The U.S. is seeking bids to improve its "basic" killbot to the the point where it can "acquire, identify, and engage targets at least 3X faster than the current manual process."
U.S. Army Assures Public That Robot Tank System Adheres to AI Murder Policy
Why does any of this matter? The Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, requires that humans be able to "exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force," meaning that the U.S. won't toss a fully autonomous robot into a battlefield and allow it to decide independently whether to kill someone. This safeguard is sometimes called being "in the loop," meaning that a human is making the final decision about whether to kill someone.
Industry Day for the Advanced Targeting and Lethality Automated System (ATLAS) Program. Also at Boing Boing.
Surely these will never be hacked!
Will an operator feel more trepidatious about taking life, due to not being in direct peril themselves? Or less because of greater desensitization? Anyone have any insightful links about drone operator psych outcomes? (Ed: Don't worry about it.)
Related information to inform the philosophical background of why having a human in the loop is required (they don't specify this but e.g. without the human, land mine agreements might start to apply): https://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/media/capdev/capdev_02.pdf
HEY EDITORS! I suggest a new topic: "tech and society" for stuff like this. (Ed: It's Digital Liberty.)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Monday March 11 2019, @10:29PM (7 children)
Seems like a reasonable list of demands to me.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Monday March 11 2019, @10:38PM (5 children)
How is that reasonable????
'We will join, but only if we can keep using them whenever we feel like'
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 11 2019, @10:48PM (4 children)
Not, whenever we feel like it. As the demands listed show. If you equate, "a clause permitting a party to withdraw when its superior national interests were threatened.", with whenever we feel like it. Go right ahead and think that. In reality, that's probably just another reason tacked onto our list of demands. When likely, the biggest reason on that list is our support of South Korea.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:03AM (3 children)
I don't know about the grandparent, but I sure would. It's not hard to come up with a superior national interest on demand. There might be all kinds of restrictions on the US's ability to use that clause, but coming up with the excuses isn't one.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:49PM (2 children)
Perhaps, but it would really depend on the definition of superior national interests. The ultimate goal of such a treaty should be the elimination of the threat anti-personnel landmines have towards civilians, so innocents aren't getting themselves blown-up. It seems to me that the United States' approach to this is effective. Especially, compared to say the likes of Turkey, who actually signed the treaty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty [wikipedia.org]
Now, just think, what people's reactions would be, if the United States did the same thing with the US/Mexico border. The United States isn't even close to one of the "bad guys" when talking about anti-personnel landmines.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday March 12 2019, @04:10PM
And before the election everyone was saying that nearly nobody would vote for a racist bigot who was also an admitted sexual predator. So I don't think you can count on public disgust to prevent the govt. from deciding that making the border an exclusion zone was a superior national interest.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:14AM
Currently, that looks like interests that the US has.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 11 2019, @10:40PM
Also, from that same wikipedia link:
What's really sad:
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"