttps://www.wired.com/2007/06/for-years-and-y/ https://www.wired.com/2007/06/for-years-and-y/ If these existed, would people continue attempt to cross illegally? The thought-provoking argument is that these pieces of technology, if foolproof, would go completely unused as people inherently value their lives (but not laws.)
- matmann2001 7y ago>The most shocking angle of all, is how willing people are to build this technology - like, the cool factor overrides any moral or ethical issues People tell themselves all sorts of things to justify this kind of cognitive dissonance. The predominant arguments I've seen are: A) Technology isn't good/bad, it's how you use it. And fortunately for the engineers, the tech will be used far away by people they'll never meet and the details of which will remain classified. Out of sight, out of mind. B) If we don't build it, someone else will. And we don't want this tech to fall into our enemy's hands first, do we? Best defense is a good offense.
- setr 7y ago>B) If we don't build it, someone else will. And we don't want this tech to fall into our enemy's hands first, do we? Best defense is a good offense. I'm not actually clear on what's incorrect about this logic -- unless there's some kind of agreement across all superpowers not to research this subject, or the subject itself is not actually beneficial to research.. why would you assume that none of your potential adversaries are researching it? And once you recognize that they might research it, and that if they did research it, and you didn't, they might switch from potential adversary to actual adversary (as they now believe themselves to have the upper hand), the only moral and ethical thing to do ... is to research it yourself! Perhaps the more moral and ethical thing is to give away the technology once you have it, so that you yourself won't have the chance to be aggressor ... but otherwise, I'm not sure how you can justify not researching it (war, and the potential for it, exists regardless of whether you want it to)
- astazangasta 7y agoThe main problem with this logic is it is much easier to steal technology than invent it, so by doing this you are not only assuring your enemies will end up with that scary tech, you are building it for them.
- matmann2001 7y ago> I'm not actually clear on what's incorrect about this logic It's this same logic that gave us The Cold War.
- freeflight 7y ago> It was being pitched as the ideal way to assassinate people in a crowd - identify them by heartbeat signature, fly a drone in to drop a small explosive package on their heads. Reminds me of this little presentation [0] [0] https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoMuch better: pea-shooter with ricin pellet. So much cleaner, lighter and more targeted.
- ben_w 7y agoAnd there I was keeping quiet about the nasty horrible weapons, just like that, which my brain cooks up at 3 am when I can’t sleep, in the hope that no real company would develop them.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI guess I shouldn't have mentioned my idea of artillery shells carrying pumped x-ray lasers as payload, fired straight up for some nice over-the-horizon frying of enemy materiel...
- astazangasta 7y agoNon-starter. The whole point of ordinance is its cheap. What's wrong with ye olde ground based x-ray laser and a mirror on a satellite?
- ben_w 7y agoI thought the mean free path of x-rays in air would limit you to, effectively, “radiation mines”? (Or short-range death-rays, robot-mounted because the backscatter would kill a human operative)?
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIf I'm reading this chart correctly[0], visible light has much worse mean free path than x-rays, so wouldn't x-ray lasers work even better than visible ones? As for backscatter, that's only an argument for a shell instead of a ground installation - you pulse the laser high up, where the backscatter is of no concern to you. -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_free_path#/media/File:Photon_Mean_Free_Path.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_free_path#/media/File:Pho...
- ben_w 7y agoI saw the same chart, but I thought it’s only showing down to 1 keV photons? Whereas blue light is about 2.6 eV?
- bhouston 7y ago> It was being pitched as the ideal way to assassinate people in a crowd - identify them by heartbeat signature, fly a drone in to drop a small explosive package on their heads. Wouldn't be surprised if this isn't already happening in the Middle East, the unregulated and far away land we like to test all of the West's/Israel's new toys in.
- rexpop 7y agoCheck out "The Pentagon's Brain" for a view into the ways they've "played at" war since the 40s.
- dpedu 7y ago> It was being pitched as the ideal way to assassinate people in a crowd - identify them by heartbeat signature, fly a drone in to drop a small explosive package on their heads. Hmm, if you're already shining a laser on your target it seems to me there are simpler ways to achieve your goal...
- ceejayoz 7y agoEventually, you'd mount the laser on the drone, and let it wander around the city doing a search.
- deepnotderp 7y agoHigh power lasers aren't easy at all to create and point. A bomb or gun is much easier.
- logfromblammo 7y agoThe targeting laser tells you, "yes, this is your target," and you just continue painting them with it until they die.
- anextomp 7y ago100% success, expected time until death 3-70 years with a 95% confidence interval
- TomMckenny 7y agoEven putting aside from the inevitable "misuse", I even wonder about it's intended use. For example: >Jetson can achieve over 95% accuracy under good conditions What does this even mean? I can see enormous incentive to avoid false negatives. But I don't see as much incentive to avoid false positives. For example, the incentives are even less than for drug testing for which there is some semblance of legal proceeding. And yet which are still flawed. I'm sure it's better than bombing indiscriminately. But it'd be nice to be confident that it isn't going to increase wrongful assassinations due to over confidence. Did the test you saw attempt to show a low false positive rate too?
- rexpop 7y agoWhy didn't you do more to sabotage these efforts?
- fit2rule 7y agoI wasn't building weapons, but rather rail systems, in the SIL-4 (life-protection) category, but one encounter with the 'cousin' teams with rockets and shiny shoulders was enough for me. I'm okay doing things elsewhere to counter the threat ..
- swebs 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason
- rexpop 7y agoExplain?
- md8 7y agoI assume you are referring to ClearMe? https://www.clearme.com https://www.clearme.com?
- dfc 7y ago> the tech of individually-targeted assassinations is coming to market. Aren't all assassinations individually targeted?
- gingabriska 7y agoBut why drop a bomb? Isn't it better to dart with novichok? Or similar nerve agent.