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> However, only around 30 countries currently support the ban. While it's completely pragmatic to pursue autonomous weapons due to peer competition, I wonder i

> However, only around 30 countries currently support the ban. While it's completely pragmatic to pursue autonomous weapons due to peer competition, I wonder if it will paradoxically erode US warfighting edge when effective algorithms becomes ubiquitous. Why Arab Lose Wars -> Will Arabs Lose Wars. Incompetent forces previously limited by poor institutions and traditions that would otherwise take generations to cultivate can be improved closer to global parity by importing competent murder bots. Wonder how monkey models of exported AI weapons will have functions limited. >Provided their use is authorized by a human commander or operator https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/d/da/Dimes15.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/200?cb=20140812100943 https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/d/da/Dimes...

perl4ever 6y ago
>can be improved closer to global parity by importing competent murder bots I remember various people writing about the ebbs and flows of centralized oppressive government and attributing it to the type of weapon that's prevalent and the support system it requires. George Orwell writing just after WWII was very apprehensive about more than just the atomic bomb per se, but by the idea that the best weapons available would be only available through massive industrial projects of the largest governments and therefore all the greatest despotisms would be able to survive indefinitely. Your comment also reminds me of reading somewhere a long time ago how the US having a decent phone system left it with a lot of copper infrastructure that held things back, whereas some countries that have been much poorer in the past went directly to cellular - thus in general wealth implies early adoption and possibly too much investment in immature tech.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  I think competent AI weapons will dramatically reduce barriers to projecting and holding power by smaller ruling cohorts, less dependence on training massive armed forces and retaining their loyalty. Both extremely difficult and expensive institution problems versus importing a bunch of DRM murder bots a medium sized country can't manufacture, or just receiving some in form of aid from a larger power in exchange for client status. Don't piss off benefactors or DRM transfers to more compliant political faction. >too much investment in immature tech Or research into paradigms shifting tech negates moat of old advantages. Russians good at antiair because US would not want to invent tech that would erode US air supremacy. Kind of how UK lost naval gap due to dreadnaught reset. I can imagine AI air planes undermining US air / naval superiority balance. Lots of obsolete hardware and training if a fleet of drones become smart enough to penetrate a carrier group. Perhaps it may even be sensible not to pursue / start arms race if it means undermining decades of expensive acquisitions and expertise. Or at least have enough security to ensure adversaries don't acquire kryptonite of your own making.
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
Competent murder bots won't choose where to be deployed, for what reasons, etc. As long as the Arab countries are outposts of the US and do whatever the US wants blindly, they'll fail just like the Iraqi forces bolstered by the US failed. It's not because the US is bad or the Arabs who are their allies are bad. It's because Arabs who work for the US are essentially mercenaries, they don't care what the result is as long as they get paid. Just as Rome fell partly because of its heavy reliance on mercenaries, so too will these fail. Many Arab forces are highly competent (and feared as a result) but they all have in common that they are not simply lavishly compensated by the US to do things they don't want to do, rather they are fervent recruits bound by some shared ideology and goal. I'm thinking of the Shia PMUs, the Taliban (maybe not considered Arab), Hezbollah, Ansarullah/Houthis, etc. These people are the opposites of mercenaries, and they often win outsized victories as a result.

perl4ever 6y ago

>can be improved closer to global parity by importing competent murder bots I remember various people writing about the ebbs and flows of centralized oppressive government and attributing it to the type of weapon that's prevalent and the support system it requires. George Orwell writing just after WWII was very apprehensive about more than just the atomic bomb per se, but by the idea that the best weapons available would be only available through massive industrial projects of the largest governments and therefore all the greatest despotisms would be able to survive indefinitely. Your comment also reminds me of reading somewhere a long time ago how the US having a decent phone system left it with a lot of copper infrastructure that held things back, whereas some countries that have been much poorer in the past went directly to cellular - thus in general wealth implies early adoption and possibly too much investment in immature tech.

dirtyid 6y ago
I think competent AI weapons will dramatically reduce barriers to projecting and holding power by smaller ruling cohorts, less dependence on training massive armed forces and retaining their loyalty. Both extremely difficult and expensive institution problems versus importing a bunch of DRM murder bots a medium sized country can't manufacture, or just receiving some in form of aid from a larger power in exchange for client status. Don't piss off benefactors or DRM transfers to more compliant political faction. >too much investment in immature tech Or research into paradigms shifting tech negates moat of old advantages. Russians good at antiair because US would not want to invent tech that would erode US air supremacy. Kind of how UK lost naval gap due to dreadnaught reset. I can imagine AI air planes undermining US air / naval superiority balance. Lots of obsolete hardware and training if a fleet of drones become smart enough to penetrate a carrier group. Perhaps it may even be sensible not to pursue / start arms race if it means undermining decades of expensive acquisitions and expertise. Or at least have enough security to ensure adversaries don't acquire kryptonite of your own making.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

Competent murder bots won't choose where to be deployed, for what reasons, etc. As long as the Arab countries are outposts of the US and do whatever the US wants blindly, they'll fail just like the Iraqi forces bolstered by the US failed. It's not because the US is bad or the Arabs who are their allies are bad. It's because Arabs who work for the US are essentially mercenaries, they don't care what the result is as long as they get paid. Just as Rome fell partly because of its heavy reliance on mercenaries, so too will these fail. Many Arab forces are highly competent (and feared as a result) but they all have in common that they are not simply lavishly compensated by the US to do things they don't want to do, rather they are fervent recruits bound by some shared ideology and goal. I'm thinking of the Shia PMUs, the Taliban (maybe not considered Arab), Hezbollah, Ansarullah/Houthis, etc. These people are the opposites of mercenaries, and they often win outsized victories as a result.