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The fundamental reality is that compressing decision timelines creates more effective military outcomes. Everything else flows from that. At a high-level, tha

by ethbr1 3y ago

The fundamental reality is that compressing decision timelines creates more effective military outcomes. Everything else flows from that. At a high-level, that decision compression will be an arms race between competitors for military advantage, where the argument to relax human-scale decisions will be "If we don't do it, we'll lose to someone who will." You saw the same thing in the nuclear arms race, as launch-to-impact time compression (as technology advanced) eroded available human decision time.

mlyle 3y ago
> The fundamental reality is that compressing decision timelines creates more effective military outcomes. But popping off half-cocked often results in bad outcomes, so there's a tradeoff between decision quality and decision time. In theory, having AI in the loop could improve both. In practice, I suspect you're right.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Unfortunately, the negative impact of killing civilians currently seems to be... minimal. And maybe always has been, internationally-speaking? It would be nice to reform UN and supra-national rules of warfare in light of modern developments. Even a "this is an acceptable ratio of civilian collateral deaths, above which constitutes a war crime" would be helpful for curtailing nation's baser urges.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > And maybe always has been, internationally-speaking? If I had to guess, it was even less. Now at least there can be media backlash. > Even a "this is an acceptable ratio of civilian collateral deaths, above which constitutes a war crime" would be helpful for curtailing nation's baser urges. Having some kind of metric would be nice. However, there are problems with it being too simple (your enemy has a say in how exposed their civilians are; and we'd hate to leave countries with less precision in their militaries without the ability to defend themselves).

by ethbr1 3y ago

mlyle 3y ago

> The fundamental reality is that compressing decision timelines creates more effective military outcomes. But popping off half-cocked often results in bad outcomes, so there's a tradeoff between decision quality and decision time. In theory, having AI in the loop could improve both. In practice, I suspect you're right.

ethbr1 3y ago
Unfortunately, the negative impact of killing civilians currently seems to be... minimal. And maybe always has been, internationally-speaking? It would be nice to reform UN and supra-national rules of warfare in light of modern developments. Even a "this is an acceptable ratio of civilian collateral deaths, above which constitutes a war crime" would be helpful for curtailing nation's baser urges.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > And maybe always has been, internationally-speaking? If I had to guess, it was even less. Now at least there can be media backlash. > Even a "this is an acceptable ratio of civilian collateral deaths, above which constitutes a war crime" would be helpful for curtailing nation's baser urges. Having some kind of metric would be nice. However, there are problems with it being too simple (your enemy has a say in how exposed their civilians are; and we'd hate to leave countries with less precision in their militaries without the ability to defend themselves).