4 ms·

why tho. you got about a zero percent chance of being drone bomb assassinated by either. both are definitely going to drone bomb assassinate people they shouldn

why tho. you got about a zero percent chance of being drone bomb assassinated by either. both are definitely going to drone bomb assassinate people they shouldn't. what do you even see as the moral difference seriously.

porknubbins 4y ago
The moral difference is that a human drone operator might not be a bloodthirsty psycho and there is a chance they would regret and even suffer from mistaken killing and attempt to avoid it, or make a policy change in the future. With an AI drone everyone can escape responsibility.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Sorry I probably should have been more clear, I didn't mean what's the difference between different kinds of drone weapon technology. The person I was responding to seemed to be saying they were ok with it in the US's hands but not China's, which does not seem consistent to me at all.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    $10 gets you $20 the person you were responding to was an US citizen. Doesn't really seem hard to see why "Murica! Fuck Yeah!" would think it is okay for the US but not for China.
- svnt 4y ago
  I see your point but given the way the military already operates it seems a pretty minor distinction. A colleagues’ son flies military drones. To hear him tell it drone operators are basically tech support that murders people. If he has issues with it there is no shortage of fresh operators.
josephcsible 4y ago
> why tho. you got about a zero percent chance of being drone bomb assassinated by either. Indeed, I'm personally not in any real danger from China having drones. But I care about the rest of the world and not just myself, and the rest of the world is in way more danger from China having drones than from the US having them. Even if you don't think China would do something directly, remember that they're allied with, e.g., Russia and the Taliban, and are likely to give/sell/let them borrow them.
- svnt 4y ago
  The data on US usage is something like an average of 50 collateral losses for one intended target eliminated. Those are frequently children and do not include any males aged 13-60 or so who are all assumed to be combatants. There is no good guy with drones.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Accepting that number for the sake of argument... Does China (or Russia, or the Taliban, ...) have a better track record than that? And even if they do, isn't that offset by China (or Russia, or the Taliban, ...)'s intentional targets being way more likely to be good guys?
    - TheDong 4y ago
      China developed attack drones, but has not used them in any attacks yet themselves. They have sold drones to middle eastern states, where they were purportedly used against "terrorists" (i.e. the same people the US commonly drone strikes). Given the US has made numerous drone-strikes that have been confirmed to kill quite a few civilians, and china has 0... yeah, China's track record is wildly better. There's literally a full wikipedia page estimating civilian causalities from US drone strikes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... There's a reason that no such page exists for any other country with drones. > isn't that offset by China targets being way more likely to be good guys? That seems naive to me. Both the US and China are in the UN, are part of the "UN Security Council", and thus generally try to follow the military norms set out there. In practice, the US and China can both flaunt the rule of international law some due to their size, though in practice I don't know of china violating it significantly in relation to war, while the invasion of iraq by the US was done in violation of UN policy/international law. I'll again reference a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War To be clear on all this, I am not sympathetic to China. They've committed atrocities domestically and I'm not claiming they're a good country. I do think the evidence isn't so black and white as to say that China is likely to "target good guys" or any such thing.

porknubbins 4y ago

The moral difference is that a human drone operator might not be a bloodthirsty psycho and there is a chance they would regret and even suffer from mistaken killing and attempt to avoid it, or make a policy change in the future. With an AI drone everyone can escape responsibility.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Sorry I probably should have been more clear, I didn't mean what's the difference between different kinds of drone weapon technology. The person I was responding to seemed to be saying they were ok with it in the US's hands but not China's, which does not seem consistent to me at all.
- dylan604 4y ago
  $10 gets you $20 the person you were responding to was an US citizen. Doesn't really seem hard to see why "Murica! Fuck Yeah!" would think it is okay for the US but not for China.
svnt 4y ago
I see your point but given the way the military already operates it seems a pretty minor distinction. A colleagues’ son flies military drones. To hear him tell it drone operators are basically tech support that murders people. If he has issues with it there is no shortage of fresh operators.

josephcsible 4y ago

> why tho. you got about a zero percent chance of being drone bomb assassinated by either. Indeed, I'm personally not in any real danger from China having drones. But I care about the rest of the world and not just myself, and the rest of the world is in way more danger from China having drones than from the US having them. Even if you don't think China would do something directly, remember that they're allied with, e.g., Russia and the Taliban, and are likely to give/sell/let them borrow them.

svnt 4y ago
The data on US usage is something like an average of 50 collateral losses for one intended target eliminated. Those are frequently children and do not include any males aged 13-60 or so who are all assumed to be combatants. There is no good guy with drones.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Accepting that number for the sake of argument... Does China (or Russia, or the Taliban, ...) have a better track record than that? And even if they do, isn't that offset by China (or Russia, or the Taliban, ...)'s intentional targets being way more likely to be good guys?
  - TheDong 4y ago
    China developed attack drones, but has not used them in any attacks yet themselves. They have sold drones to middle eastern states, where they were purportedly used against "terrorists" (i.e. the same people the US commonly drone strikes). Given the US has made numerous drone-strikes that have been confirmed to kill quite a few civilians, and china has 0... yeah, China's track record is wildly better. There's literally a full wikipedia page estimating civilian causalities from US drone strikes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... There's a reason that no such page exists for any other country with drones. > isn't that offset by China targets being way more likely to be good guys? That seems naive to me. Both the US and China are in the UN, are part of the "UN Security Council", and thus generally try to follow the military norms set out there. In practice, the US and China can both flaunt the rule of international law some due to their size, though in practice I don't know of china violating it significantly in relation to war, while the invasion of iraq by the US was done in violation of UN policy/international law. I'll again reference a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War To be clear on all this, I am not sympathetic to China. They've committed atrocities domestically and I'm not claiming they're a good country. I do think the evidence isn't so black and white as to say that China is likely to "target good guys" or any such thing.