8 ms·
Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choic
by randerson 7mo ago
Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk.
Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fired if an LLM hallucinates and kills people? Perhaps Anthropic's stance is to avoid liability if that were to happen.
- unethical_ban 7mo agoIsn't this the moral hazard of war as it becomes more of a distance sport? That powerful governments can order the razing of cities and assassinate leaders with ease? We need to do it because our enemies are doing it, in any case.
- iugtmkbdfil834 7mo agoIt came later than I anticipated, but it did come after all. There is a reason companies like 9mother are working like crazy on various way to mitigate those risks.
- AnbdgK 7mo agoI do not think that anyone but the US and Israel have assassinated leaders in the last 30 years. I also question their autonomous drone advancement. Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela and they do not have the means to help Iran.
- genghisjahn 7mo agoRussia and other states have demonstrably conducted targeted killings.
- ks2048 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_and_government_who_were_assassinated_or_executed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_and_gov...
- dotancohen 7mo ago[flagged]
- FpUser 7mo ago>"Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela" Of course they have the means. Nothing technical prohibits them from blowing couple of carriers. But the price they would have to pay is way too high.
- the_af 7mo agoDid you mean Venezuela or Iran? Because there are actual technical impediments why neither China nor the Russians could have blown a US carrier in the Caribbean.
- FpUser 7mo ago>"actual technical impediments" I do not believe so. Not unsurmountable at least. The consequences are however far from pleasant for each side
- the_af 7mo agoI do believe there are major technical impediments; other than a modern attack sub reaching that far undetected I can't think of how they would do it. The US is the only nation that can effectively project power so far away from its borders, almost anywhere in the world. Furthermore, you mentioned this in response to "helping Venezuela", but even damaging a carrier (something technically very, very difficult for Russia or China) would not have helped Venezuela one bit. It'd be more technically feasible for them to help Iran than Venezuela, and even that is not particularly feasible now, other than very indirectly.
- FpUser 7mo ago>"would not have helped Venezuela one bit" I think it would, meaning that right from that exact minute the US and Russia will be very busy and Venezuela left to it's own devices. Does not mean Venezuela would feel any better of course.
- 7mo ago
- unethical_ban 7mo agoWe need to [develop military technology] because our enemies do it. I don't mean we have to commit war crimes because others do it.
- fwip 7mo agoI think it's the opposite. The human cost of war is part of what keeps the USA from getting into wars more than it already is - no politician wants a second Vietnam. If war is safe to wage, then it just means we'll do it more and kill more people around the globe.
- Fricken 7mo agoThe troops were told they're headed for Armageddon this go round
- XorNot 7mo agoAnd that is entirely the fault of American voters. The government is doing exactly what they said they would.
- malfist 7mo agoSafe for whom?
- fwip 7mo agoSafe for the aggressors, I mean. If war is easy and cheap for us to wage, we will do more of it, and likely make the world a worse place.
- dotancohen 7mo agoYour post reads as if you would rather those aggressors who threaten America to not be disposed of. How is the world a better place with the aggressors than without?
- komali2 7mo agoWe're talking about Americans. What genuine threat did Venezuela or Iran pose to Americans? Corporate interests don't count.
- saulpw 7mo agoThe danger is that we won't be sending these fully-autonomous drones to 'war', but anytime a person in power feels like assassinating a leader or taking out a dissident, without having to make a big deal out of it. The reality is that AI will be used, not merely as a weapon, but as an accountability sink.
- rl3 7mo agoPretty soon we'll have depositions where the bots explain they thought they saw a weapon and were in fear for their lives. Counsel: "How do you explain the nanny cam footage of you planting a weapon?" Robot: "I have encountered an exception and must power off. Shutting down."
- carlob 7mo ago> 'war' > anytime a person in power feels like assassinating a leader or taking out a dissident I don't really see much of a difference nowadays
- jakelazaroff 7mo agoWhat do you mean, "hallucinates and kills people"? Killing people is the thing the military is using them for; it's not some accidental side effect. It's the "moral choice" the same way a cruise missile is — some person half a world away can lean back in their chair, take a sip of coffee, click a few buttons and end human lives, without ever fully appreciating or caring about what they've done.
- jmward01 7mo agoThe people that actually target and launch these things do think about what they have done. It is the people ordering them to do it that don't. There is a difference, I hope.
- maxlybbert 7mo agoI'm sure it was meant as "kills the wrong people." People are always worried about getting rid of humans in decision-making. Not that humans are perfect, but because we worry that buggy software will be worse.
- jmward01 7mo agoWar is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. The only best choice is to fight at every turn making war easy. Our adversaries will, or likely already have, gone the autonomous route. We should be doing everything we can to put major blockers on this similar to efforts to block chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The logical end of autonomous targeting and weapons is near instant mass killing decisions. So at a minimum we should think of autonomous weapons in a similar class as those since autonomy is a weapon of mass destruction. But we currently don't think that way and that is the problem. Eventually, unfortunately, we will build these systems but it is weak to argue that the technology isn't ready right now and that is why we won't build them. No matter when these systems come on line there will be collateral damage so there will be no right time from a technology standpoint. Anthropic is making that weak argument and that is primarily what I am dismissive of. The argument that needs to be made is that we aren't ready as a society for these weapons. The US government hasn't done the work to prove they can handle them. The US people haven't proven we are ready to understand their ramifications. So, in my view, Anthropic shouldn't be arguing the technology isn't ready, no weapon of war is ever clean and your hands will be dirty no matter how well you craft the knife. Instead Anthropic should be arguing that we aren't ready as a society and that is why they aren't going to support them.
- dotancohen 7mo ago> War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. This is the right answer. When war becomes inevitable, we are forced to choose between morality and survival. I pass no judgement on those who choose survival.
- adrian_b 7mo agoThe problem in modern wars is that those who start them claim that they do this for survival, but the claim is not based on any real action of the adversary or on any evidence that the adversary is dangerous, but on beliefs that the adversary might want to endanger the survival of the attacker some time in an indefinite future, and perhaps might even be able to do that. Nobody who starts a war today acknowledges that they do this for other reasons than "survival", e.g. for stealing various kinds of resources from the attacked. It has become difficult to distinguish those who truly fight for survival from those who only claim to do this.
- datsci_est_2015 7mo ago> Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members. I guess let the record state that I am deeply morally opposed to automated killing of any kind. I am sick to my stomach when I really try to put myself in the shoes of the indigenous peoples of Africa who were the first victims of highly automatic weapons, “machine guns” or “Gatling guns”. The asymmetry was barbaric. I do hope that there is a hell, simply that those who made the decision to execute en masse those peoples have a place to rot in internal hellfire. To even think of modernizing that scene of inhumane depravity with AI is despicable. No, I am deeply opposed to automated killing of any kind.
- nickff 7mo agoThe Gatling Gun was first deployed in the US civil war, not in Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun The “machine gun” has a more complicated history, and the first practical example may have been Gatling’s, or an earlier example used in Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun
- datsci_est_2015 7mo agoForgive me I got the detail wrong. If your point was to deny that my imagined scenario never happened, read this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun
- nickff 7mo agoBasically all types of weapons have been used in all sorts of conflicts; the British used aircraft in their mandates, and the Italians used chemical weapons in Ethiopia. That said, I am not aware of any weapon which was developed specifically for use against a less technologically advanced adversary, most novel weapons are developed for use against peer-adversaries.
- mulmen 7mo agoDoesn’t this just lower the bar on going to war? Putting real lives on the line makes war a costly last resort.
- dotancohen 7mo ago> Putting real lives on the line makes war a costly last resort. Be grateful that you live in a culture that feels this way, and protect that culture. Not all cultures share this value.
- the_af 7mo agoTrue, but this doesn't in any way undermine the point that making war easier is not a good thing. It should be a costly decision, lest leaders of even those cultures find it too appealing.
- dotancohen 7mo agoIn general I agree. 100% agree. But the AI cat-for-war has left the box for both Iran and the US. Opposing US development of AI for warfare will not suppress US's adversaries from developing the technology.
- singron 7mo agoIt's sort of like the opposite of this idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)#Preventing_nuclear_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)#Preven... > Fisher [...] suggested implanting the nuclear launch codes in a volunteer. If the President of the United States wanted to activate nuclear weapons, he would be required to kill the volunteer to retrieve the codes. >> [...] The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. [...] >> When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, "My God, that's terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgment. He might never push the button." > — Roger Fisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1981[10]
- jmward01 7mo agoThere should be two knives so the volunteer can defend themselves if they don't think starting a war is worth it.
- cousin_it 7mo agoThat's so idealistic. We should know by now the reality of power and what kind of people end up in power. Anyone who could climb all the way to the top would kill the volunteer without a second thought, and then go smile on TV.
- brazzy 7mo agoYou're confusing lazy cynicism with realism. Patrick Bateman is a fictional character. The vast, vast majority of people, including even most soldiers, and definitely pretty much all businesspeople, no matter how unscrupulous, do not have the capacity to violently murder a person they know and harbor no ill will towards with their own hands on short notice.
- TremendousJudge 7mo agomaybe they should make the person with the codes black. I think several cold-war presidents probably wouldn't have a problem with that
- zarzavat 7mo agoThis is exactly how all other weapons of mass destruction were rationalised. "If we develop <terrible weapon> we can save so many lives of our soldiers". It always ends up being used to murder civilians.
- etchalon 7mo agoLiterally the justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- alex43578 7mo agoDo you think a continuation of the firebombing campaign and an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have resulted in fewer deaths of civilians (particularly of the 'volunteer fighting corps')? That's to say nothing of the deaths in a potential US/USSR conflict that goes hot without the Damocles Sword of MAD...
- myrmidon 7mo agoThis is a false dichotomy. In the words of the post-war US strategic bombing survey: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." While this is all speculation, that was at the very least a defensible point of view held by a bunch of Americans shortly after the war. Regarding firebombing: Hiroshima alone killed probably more civilians than the entire Tokyo firebombing campaign. A firestorm is a terrible thing, but you can still run from a fire even if your whole city burns down; you can't run from a nuke. So if you measure collateral damage primarily in civilian deaths, firebombing still looks much better (a hypothetical firebombing campaign would have probably killed <40k civilians in Hiroshima instead of 100k, guesstimating from Tokyo numbers). Edit: I don't think dropping the nuclear bombs was especially ethically questionable compared to the rest of the war, but I feel it is very important to not whitewash that event as valiant effort to save young American conscripts. Regarding it as a slightly selfish weapon demonstration feels much more accurate to me.
- the_af 7mo ago> the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk. Not so clear cut. Because now sending people to die in distant wars is likely to get a negative reaction at home, this creates some sort of impediment for waging war. Sometimes not enough, but it's not nothing. Sending your boys to die for fuck knows what. If you're just sending AI powered drones, it reduces the threshold for war tremendously, which in my mind is not "the moral choice". All of this assuming AI is as good as humans.
- gzread 7mo agoOur drones will fight their drones, and then whichever side loses, will have their humans fighting the other side's drones, and if the humans somehow win, they will fight the other side's humans. War doesn't have an agreed ending condition.