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"a wall of RF jamming" When using AI controlled I think the poster meant local AI controlled, no RF. We probably will also see laser communication from satelli

"a wall of RF jamming" When using AI controlled I think the poster meant local AI controlled, no RF. We probably will also see laser communication from satellite to drones, which will be much more difficult to jam.

crote 3y ago
Having AI kill humans on their own without any supervision is an extremely controversial move. It will result in friendly fire sooner or later, and the resulting controversy is pretty much guaranteed to terminate the program. Laser comms are neat, but they suffer from things like clouds or smokescreens. And once you figure out the wavelength, a hostile laser comms sat can trivially jam it.
- strken 3y ago
  Whether the resulting controversy kills the program probably depends on whether there's a conflict between great powers in a total war, or involving pariah states who don't care about making a few new martyrs.
- pydry 3y ago
  So like cluster munitions then.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  "resulting controversy is pretty much guaranteed to terminate the program." I'm not aware of any controversy that stopped weapon progress. We have biological weapon research, atomic weapons and the US used chemical agents in Vietnam. The US stopped tactical nuclear weapons because it thought they were not useful, not because of the protests in Europe. SDI was cancelled because laser weapons were not feasable in the 80s, not because of the controversy. There are more mines used in Ukraine than ever before - despite "bans". There is cluster ammunition delivered despite a huge controversy. "clouds or smokescreens." Sure smokescreens can only jam low flying drones? If you smoke a target the drone waits for you running out of smoke rounds.
  - Incipient 3y ago
    Pretty sure "controversy" killed biological weapons and most use of nuclear (thankfully). They're even trying to get rid of certain cluster munitions.
    - KingOfCoders 3y ago
      We have enough nuclear weapons to kill off humanity. They have not been used because of fear of retaliation, the number has been reduced because of costs. But the US with it's largest conventional military would benefit from a removal of all nuclear weapons. We'll see if Russia uses a tactical nuke when Ukraine enters Crimea. Biological weapons have been killed because they are hard to be used operationally. You don't want to kill civilians, this creates more resistance (shown in WW2 and Iraq for example), also if you conquer a country you need people to run it. Biological weapons are not that useful.
      - chipsa 3y ago
        Biological weapons also have the distinct problem of control: you can release them, but you can't stop them afterward. So, you need to be able to keep your own people safe from the release, which means expensive vaccinations across your population. And how do you test that your vaccination works? Or that it'll still work after your bioweapon mutates? Bioweapons are useless unless your goal is to kill off everyone.
        ethbr0 3y ago
        Modern chemical weapons are a better example of a thing we've banned.
        gpderetta 3y ago
        But they were banned because of the consequences on their extreme use on the battlefield, not because were controversial before use.
      - 3y ago
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  How can you jam a laser from a satellite to a drone, if it is one way? With the sensor on top of the drone, e.G. a Predator? Wouldn't you need something flying higher than the drone?
  - gostsamo 3y ago
    you can directly target the satellites. Currently in development in Russia, China, and the US.
    - KingOfCoders 3y ago
      I thought we were talking about jamming. But if we talk about killing, we'll get thousands of micro satellites, good luck shooting them down.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  It's not that controversial in full blown war zones. Air defense systems already have to operate autonomously for instance, since not every threat will be detected early enough to allow for human review. Plus, friendly fire incidents also happen with humans, we don't punish those unless they're obviously negligent, just work on ways to not repeat that mistake, so how is AI any different? The determination of negligence would just fall upon whoever was responsible for configuring the drone for that mission. So, for example, if the drone was used to target a certain kind of tank which is in use on both sides and it was known ahead of time that the drone can't differentiate between them, it'd be negligent use, while a mission programmed with full understanding of the drone's capabilities results in friendly fire due to a previously unknown error, it'd be no different from any other current smart weapon messing up.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Weapons that automatically kill people are prevalent. It may seem trite, but that's exactly what most mines do. Some anti-ship mines are smart enough to distinguish friend from foe using acoustic classification and would be programmed to only kill enemy ships and ignore friendly ships. Whether or not that constitutes "AI" (pointless discussion since nobody can decide what "AI" truly means even in conversations about state-of-the-art LLMs), it's a weapon autonomously monitoring its environment, classifying targets and killing them without a human in the loop.

crote 3y ago

Having AI kill humans on their own without any supervision is an extremely controversial move. It will result in friendly fire sooner or later, and the resulting controversy is pretty much guaranteed to terminate the program. Laser comms are neat, but they suffer from things like clouds or smokescreens. And once you figure out the wavelength, a hostile laser comms sat can trivially jam it.

strken 3y ago
Whether the resulting controversy kills the program probably depends on whether there's a conflict between great powers in a total war, or involving pariah states who don't care about making a few new martyrs.
pydry 3y ago
So like cluster munitions then.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
"resulting controversy is pretty much guaranteed to terminate the program." I'm not aware of any controversy that stopped weapon progress. We have biological weapon research, atomic weapons and the US used chemical agents in Vietnam. The US stopped tactical nuclear weapons because it thought they were not useful, not because of the protests in Europe. SDI was cancelled because laser weapons were not feasable in the 80s, not because of the controversy. There are more mines used in Ukraine than ever before - despite "bans". There is cluster ammunition delivered despite a huge controversy. "clouds or smokescreens." Sure smokescreens can only jam low flying drones? If you smoke a target the drone waits for you running out of smoke rounds.
- Incipient 3y ago
  Pretty sure "controversy" killed biological weapons and most use of nuclear (thankfully). They're even trying to get rid of certain cluster munitions.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    We have enough nuclear weapons to kill off humanity. They have not been used because of fear of retaliation, the number has been reduced because of costs. But the US with it's largest conventional military would benefit from a removal of all nuclear weapons. We'll see if Russia uses a tactical nuke when Ukraine enters Crimea. Biological weapons have been killed because they are hard to be used operationally. You don't want to kill civilians, this creates more resistance (shown in WW2 and Iraq for example), also if you conquer a country you need people to run it. Biological weapons are not that useful.
    - chipsa 3y ago
      Biological weapons also have the distinct problem of control: you can release them, but you can't stop them afterward. So, you need to be able to keep your own people safe from the release, which means expensive vaccinations across your population. And how do you test that your vaccination works? Or that it'll still work after your bioweapon mutates? Bioweapons are useless unless your goal is to kill off everyone.
      - ethbr0 3y ago
        Modern chemical weapons are a better example of a thing we've banned.
        gpderetta 3y ago
        But they were banned because of the consequences on their extreme use on the battlefield, not because were controversial before use.
    - 3y ago
KingOfCoders 3y ago
How can you jam a laser from a satellite to a drone, if it is one way? With the sensor on top of the drone, e.G. a Predator? Wouldn't you need something flying higher than the drone?
- gostsamo 3y ago
  you can directly target the satellites. Currently in development in Russia, China, and the US.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    I thought we were talking about jamming. But if we talk about killing, we'll get thousands of micro satellites, good luck shooting them down.
dotnet00 3y ago
It's not that controversial in full blown war zones. Air defense systems already have to operate autonomously for instance, since not every threat will be detected early enough to allow for human review. Plus, friendly fire incidents also happen with humans, we don't punish those unless they're obviously negligent, just work on ways to not repeat that mistake, so how is AI any different? The determination of negligence would just fall upon whoever was responsible for configuring the drone for that mission. So, for example, if the drone was used to target a certain kind of tank which is in use on both sides and it was known ahead of time that the drone can't differentiate between them, it'd be negligent use, while a mission programmed with full understanding of the drone's capabilities results in friendly fire due to a previously unknown error, it'd be no different from any other current smart weapon messing up.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Weapons that automatically kill people are prevalent. It may seem trite, but that's exactly what most mines do. Some anti-ship mines are smart enough to distinguish friend from foe using acoustic classification and would be programmed to only kill enemy ships and ignore friendly ships. Whether or not that constitutes "AI" (pointless discussion since nobody can decide what "AI" truly means even in conversations about state-of-the-art LLMs), it's a weapon autonomously monitoring its environment, classifying targets and killing them without a human in the loop.