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In a televised event, Russia's President Vladimir Putin spoke to a group of students about a number of topics, including AI and drones:
Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke about the potential power of artificial intelligence to students on Friday, saying "the one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world," according to Associated Press. He then said "it would be strongly undesirable if someone wins a monopolist position," indicating that Russia would cooperate with other countries in the development of AI. While Russia is seen as skilled in technological propaganda, it has little presence in mainstream AI research.
Putin also envisioned a future for war where drones, ostensibly controlled by artificial intelligence, would fight proxy wars between countries. "When one party's drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender," he said.
Russian companies have been actively researching autonomous weapons, such as drones, robots and missiles, which would be able to pick targets and fire on their own. Documents from the US military show similar strategies, where swarms of drones would assist troops with real-time intelligence gathering and air support.
Putin puts on his Musk hat:
Putin touched on the topic of space technologies, hoping that space travel technology could one day be used in passenger travel, though not necessarily for journeys into outer space. He described the slashing of flight time from Russia's westernmost major city, Kaliningrad, to its easternmost, Vladivostok, as "a dream."
As far as space travel is concerned, Putin told students that there is hope for life on other planets in our Solar System.
"The flight to Mars would take no less than half a year, maybe even more," Putin said. "If you fly to Mars and buried yourself somewhere in there, then you could exist for some period of time. But you have to dig yourself in because cells simply die on the surface," he warned pupils.
Also at the New York Post and VOA.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday September 04 2017, @03:34AM
If the tech is sufficiently advanced, it only takes the first example to demonstrate the futility before the others potentially avoid the cost and take the option surrender after their robo-army loses.
For example, think Matrix revolution like machine capabilities (sentinels et el) but controlled by a nation state. If you let lose on a losing nation to take over its infrastructure and flush out every single humanoid combatant and kill without prejudice (again assuming the AI is sufficiently advanced to distinguish combatants to non, or at least to match a human's judgement), well you just sit back and wait. Nuclear arsenal you say? Well again, it takes times to launch missiles and to get to target, if the tech is there you can neutralize them en-route.
In fact you don't even have to occupy the annexed state with moist bodies, just use robotic ones and collect whatever "tax" from the occupation with expendable robots and rule by proxy. Any surviving resistance is just fighting against metal scraps. Of course you'd need to police the border, assuming the aggressor is nearby, but again with sufficient tech, it is all metal parts & labor.
Will the tech every get to that point? Beats me. Putin probably have no clue either... but if the tech is there I don't see why not.