5 ms·

The moral dilemma of automated killings is not new. To remind you, lethal devices that kill people autonomously without operator's direct control have long exis

The moral dilemma of automated killings is not new. To remind you, lethal devices that kill people autonomously without operator's direct control have long existed. They have killed probably millions of people and keep killing every day. They are called landmines. Landmines are not as cool as flying drones for sure, but they are way more dangerous because they are dirt cheap, produced en masse, and widely available to unsophisticated combatants. If you're terrified by autonomous drones, maybe you should be even more terrified by landmines despite they are not as intellectually stimulating as drones.

garmaine 5y ago
Automated targeted killing devices have not existed before. That distinction is very important. The difference between "randomly kill some person in the future who goes through this area" and "upload picture to kill target" is HUGE in practice.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  That still isn't true. Fire and forget ranged weapons with heuristic targeting capabilities have also long existed. Heat-seeking missiles are the most obvious example, but target signatures have been more sophisticated than "kill the hottest thing reasonably close to a straight line from initial launch direction" for a while. The line that has never yet been crossed is the invention of weapons that decide when to launch themselves, at least in ranged indirect fire. Things like CIWS are arguably both autonomous and self-initiate firing.
  - garmaine 5y ago
    That's not nearly the same thing. The capability to kill based on the identity of the target is transformative.
andruby 5y ago
A lot of people are terrified of landmines. That's why there are treaties around the use of landmines, such as the Ottawa Treaty [0], which ban anti-personnel landmines. 164 countries have signed that treaty. I don't like this "whataboutism". In addition, while landmines are terrifying and deadly, they stay in one place. People generally don't need to fear them when going about their day. Drones on the other hand are mobile, they could fly into a city and kill people. They could fly on your property and kill you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  Unless, you know, they are on your property, ie your field, on the side of the road to school for your children. Interesting to see 1st world perspective vs 3rd world, where the former looks at it as strictly 'other's problem'.
  - blackbrokkoli 5y ago
    This is still whataboutism. I don't see anyone arguing that landmines are trivial or harmless. The point is that they are entirely different concepts, and since this a discussion about drones, landmines have about much place in this thread as Tse-Tse flies, SUVs and low-head dams.
buran77 5y ago
Landmines have a simple binary "decision" process: is the target on them or not. So in itself that's not a decision, it's a physical phenomenon: you close a switch, you trigger an event. Drones have several layers of added "decision making" that are out of human control making them far more dangerous. They get to autonomously decide, target, and kill based on many factors, using algorithms that we cannot trust or predict 100%. They also does it from afar. I know you can't trust a human 100% either but it's still the best we've got. It's the difference between walking in a bog and encountering a lion. Both might kill you but they're in no way similar even in principle. Autonomous killer drones are just automating murder and terrorism. Taking horrific weapons and making them worse by giving them better range, better targeting, and a brain that's smart enough to kill but stupid enough to do it as dangerously as possible.
- _trampeltier 5y ago
  Landmines are worse, because they don't even know, the war has ended.
  - buran77 5y ago
    Wouldn't it be even worse if a landmine could just come to you at any time and "decide" to take out it's target and everything that surrounds it? Maybe the algorithm was tripped and you're a "good enough" match, wherever you may be, even in your safe zone. There's no "keep out" sign, no safety because someone else already checked or if you keep to the main road, no removing the threat. They need no preparation, they will actively seek their target from as far away as possible. They can cover more ground than mines ever could and they won't just take out the target but also the ones around it. And all this under the control of an algorithm. This is the terror element. People will have to worry about getting blown up anytime, anywhere. That's why we keep making weapons with more range and better targeting, because waiting for the target to come to the weapon just wasn't horrific or effective enough. Sure, landmines are really bad but we're inching closer to things that surpass landmine horrors in every way and makes them seem like the lesser evil. Because if there's one thing that's bad, it's taking an already bad thing and augmenting it. And that should really scare you.
DaedPsyker 5y ago
A slightly separate issue for landmines is the tendency to main but not necessarily kill. It might seem morbid, a lot of the logic revolved around whether a weapon caused unnecessary pain compared to quick death. Dum Dum bullets for example banned for military use for their tendency to cause more pain than needed (sadly only applies to military). I believe before that there was similar debate on a sword type used by cavalry. Coupled with its indiscriminate nature, and denial of swaths of lands, and it's an cruel atrocity of a weapon. Automated weapons I feel fall under something else.
IQunder130 5y ago
>they are dirt cheap, produced en masse, and widely available to unsophisticated combatants. Quadcopters are not far from having all of these qualities either.
uniqueid 5y ago
That's a reasonable take when the comparison is between a landmine and a present-day autonomous drone, but the latter technology is in its infancy. A large part of the fear involves the future. As scary as inadvertently stepping on a landmine is, it's a whole different level of terror than running for your life from some relentless Terminator-style robot.
jokoon 5y ago
There are laws or conventions about landmines. The concept of killing ai is not well defined.

garmaine 5y ago

Automated targeted killing devices have not existed before. That distinction is very important. The difference between "randomly kill some person in the future who goes through this area" and "upload picture to kill target" is HUGE in practice.

nonameiguess 5y ago
That still isn't true. Fire and forget ranged weapons with heuristic targeting capabilities have also long existed. Heat-seeking missiles are the most obvious example, but target signatures have been more sophisticated than "kill the hottest thing reasonably close to a straight line from initial launch direction" for a while. The line that has never yet been crossed is the invention of weapons that decide when to launch themselves, at least in ranged indirect fire. Things like CIWS are arguably both autonomous and self-initiate firing.
- garmaine 5y ago
  That's not nearly the same thing. The capability to kill based on the identity of the target is transformative.

andruby 5y ago

A lot of people are terrified of landmines. That's why there are treaties around the use of landmines, such as the Ottawa Treaty [0], which ban anti-personnel landmines. 164 countries have signed that treaty. I don't like this "whataboutism". In addition, while landmines are terrifying and deadly, they stay in one place. People generally don't need to fear them when going about their day. Drones on the other hand are mobile, they could fly into a city and kill people. They could fly on your property and kill you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

saiya-jin 5y ago
Unless, you know, they are on your property, ie your field, on the side of the road to school for your children. Interesting to see 1st world perspective vs 3rd world, where the former looks at it as strictly 'other's problem'.
- blackbrokkoli 5y ago
  This is still whataboutism. I don't see anyone arguing that landmines are trivial or harmless. The point is that they are entirely different concepts, and since this a discussion about drones, landmines have about much place in this thread as Tse-Tse flies, SUVs and low-head dams.

buran77 5y ago

Landmines have a simple binary "decision" process: is the target on them or not. So in itself that's not a decision, it's a physical phenomenon: you close a switch, you trigger an event. Drones have several layers of added "decision making" that are out of human control making them far more dangerous. They get to autonomously decide, target, and kill based on many factors, using algorithms that we cannot trust or predict 100%. They also does it from afar. I know you can't trust a human 100% either but it's still the best we've got. It's the difference between walking in a bog and encountering a lion. Both might kill you but they're in no way similar even in principle. Autonomous killer drones are just automating murder and terrorism. Taking horrific weapons and making them worse by giving them better range, better targeting, and a brain that's smart enough to kill but stupid enough to do it as dangerously as possible.

_trampeltier 5y ago
Landmines are worse, because they don't even know, the war has ended.
- buran77 5y ago
  Wouldn't it be even worse if a landmine could just come to you at any time and "decide" to take out it's target and everything that surrounds it? Maybe the algorithm was tripped and you're a "good enough" match, wherever you may be, even in your safe zone. There's no "keep out" sign, no safety because someone else already checked or if you keep to the main road, no removing the threat. They need no preparation, they will actively seek their target from as far away as possible. They can cover more ground than mines ever could and they won't just take out the target but also the ones around it. And all this under the control of an algorithm. This is the terror element. People will have to worry about getting blown up anytime, anywhere. That's why we keep making weapons with more range and better targeting, because waiting for the target to come to the weapon just wasn't horrific or effective enough. Sure, landmines are really bad but we're inching closer to things that surpass landmine horrors in every way and makes them seem like the lesser evil. Because if there's one thing that's bad, it's taking an already bad thing and augmenting it. And that should really scare you.

DaedPsyker 5y ago

A slightly separate issue for landmines is the tendency to main but not necessarily kill. It might seem morbid, a lot of the logic revolved around whether a weapon caused unnecessary pain compared to quick death. Dum Dum bullets for example banned for military use for their tendency to cause more pain than needed (sadly only applies to military). I believe before that there was similar debate on a sword type used by cavalry. Coupled with its indiscriminate nature, and denial of swaths of lands, and it's an cruel atrocity of a weapon. Automated weapons I feel fall under something else.

IQunder130 5y ago

>they are dirt cheap, produced en masse, and widely available to unsophisticated combatants. Quadcopters are not far from having all of these qualities either.

uniqueid 5y ago

That's a reasonable take when the comparison is between a landmine and a present-day autonomous drone, but the latter technology is in its infancy. A large part of the fear involves the future. As scary as inadvertently stepping on a landmine is, it's a whole different level of terror than running for your life from some relentless Terminator-style robot.

jokoon 5y ago

There are laws or conventions about landmines. The concept of killing ai is not well defined.