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I just don't see a way around a future with autonomous killing robots. As China ramps up its military rhetoric and technology spending, it's hard to imagine the

I just don't see a way around a future with autonomous killing robots. As China ramps up its military rhetoric and technology spending, it's hard to imagine them drawing a line in the sand against using a technology that could give them military superiority. Once they have it, we're going to need it too, because at that point we're already threatened by its existence anyway, so there's really no point in us purposefully keeping ourselves militarily limited relative to China.

RNCTX 5y ago
I find it very funny that you frame your opinion around those nefarious easterners dragging the reluctant do-gooders at the DoD and CIA into murder robots, when 60 years ago they were in an agrarian land revolt and the US was literally building rockets with atomic warheads on them. And as if that's not enough, to post this opinion in the comments linking to an article about the US's murder robots...
- awillen 5y ago
  Did I call them reluctant do-gooders? I don't see calling them reluctant do-gooders anywhere in my post. I gave unambiguous evidence of China's military escalation in the last couple of years and then used logic to come to a conclusion of what the likely outcome would be.
  - RNCTX 5y ago
    You mean to say "China's attempts to compete militarily," surely, because no country outside of the US leads the market in terms of more creative ways of killing people.
wry_discontent 5y ago
We could at least make it illegal domestically. Also, is this Cold War thinking still common? I thought we were over that by now.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  We haven’t even stopped building new kinds of nuclear weapons - or reviving old ones. China recently launched a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOB) with a hypersonic glide vehicle which is a new spin on an old Cold War idea. Edit: which is to say, believing the average person has moved on from Cold War thinking is probably wishful thinking that would be immediately dispelled during near peer conflict. We are in every bit as much danger now as we were then. Edit 2: I can recommend two podcasts for those interested in a bit of low stakes learning. “At the Brink”: a limited series from the William J. Perry Foundation. “Arms Control Wonk Podcast” which covers contemporary nuclear weapons, arms control, etc. in an ongoing manner.
- awillen 5y ago
  Have you read the news lately? https://www.reuters.com/world/china-surprises-us-with-hypersonic-missile-test-ft-reports-2021-10-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china-surprises-us-with-hypers... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094 China has becoming increasingly aggressive in both its rhetoric and actions towards Taiwan, and this comes only shortly after they clearly violated their 50 year agreement with Hong Kong. They are testing increasingly advanced weapons. That's just reality - nothing to do with Cold War thinking. Maybe China decides not to build autonomous killer robots, but we absolutely can't be sure of that. If they do end up with that technology and we don't have it, it puts us at a huge military disadvantage against an increasingly aggressive superpower. Making it illegal domestically makes no sense whatsoever if China develops the technology. The risk with autonomous killer robots is in their existence - if something goes wrong, they start deciding to kill the wrong people. If China has them and we don't, that doesn't reduce that risk at all. But if China has them and we don't it, then we're at risk both of something going wrong with the robots and of China using them against us. At least if we develop our own, we can counter the latter threat.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  Contemporary US defense policy is almost entirely based right now on concerns of falling behind China technologically in the next 20 years. So no, we're definitely not over that. We were, but we swung back hard in the other direction, with present leadership convinced that going all-in on asymmetric warfare, counterinsurgency, and foreign internal defense training and assistance was exactly the wrong thing and terrorism is small beans in the grand scheme, and we should have stayed focused on long-term strategic dominance of near-peer adversaries. And it is illegal for the active military to do anything domestically. Different story for the National Guard, of course, and the police, so I guess we might want to neuter them technologically if there's a real concern the police are going to use murder dog robots to hunt suspects.
goatlover 5y ago
Does military superiority on the ground matter for conflict between countries like China and the US? The nuclear option is going to overshadow actual combat, and any combat is likely to take place at sea or with aircraft, if it's not all done as a cyberattack.
- awillen 5y ago
  In my view the problem for either China or the US using nuclear is still mutually assured destruction - you fire a nuke, and we're going to launch all of ours. If you start using nukes, you better take over the world, because if not, everyone's going to unite against you. Unless your plan is total world domination, using nukes is going to do more harm to a country than it will offer benefits. The same isn't true with autonomous killer robots, because you can use them in relative secrecy at a small scale. If you fire a nuke, you've immediately escalated to total war. If you take out a strategic target with an autonomous robot, you haven't really pushed the envelope of war that far beyond where it's already at, so I can't justifiably nuke you. I'd also say it's not just the ground we're talking about here - if we have autonomous killer dog robots, we're doing to have autonomous killer drones no question.
pornel 5y ago
In China they're probably saying right now: "As US continues its extraordinary military and technology spending, it's hard to imagine them drawing a line in the sand against using a technology that could give them military superiority…"
- awillen 5y ago
  Yep, and it's perfectly rational for them to look at it that way, unfortunately.
quantified 5y ago
Yes, well, we jumped the gun. So now they need it because we have it. I’m not saying it wasn’t going to happen someday. Unfortunately, this is what each step of the arms race looks like. The logic leads to phrases like “pre-emptive retaliation”.

RNCTX 5y ago

I find it very funny that you frame your opinion around those nefarious easterners dragging the reluctant do-gooders at the DoD and CIA into murder robots, when 60 years ago they were in an agrarian land revolt and the US was literally building rockets with atomic warheads on them. And as if that's not enough, to post this opinion in the comments linking to an article about the US's murder robots...

awillen 5y ago
Did I call them reluctant do-gooders? I don't see calling them reluctant do-gooders anywhere in my post. I gave unambiguous evidence of China's military escalation in the last couple of years and then used logic to come to a conclusion of what the likely outcome would be.
- RNCTX 5y ago
  You mean to say "China's attempts to compete militarily," surely, because no country outside of the US leads the market in terms of more creative ways of killing people.

wry_discontent 5y ago

We could at least make it illegal domestically. Also, is this Cold War thinking still common? I thought we were over that by now.

germinalphrase 5y ago
We haven’t even stopped building new kinds of nuclear weapons - or reviving old ones. China recently launched a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOB) with a hypersonic glide vehicle which is a new spin on an old Cold War idea. Edit: which is to say, believing the average person has moved on from Cold War thinking is probably wishful thinking that would be immediately dispelled during near peer conflict. We are in every bit as much danger now as we were then. Edit 2: I can recommend two podcasts for those interested in a bit of low stakes learning. “At the Brink”: a limited series from the William J. Perry Foundation. “Arms Control Wonk Podcast” which covers contemporary nuclear weapons, arms control, etc. in an ongoing manner.
awillen 5y ago
Have you read the news lately? https://www.reuters.com/world/china-surprises-us-with-hypersonic-missile-test-ft-reports-2021-10-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china-surprises-us-with-hypers... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094 China has becoming increasingly aggressive in both its rhetoric and actions towards Taiwan, and this comes only shortly after they clearly violated their 50 year agreement with Hong Kong. They are testing increasingly advanced weapons. That's just reality - nothing to do with Cold War thinking. Maybe China decides not to build autonomous killer robots, but we absolutely can't be sure of that. If they do end up with that technology and we don't have it, it puts us at a huge military disadvantage against an increasingly aggressive superpower. Making it illegal domestically makes no sense whatsoever if China develops the technology. The risk with autonomous killer robots is in their existence - if something goes wrong, they start deciding to kill the wrong people. If China has them and we don't, that doesn't reduce that risk at all. But if China has them and we don't it, then we're at risk both of something going wrong with the robots and of China using them against us. At least if we develop our own, we can counter the latter threat.
nonameiguess 5y ago
Contemporary US defense policy is almost entirely based right now on concerns of falling behind China technologically in the next 20 years. So no, we're definitely not over that. We were, but we swung back hard in the other direction, with present leadership convinced that going all-in on asymmetric warfare, counterinsurgency, and foreign internal defense training and assistance was exactly the wrong thing and terrorism is small beans in the grand scheme, and we should have stayed focused on long-term strategic dominance of near-peer adversaries. And it is illegal for the active military to do anything domestically. Different story for the National Guard, of course, and the police, so I guess we might want to neuter them technologically if there's a real concern the police are going to use murder dog robots to hunt suspects.

goatlover 5y ago

Does military superiority on the ground matter for conflict between countries like China and the US? The nuclear option is going to overshadow actual combat, and any combat is likely to take place at sea or with aircraft, if it's not all done as a cyberattack.

awillen 5y ago
In my view the problem for either China or the US using nuclear is still mutually assured destruction - you fire a nuke, and we're going to launch all of ours. If you start using nukes, you better take over the world, because if not, everyone's going to unite against you. Unless your plan is total world domination, using nukes is going to do more harm to a country than it will offer benefits. The same isn't true with autonomous killer robots, because you can use them in relative secrecy at a small scale. If you fire a nuke, you've immediately escalated to total war. If you take out a strategic target with an autonomous robot, you haven't really pushed the envelope of war that far beyond where it's already at, so I can't justifiably nuke you. I'd also say it's not just the ground we're talking about here - if we have autonomous killer dog robots, we're doing to have autonomous killer drones no question.

pornel 5y ago

In China they're probably saying right now: "As US continues its extraordinary military and technology spending, it's hard to imagine them drawing a line in the sand against using a technology that could give them military superiority…"

awillen 5y ago
Yep, and it's perfectly rational for them to look at it that way, unfortunately.

quantified 5y ago

Yes, well, we jumped the gun. So now they need it because we have it. I’m not saying it wasn’t going to happen someday. Unfortunately, this is what each step of the arms race looks like. The logic leads to phrases like “pre-emptive retaliation”.