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Autonomous killing could be something that needs to be added to international laws of war. The USA already follows restrictions that could give it an advantage
by dx87 7y ago
Autonomous killing could be something that needs to be added to international laws of war. The USA already follows restrictions that could give it an advantage in war, but it doesn't because of international agreements. For example, our military has to wear uniforms during war, and we have to follow proportional force that restricts what weapons can be used in response to an attack. Countries largely follow the rules because nobody wants a free-for-all war with no rules.
- tehjoker 7y agoThe US follows rules to the extent they can get away with breaking them, no more no less. Witness the Hauge invasion act of the early 'oughts that sought to avoid accountability by the international criminal court by threatening to invade it if a US military person was ever put on the dock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- umvi 7y agoI disagree. I think the majority of us military personnel are good people and would disobey orders to attack civilians or otherwise commit evil acts (even if it was in the middle of nowhere and they could get away with it).
- threatripper 7y agoOf course the majority of people is good people almost everywhere and yet our prisons are full with bad people that we need to lock away because they disobeyed the written rules of society and couldn't get away with it.
- seer 7y agoIn this context the story of Hugh Thompson [1] is very interesting - a clear cut “kill the civilians“ order and people risking their careers and lives to disobey and protect the village. Whats relevant though is that most soldiers obeyed the orders and preferred to commit war crimes. Even in the US military which has a strong moral ethos (or likes to portray itself that way which for the common soldier is the same thing) But what about all the other, smaller countries? [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr.
- nitwit005 7y agoPossibly, in a conflict where the US isn't particularly threatened. The last time the US felt in real danger it flattened German and Japanese cities, and dropped two nukes. I don't feel we've become profoundly nicer since then.
- umvi 7y agoWe used the weapons we had at the time to stop a World War. We've definitely become profoundly nicer since then. When was the last time we flattened a city or dropped a nuke? We've since developed PGMs which allow us to minimize collateral damage more than ever before. We can destroy strategic targets of military interest with pinpoint accuracy. People that commit war crimes are reported by their fellow soldiers and justice is (usually) served. Sometimes war criminals are pardoned even after being turned in (like Gallagher), but this is rare and usually results in national outrage.
- nitwit005 7y agoThe US hasn't done so, because it hasn't felt the need (although it got close with Russia several times). Committing war crimes has effectively been the national defense policy of last resort since WW2. That's what the nukes (and formerly chemical and biological weapons) are for. The implicit threat is that the US will massacre your civilian population. And I don't mean that as any special criticism of the US. Most countries have a similar attitude of the rules of war going out the window when things get bad enough.
- kazagistar 7y agoTrump recently pardoned some people who massacred a square full of civilians for no good reason. So I dont really have any reason to believe this.
- yesenadam 7y ago>would disobey orders to attack civilians or otherwise commit evil acts So..how do you explain, to give but one example, the hundreds of thousands the US killed in Iraq?
- umvi 7y agoEasy, human error and collateral damage. If insurgents hide and fight among civilians, civilians are going to die in the process of destroying the insurgents. It's like cancer - you can't kill cancer without killing tons of healthy innocent cells around it. I don't necessarily agree with the US's prolonged occupation in the middle east, but it's highly disingenuous to imply US military leaders are commanding their soldiers and pilots to intentionally kill civilians.
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoWell, sadly, what you think contradicts the facts and evidence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre
- umvi 7y agoHow does that contradict what I think? That's the story of a single individual going rogue and then standing trial for his crimes. He's now in prison.
- gruez 7y agoAnd why shouldn't the US do that? The us isn't subject to ICJ jurisdiction, so it wouldn't be any different than if Russia kidnapped US military personnel for their own "trials".
- catalogia 7y agoHow would autonomous killing be precisely defined? Whenever a machine is designed to kill without an affirmative command from a human operator? Would that include landminds? Maybe it should...
- pageandrew 7y agogood point. autonomous killing is nothing new.
- joshvm 7y agoThere are plenty of fire-and-forget weapons that will attack a designated target autonomously. Some may even be totally automated, like CIWS, if you put them in some paranoid mode. A landmine is indiscriminate, by that logic anything with a triggerable fuze is autonomous (even a snare trap would be). The difference would be if the landmine chose to explode based on some other factor. Autonomy and intelligence are not the same thing.
- satanspastaroll 7y agoWell landmines can discriminate by atleast weight and magnetism. I think they can also count the tracks and blow up later if they want to
- cf141q5325 7y agoThe action is however caused by a human who mined the area, its just delayed, similar to how a grenade has a delay after the human activation, before it explodes. You can make the same distinction with an automatic gun or turret. You position it in an area in which you decide to kill anyone in it. Autonomy gets truly dangerous because you dont need to create death zones and no mans land. They are not a less violent version of just bombing the area. They can run considerations and decide by themselves who to kill and with this, their usage outside of active front lines will be considered. And with that, the people deploying them give up the decision and delegate it to an algorithm or worse yet, a trained black box. Reality will be to have completely unaccountable killers bots flying over countries who cant defend themselves against foreign aggression. This stuff has absolutely horrible potential and i find it prudent to shame and cut out anyone with a sufficient lack of a spine to work in this area. As unpopular as it is to consider the impact of the technology you are developing, it is taught for a reason in a CS degree. This work has the potential to screw over humanity for a while to come.
- Mirioron 7y ago>Countries largely follow the rules because nobody wants a free-for-all war with no rules. And somehow these rules tend to put restrictions on things which are a force multiplier for smaller forces against larger ones or would make it very costly for a larger country to attack a smaller one. They protect the incumbents. It makes sense why big militaries would want rules like this - this makes it much less costly for big countries to war with smaller ones. Russia didn't want Ukraine to have nukes. A few decades later Russia invaded Ukraine. It is okay for a US drone to strike a target and kill civilians. The civilians will just be defined as "enemy combatants" and the world moves on. However, if people from that same place somehow manage to kill the drone operator then that would be a terror attack.
- gdy 7y ago"Russia didn't want Ukraine to have nukes." The most concerned party at that time was the US. Having multiple nuclear armed ex-USSR states was contrary to their interests. The better example is the US not wanting Gaddafi to have nukes and later invading Libya.