10 ms·

Robots Are Already Killing People

19 points by lantry 3y ago

Zetobal 3y ago
The problem is not robots killing people but robots making the decision to kill or not. Freak accidents like in the article happened with purely mechanical machinery as well.
- solardev 3y ago
  I'd rather a calculating robot make that decision based on available data on the scene and preprogrammed rules of engagement rather than some teenager in a trailer looking at blurry aerial photos or some scared kid who just saw his buddy blow up next to him. Somehow the cold efficiency seems less cruel than adrenaline fueled vengeance.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Until the ML model hallucinates that Dora the Explorer is a terrorist and goes after school children with that cold efficiency, rather than a teenager saying "this is wrong" and refuses to airstrike an elementary school.
    - feoren 3y ago
      I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the scenario you're imagining here. Are you really just completely fabricating nonsense scenarios as some sort of counterargument? Can we just make up anything we want? "Until the AI hallucinates that Christopher Walken is actually the Egyptian God-Emperor Ramses II and starts grinding human beings into cement to create a giant pyramid in his honor. Is that what you want, huh!?" Does the actual probability of that happening factor into your consideration at all? Compare that to the probability of human beings air-striking elementary schools, which humans have shown many times they're perfectly willing to do during war.
      - shortcake27 3y ago
        > Until the AI hallucinates that Christopher Walken is actually the Egyptian God-Emperor Ramses II and starts grinding human beings into cement to create a giant pyramid in his honor. Is that what you want, huh!? I’ve had a few beers, but this is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long while.
      - snypher 3y ago
        The comment was trying to convey a false positive in the targeting system that would result in many casualties. Given we have already seen AI mis-identify subjects and that we don't understand how an AI can "dream"/other edge cases, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine some xk-class/mass casualty scenario.
    - shortcake27 3y ago
      Teenagers in “the land of the free” shoot up schools every week. So if your argument hinges on the idea that a teenager wouldn’t kill innocent people, I have very bad news for you.
    - solardev 3y ago
      For sure mistakes and accidents will happen. I sure hope we won't program them on purpose to go on school shooting sprees though, or massacre unarmed villagers, or pee on prisoners and torture them for fun... all I'm saying is we don't need to hypothesize about possible AI evils when humans are already there. Why is it given that an AI or algorithm has to be less ethical than humans? I don't think it has to be, and hell, ChatGpt (with or without guidance/censorship) already shows a greater capacity for moral reasoning than some (many?) humans. We didn't evolve for some sort of absolute moral superiority, we're just a smart violent ape with in and out groups, quite prone to otherization and dehumanization on a whim. And we elect, follow, and worship sociopaths that strongly exhibit those traits... over and over. Every parent hopes their children will be better people. With AI we might actually be able to make that happen, unbounded by human genetics, though of course other challenges will arise. Shrug. Maybe Skynet is around the corner. But maybe not. There's uncertainty and thus hope there, at least, whereas I guarantee you the human species, unchanged, will keep producing genocidal dictators every decade or three.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
ranjithdsm 3y ago
The robot operating space should be fenced out or should have a proper collaboration defined. The future is going to be more robots work in parallel to humans and collaborate. Robot manufacturers should ensure the collaboration between robots.
bell-cot 3y ago
> From 1992 to 2017, workplace robots were responsible for 41 recorded deaths in the United States— Vs. if you have any idea of how dangerous non-robot industrial machinery was in the 1820 - 1920 era...41 deaths in 25 years is less than a rounding error.
- gs17 3y ago
  And they try to make it sound worse with "and that’s likely an underestimate, especially when you consider knock-on effects from automation, such as job loss". The robot doesn't malfunction and suddenly take over someone's job, a human factory owner decided to put it there.
blagie 3y ago
Seems like no one writing this article noticed the drone war going on in Ukraine right now. I'm a lot less worried about industrial accidents, and a lot more worried about the path of military accidents. Drones /will/ outpilot human pilots, and AIs /will/ out-strategize humans. That's inevitable at this point. Bugs will creep in too, as will cyberattacks. In a war, no one will have time to dive into AI ethics, let alone capacity to apply them.
- solardev 3y ago
  I'm less worried about strategic robots than an ape species that kills each other with machetes and gas chambers for no real reason. It's not even a bug in our case. Willful genocide is a feature as old as our ancestors (and then some). Maybe the AI will at least use modern, quick-killing weapons.
  - blagie 3y ago
    I'm less worried about machetes since they can't kill the whole human population. Even something as horrific as gas chambers only killed a fraction of a percent of the world population. Genocide is ancient, but humanity somehow stumbles on as a species. I'm more worried because we developed technology capable of wipe out all of humanity (and potentially, all life on Earth) in the fifties with thermonuclear bombs. The number of potentially humanity-destroying technologies has grown exponentially since, and with biological weapons, the cost and complexity has fallen. I can think of directions to take humanity to take extermination off-the-table, but we don't seem able to implement big changes anymore.
- hindsightbias 3y ago
  When bombs kill the wrong people now it’s never called a human error, it’s an “errant” bomb. I’d sumbit AI bombs will be less errant than their humans who are not accountable.
foxyv 3y ago
I think the news here is that robots are NOT killing people. They seem to be MUCH safer than human involved industrial equipment. Anyone who has worked in a factory probably has a story of their co-worker being sucked into a planer or their skull caved in by a forklift. Not to mention the thousands dying of chronic illnesses. The average life expectancy of welders is 50-60 years. Every welder we replace with a robot is saving 20-30 years of human life. With AI safety features we can only see the gains in human life growing. At least until the robot dogs with needles for teeth start hunting down people who read books or the justice drones start shooting protestors with exploding freedom rockets.
- julianeon 3y ago
  Wow, I never knew welders died young - I just thought it was a great working class profession, unfairly looked down upon. Guess I won't be recommending that to anyone: I can't justify 20-30 years of lowered life expectancy for any job.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    Fumes from melted metal, it'll get ya. And welding seems like a great job, you surely hear about someone's cousin making good money that does it. Everyone does, which is why there's a huge glut of talent at the entry level end struggling to find work. It is not the labor printer outsiders think it is. I guarantee you that at any given walmart you can find 3 employees there who own a welder and aren't awful with it.
- mortureb 3y ago
  Welders really should start wearing full P100 masks when they are working. Their issues seem to be primarily around respiratory causes.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    nit: P100 is only for particulates. As DIYer I'd add an activated carbon organic vapor filter. If I were doing a lot of welding I'd research exactly what type of cartridges are appropriate for the particular materials. From the DIYer perspective you can get a good and comfortable silicone half face respirator setup for like $50. There's really no reason not to have one. I tend to favor 3M 7503 (or 7502/7501 for size), plus 60921 or 2297 (OV or not).
mindslight 3y ago
The standard red herring of form over function - focus on these scary metal things rather than thinking too hard about what's directing them. In reality non-metal extrahuman intelligences have been killing humans far longer with their various paperclip maximizing orphan crushing machines.
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
It's inevitable that automation will have it's fatalities. We can claim it's not robots killing people; it's people killing people because they decided to use the robot. That's specious. We have something resembling a free market world. Anybody 'deciding' to not use automation (or AI or whatever) will be outcompeted by folks using the cheaper alternative. The playing field inevitably will become robot and AI dominated. Make all the regulations we want; money will force the issue. As long as they don't egregiously slaughter people they will win. Like slavery and indentured servitude before, and removal of indigenous populations, and exploitation of natural resources. The tragedy of the commons or something similar, where you have to join the throng or be outcompeted and your efforts extinguished. Only efficient market competitors can possibly survive. All the rest is philosophy (sophistry?)
adt 3y ago
Bruce Schneier? How the mighty have fallen. In the US, 16 people were murdered today (by another human). Worldwide, one person is murdered every second, or 1,440 murders per day. Perspective...
1letterunixname 3y ago
Errata: The Grover shoe factory disaster was the impetus for what became BPVC and the mandate of safety features including safety valves and LWCOs. BPVC is a mostly comprehensive engineering code that often needs interpretation reports by professional engineers regarding product design, application, and failure analysis. Almost all safety regulations are written in blood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Shoe_Factory_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Shoe_Factory_disaster https://www.asme.org/codes-standards/bpvc-standards https://www.asme.org/codes-standards/bpvc-standards

19 points by lantry 3y ago

The problem is not robots killing people but robots making the decision to kill or not. Freak accidents like in the article happened with purely mechanical machinery as well.

solardev 3y ago
I'd rather a calculating robot make that decision based on available data on the scene and preprogrammed rules of engagement rather than some teenager in a trailer looking at blurry aerial photos or some scared kid who just saw his buddy blow up next to him. Somehow the cold efficiency seems less cruel than adrenaline fueled vengeance.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Until the ML model hallucinates that Dora the Explorer is a terrorist and goes after school children with that cold efficiency, rather than a teenager saying "this is wrong" and refuses to airstrike an elementary school.
  - feoren 3y ago
    I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the scenario you're imagining here. Are you really just completely fabricating nonsense scenarios as some sort of counterargument? Can we just make up anything we want? "Until the AI hallucinates that Christopher Walken is actually the Egyptian God-Emperor Ramses II and starts grinding human beings into cement to create a giant pyramid in his honor. Is that what you want, huh!?" Does the actual probability of that happening factor into your consideration at all? Compare that to the probability of human beings air-striking elementary schools, which humans have shown many times they're perfectly willing to do during war.
    - shortcake27 3y ago
      > Until the AI hallucinates that Christopher Walken is actually the Egyptian God-Emperor Ramses II and starts grinding human beings into cement to create a giant pyramid in his honor. Is that what you want, huh!? I’ve had a few beers, but this is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long while.
    - snypher 3y ago
      The comment was trying to convey a false positive in the targeting system that would result in many casualties. Given we have already seen AI mis-identify subjects and that we don't understand how an AI can "dream"/other edge cases, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine some xk-class/mass casualty scenario.
  - shortcake27 3y ago
    Teenagers in “the land of the free” shoot up schools every week. So if your argument hinges on the idea that a teenager wouldn’t kill innocent people, I have very bad news for you.
  - solardev 3y ago
    For sure mistakes and accidents will happen. I sure hope we won't program them on purpose to go on school shooting sprees though, or massacre unarmed villagers, or pee on prisoners and torture them for fun... all I'm saying is we don't need to hypothesize about possible AI evils when humans are already there. Why is it given that an AI or algorithm has to be less ethical than humans? I don't think it has to be, and hell, ChatGpt (with or without guidance/censorship) already shows a greater capacity for moral reasoning than some (many?) humans. We didn't evolve for some sort of absolute moral superiority, we're just a smart violent ape with in and out groups, quite prone to otherization and dehumanization on a whim. And we elect, follow, and worship sociopaths that strongly exhibit those traits... over and over. Every parent hopes their children will be better people. With AI we might actually be able to make that happen, unbounded by human genetics, though of course other challenges will arise. Shrug. Maybe Skynet is around the corner. But maybe not. There's uncertainty and thus hope there, at least, whereas I guarantee you the human species, unchanged, will keep producing genocidal dictators every decade or three.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

ranjithdsm 3y ago

The robot operating space should be fenced out or should have a proper collaboration defined. The future is going to be more robots work in parallel to humans and collaborate. Robot manufacturers should ensure the collaboration between robots.

bell-cot 3y ago

> From 1992 to 2017, workplace robots were responsible for 41 recorded deaths in the United States— Vs. if you have any idea of how dangerous non-robot industrial machinery was in the 1820 - 1920 era...41 deaths in 25 years is less than a rounding error.

gs17 3y ago
And they try to make it sound worse with "and that’s likely an underestimate, especially when you consider knock-on effects from automation, such as job loss". The robot doesn't malfunction and suddenly take over someone's job, a human factory owner decided to put it there.

blagie 3y ago

Seems like no one writing this article noticed the drone war going on in Ukraine right now. I'm a lot less worried about industrial accidents, and a lot more worried about the path of military accidents. Drones /will/ outpilot human pilots, and AIs /will/ out-strategize humans. That's inevitable at this point. Bugs will creep in too, as will cyberattacks. In a war, no one will have time to dive into AI ethics, let alone capacity to apply them.

solardev 3y ago
I'm less worried about strategic robots than an ape species that kills each other with machetes and gas chambers for no real reason. It's not even a bug in our case. Willful genocide is a feature as old as our ancestors (and then some). Maybe the AI will at least use modern, quick-killing weapons.
- blagie 3y ago
  I'm less worried about machetes since they can't kill the whole human population. Even something as horrific as gas chambers only killed a fraction of a percent of the world population. Genocide is ancient, but humanity somehow stumbles on as a species. I'm more worried because we developed technology capable of wipe out all of humanity (and potentially, all life on Earth) in the fifties with thermonuclear bombs. The number of potentially humanity-destroying technologies has grown exponentially since, and with biological weapons, the cost and complexity has fallen. I can think of directions to take humanity to take extermination off-the-table, but we don't seem able to implement big changes anymore.
hindsightbias 3y ago
When bombs kill the wrong people now it’s never called a human error, it’s an “errant” bomb. I’d sumbit AI bombs will be less errant than their humans who are not accountable.

foxyv 3y ago

I think the news here is that robots are NOT killing people. They seem to be MUCH safer than human involved industrial equipment. Anyone who has worked in a factory probably has a story of their co-worker being sucked into a planer or their skull caved in by a forklift. Not to mention the thousands dying of chronic illnesses. The average life expectancy of welders is 50-60 years. Every welder we replace with a robot is saving 20-30 years of human life. With AI safety features we can only see the gains in human life growing. At least until the robot dogs with needles for teeth start hunting down people who read books or the justice drones start shooting protestors with exploding freedom rockets.

julianeon 3y ago
Wow, I never knew welders died young - I just thought it was a great working class profession, unfairly looked down upon. Guess I won't be recommending that to anyone: I can't justify 20-30 years of lowered life expectancy for any job.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  Fumes from melted metal, it'll get ya. And welding seems like a great job, you surely hear about someone's cousin making good money that does it. Everyone does, which is why there's a huge glut of talent at the entry level end struggling to find work. It is not the labor printer outsiders think it is. I guarantee you that at any given walmart you can find 3 employees there who own a welder and aren't awful with it.
mortureb 3y ago
Welders really should start wearing full P100 masks when they are working. Their issues seem to be primarily around respiratory causes.
- mindslight 3y ago
  nit: P100 is only for particulates. As DIYer I'd add an activated carbon organic vapor filter. If I were doing a lot of welding I'd research exactly what type of cartridges are appropriate for the particular materials. From the DIYer perspective you can get a good and comfortable silicone half face respirator setup for like $50. There's really no reason not to have one. I tend to favor 3M 7503 (or 7502/7501 for size), plus 60921 or 2297 (OV or not).

mindslight 3y ago

The standard red herring of form over function - focus on these scary metal things rather than thinking too hard about what's directing them. In reality non-metal extrahuman intelligences have been killing humans far longer with their various paperclip maximizing orphan crushing machines.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

It's inevitable that automation will have it's fatalities. We can claim it's not robots killing people; it's people killing people because they decided to use the robot. That's specious. We have something resembling a free market world. Anybody 'deciding' to not use automation (or AI or whatever) will be outcompeted by folks using the cheaper alternative. The playing field inevitably will become robot and AI dominated. Make all the regulations we want; money will force the issue. As long as they don't egregiously slaughter people they will win. Like slavery and indentured servitude before, and removal of indigenous populations, and exploitation of natural resources. The tragedy of the commons or something similar, where you have to join the throng or be outcompeted and your efforts extinguished. Only efficient market competitors can possibly survive. All the rest is philosophy (sophistry?)

adt 3y ago

Bruce Schneier? How the mighty have fallen. In the US, 16 people were murdered today (by another human). Worldwide, one person is murdered every second, or 1,440 murders per day. Perspective...

1letterunixname 3y ago

Errata: The Grover shoe factory disaster was the impetus for what became BPVC and the mandate of safety features including safety valves and LWCOs. BPVC is a mostly comprehensive engineering code that often needs interpretation reports by professional engineers regarding product design, application, and failure analysis. Almost all safety regulations are written in blood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Shoe_Factory_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Shoe_Factory_disaster https://www.asme.org/codes-standards/bpvc-standards https://www.asme.org/codes-standards/bpvc-standards