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I don't think that suppressing innovation is going to work, regardless of how many letters are written. People are working on these things. They will come, an

I don't think that suppressing innovation is going to work, regardless of how many letters are written. People are working on these things. They will come, and at some point, yes, they will be misused. However, on the whole, they might be a good thing. It would, for example, be awesome to have a system that could disable one or multiple active shooters in a public area within a few milliseconds of their first shot being fired. One of these should be in every classroom, movie theater, mall, and military base - anywhere that soft targets congregate. So you can't just say that we shouldn't have auto-targeted weapons, because they can do a tremendous amount of good and save countless lives.

ludamad 11y ago
I'm already wary of how much trust we put into programs without formal proofs; its a bit troubling that a formal proof it won't fire at kids with toy guns is essentially intractable.
- downandout 11y ago
  That would be a simple problem to solve. Toy guns don't fire projectiles that travel in a straight line at 1,700 mph (the average speed of a bullet). One could easily build a system that tracks the velocity of any object traveling in a confined space, and only engage the source of an object that it determines to be a traveling bullet. Additionally, the system wouldn't have to use deadly force - it could focus on disabling the suspect with a stun gun or on destroying the actual weapon the shooter is firing.
  - lifeformed 11y ago
    That's true. Something like stabbing would be harder to detect though. It could look almost as benign as a close handshake.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  As if we have proofs that humans won't do such a thing? A general AI would be able to reason as well as a human.
  - ludamad 11y ago
    Problem is, we are pretty good at picking out problematic people. A general AI might reason as well as a human, but if they want to be able to update bugs they need to have a option for reprogramming it, so there's a bit of paranoia for me of it being a human very prone to suggestion.
- crazypyro 11y ago
  Why not use non-lethal force in these guns that are used in public places? Sure, nobody wants their child hit with a rubber pellets or knocked out with a tranq because they held up a water gun (just random thoughts, could be many possibilities), but if the miss rate was small enough and the consequences for missing were small (non-lethal, non-life-threatening), they could definitely be used to save lives.

ludamad 11y ago

I'm already wary of how much trust we put into programs without formal proofs; its a bit troubling that a formal proof it won't fire at kids with toy guns is essentially intractable.

downandout 11y ago
That would be a simple problem to solve. Toy guns don't fire projectiles that travel in a straight line at 1,700 mph (the average speed of a bullet). One could easily build a system that tracks the velocity of any object traveling in a confined space, and only engage the source of an object that it determines to be a traveling bullet. Additionally, the system wouldn't have to use deadly force - it could focus on disabling the suspect with a stun gun or on destroying the actual weapon the shooter is firing.
- lifeformed 11y ago
  That's true. Something like stabbing would be harder to detect though. It could look almost as benign as a close handshake.
MichaelGG 11y ago
As if we have proofs that humans won't do such a thing? A general AI would be able to reason as well as a human.
- ludamad 11y ago
  Problem is, we are pretty good at picking out problematic people. A general AI might reason as well as a human, but if they want to be able to update bugs they need to have a option for reprogramming it, so there's a bit of paranoia for me of it being a human very prone to suggestion.
crazypyro 11y ago
Why not use non-lethal force in these guns that are used in public places? Sure, nobody wants their child hit with a rubber pellets or knocked out with a tranq because they held up a water gun (just random thoughts, could be many possibilities), but if the miss rate was small enough and the consequences for missing were small (non-lethal, non-life-threatening), they could definitely be used to save lives.