Killer Drone 'Hunted Down A Human Target' Without Being Told To:
After a United Nations commission to block killer robots was shut down in 2018, a new report from the international body now says the Terminator-like drones are now here.
[...] The March 2020 attack was in Libya and perpetrated by a Kargu-2 quadcopter drone produced by Turkish military tech company STM "during a conflict between Libyan government forces and a breakaway military faction led by Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army," the Star reports, adding: "The Kargu-2 is fitted with an explosive charge and the drone can be directed at a target in a kamikaze attack, detonating on impact."
[...] "The lethal autonomous weapons systems were programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect, a true 'fire, forget and find' capability" – suggesting the drones attacked on their own.
[...] In August of last year, Human Rights Watch warned of the need for legislation against "killer robots" while NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Yang has called for a global ban on them – something the US and Russia are against.
See also: New Scientist magazine and the Star.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:44PM (7 children)
Today it's "a target" which gets hunted down, obviously a bad guy, amirite? Tomorrow, you get labeled a bad guy and it's you who are on the menu...
What could possibly go wrong?
This shit is not acceptable!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:21AM
We can guarantee that they're all bad guys [youtu.be].
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:42AM (4 children)
There are lots of powerful Jews in Turkey, despite that Erdogan LARPS as a hardcore Muslim.
Turqui and other Jew-run militia such as ISIS are balls-deep in clandestine activity that should by principle also target Israel, yet they go out of their way to avoid it despite their public doctrine. Domestically in America, Jews in academia are condoning the cold-blooded murder [msn.com] of White people in a similar fashion. Jews want Gentiles dead, and despite muzzing you they can legally get away with it.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Reziac on Sunday June 06 2021, @03:00AM (3 children)
The shrink in your link is (per what info I could find) an Iranian immigrant. Her motivations may differ.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @04:08AM (2 children)
What were you thinking when you took the time to follow
a link from an AC who thinks Jews run ISIS?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Sunday June 06 2021, @04:57AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday June 07 2021, @12:15AM
Actually, had just run into that particular fruitcake elsewhere, so had the info ready to hand. And I get a little tired of "da jooos did it" when a modicum of backtracking often identifies a somewhat different faction.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @03:00AM
Tomorrow the psychopaths will program it to take out the people who expose them. If the inverse were true, why would we have a problem with it? This is the war!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:59PM
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:20AM (1 child)
Funny to see the U.S. and Russia agree on something. Frightening to see they agree on allowing independent killer bots loose.
We will become extinct due to our own stupidity. Russia and the U.S. are two sides of the same coin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:51AM
Quite probably the only way they will go to outright war, pick a third country, or planet, agree to only target each others robots. Fuck it if a few locals don't get out of the way. Of course stand back and blame each other for doing the wrong thing, but otherwise all kosher "bloodless" settlement of dispute. Very frightening indeed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 06 2021, @01:07AM (11 children)
That bit is a lie. We automate all sorts of things, already, like our thermostats. The thermostats don't do anything without being told to. We don't have a running conversation with our thermostats every day, to keep our workspaces and our homes comfortable. We tell them once what we want, and forget about them.
The drones are more sophisticated than a thermostat by several orders of magnitude, but someone told the drone they wanted a target eliminated. The drone obeyed. The moral responsibility lies with the person or persons who told the drone who to kill.
The sweet thing about a drone? You can just tell it to kill anyone wearing a keffiyeh of a certain pattern. Or a tartan, or digitally camoflaged uniforms, or robes of a certain style. Or, you can tell it to kill anyone whose skin color falls within certain parameters, or anyone with red hair and freckles. The drone won't question you, it's just going to search for people who match whatever you programmed. This ain't skynet, or Transformers and Decepticons, with the computers making their own real decisions yet.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday June 06 2021, @01:19AM (5 children)
Maybe we'll see enough of these deployed to have a random bit flip trigger the kill bystander sequence.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EvilSS on Sunday June 06 2021, @02:10AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 06 2021, @02:13AM
This specific Turkish creation is low-tech, but it sounds like the U.S. and Russia have big plans for killer robots.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @11:30AM (2 children)
There are no innocent bystanders, just accomplices. Do keep up with the narrative, will you?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @02:50PM (1 child)
and witnesses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @03:22AM
Those are extremist ideologues, blinded to reality by the lack of money in front of their eyes!
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday June 06 2021, @04:10AM (1 child)
As someone who's in the software/firmware field professionally, the idea of letting software near weaponry scares the hell out of me.
The only thing that scares me more is letting humans near weaponry. I still have the vain hope that our software models will evolve to be fitter than the people who kicked them off.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @09:59AM
Don't worry, they're using Rust so it's impossible to have any software errors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @08:00AM (2 children)
For some reason, we were never able to automate Navy Supply Clerks, like the QAnon Shaman or Runaway1956. Is it the case, that certain levels of stupidity are not able to be captured by algorithms, and so have to be left to the less intelligent organic units? Thank you for your "service", Runaway1979!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @09:51AM (1 child)
Thank you for your input. [rapgenius.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @06:15AM
Thank you for your throughput. [wikimedia.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday June 06 2021, @01:15AM (4 children)
"Screamers" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114367/ [imdb.com] Peter Weller.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday June 06 2021, @04:16AM (3 children)
Let me add some extra Hardware [imdb.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @04:45AM (1 child)
Why have I never heard of this movie? It's not the hardware, it is the AI. It's always the AI.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 09 2021, @03:08AM
At least in my area it was a straight to VHS release. And it's definitely a B movie, so didn't make much of a splash. It was a darker, smaller version of Terminator in many ways, so didn't really move out of its shadow.
(Score: 1) by Ingar on Tuesday June 08 2021, @09:06AM
Obligatory Star Trek episode [fandom.com].
In other universes, God-Emperor Leto's Golden Path prevented Ixian self-improving Hunter-Seekers from consuming all organic life in the known universe.
(Score: 1) by js290 on Sunday June 06 2021, @03:33AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday June 06 2021, @08:14AM (9 children)
Wrong crowd for this, but most of the Laws of Armed Conflict (used to be Laws of War, but no one bothers to declare anymore, so these still apply) prohibit certain weapons. Indiscriminate weapons, like nukes and chemical or biological weapons are banned, and most nations go along with this because a weapon you cannot control is not really a weapon. The other main category, outside of the "unnecessarily damaging" weapons, like lasers to the eyes (better if a weapons debilitatory effect is only temporty), is the category of "victim initiated weapons", or in other words, booby-traps.
AI weapons may be a bit beyond the sophistication of a Puji-stick pit trap, or a "Bouncing Betty" anti-personnel mine, but the principle remains the same. If it is the initiator that triggers the weapon, without discriminate command control of the weapon, it is in violations of the Laws of Armed Conflict. It is morally equivalent to distributing mined children's toys in the area of conflict.
Lots of Contractors are trying to make the case that AI weapons are more moral than your average grunt, because the AI does not get all upset when its fellow AIs are killed, raped, and reprogrammed. But I would suggest, if you have soldiers who react on revenge, you need to do some more training. Rambo, you know, was a failure.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 06 2021, @09:59AM (8 children)
Indiscriminate? The story doesn't suggest that it got the "wrong" target.
"unnecessarily damaging" weapons? That borders on the silly. If the goal is to kill a person, what is "unnecessarily damaging"?
Booby traps? Nothing suggests that this drone was set off by anything the target did. He was being actively searched for, and when found, it attacked.
You're going to judge Rambo? You, one of the millions of Americans who say little and do nothing about when, where, why, or how our troops are deployed? Sitting in the comfort of your own home, you're going to judge Rambo, and American soldiers who live in combat conditions? Moralize some more for us, philosopher.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anti-aristarchus on Sunday June 06 2021, @06:33PM
Fan mail from a flounder? Legal opinions, and on international law at that, from Runaway? It has long been obvious that US service personnel are insufficiently trained in the Laws of Armed Conflict.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Sunday June 06 2021, @11:20PM (3 children)
Once again, you are an ignorant maroon, Runaway Boomer! Let me try again to educate you a little.
Must be an American. The point of armed conflict is to settle an issue. The goal is not to kill anyone, the goal is to make them incapable of resistance, if they cannot be convinced to surrender voluntarily. For this reason, types of weapons that are legal under the Law of Armed Conflict are in fact limited to those not "unnecesarily damaging". This is why only Ball ammunition is used. Punches a hole through, but as long as it misses important parts, survivable. Dumdums, hollow-points, exploding bullets are all banned, but the Conference of St Petersburg, after the Sepoy Rebellion. Weapons that produce life-long disability are also banned, for example, blinding lasers. If your intent in or around combat is to kill, you are not a soldier, you are a murderer, like that child-murderer Gallagher.
Not too bright, are you, Runaway! This is how people of color just set you off. Nothing about what they do, just that you are racist that way. In order for a target to be targeted, someone has to do the targeting. Matching a profile in a Automated Extra-judicial Assassination Machine is no different than pulling open the door with the shotgun tied to it. Victim initiated weapons, where no one decides to target that particular individual.
Yep! You seem to have missed the point of the movie.
Not American. Do not try to smear me with the war crimes of your belligerent and murdering nation! Only country to have deployed nuclear weapons, and on civilians, and children, at that. Now, shut up, you baby-killing war criminal, Runaway!
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 06 2021, @11:47PM (2 children)
One might expect that nonsense from a philosopher or a statesmen.
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
George S. Patton
Ad hominem attacks do nothing to advance your poorly thought out argument. But, you knew that.
I am quite certain that you are a liar. You have told so many lies on SN, it's impossible to keep them all straight. Among your other lies, I remember that you claimed to be a black man. Then you made other claims that pretty obviously precluded that falsehood. I do believe that you are an American citizen, or that you at least live in the United States. I do believe that you are of Greek ancestry. Beyond that, I don't believe much of anything you say.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday June 06 2021, @11:57PM (1 child)
Well, guess that settles it! I never claimed any of those things. Truly, then, you are an ignorant moron, Runaway the American!
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 07 2021, @12:11AM
You most certainly claimed to be a black man at some point in time. You have no problems with cultural appropriation, when it served your own ends. As I said, I don't believe much of anything you say.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 07 2021, @12:29AM (1 child)
Nothing suggests it got the right target. No news is bad news.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 07 2021, @12:36AM
Point taken. Lots of people take the shot, then declare the target 3 seconds later. ;^)
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @07:37AM
"Believe it or not, your opinion on this topic is really not necessary,"
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday June 06 2021, @09:43PM (8 children)
Isn't this just a mine, albeit with a larger detection radius?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @10:01PM (7 children)
Legal use of mines in war is not to wound or kill. Mines are used to "shape the battlespace", as they say now, or to deny the enemy to ability to cross certain areas. To do that, they need to be clearly marked, as in "Minefield! Do not be walking around here!" (Unless, that is, you are a Giant African Pouched Rat!) You might say that even if you do not put up signs, the first trooper entering will become a sign to the remaining, but without signage, it might be your own forces that run afoul of mines.
And the minefield must be mapped, so that after the engagement, each mine can be removed. This is was was not done in Cambodia, and several other places around the world, so the abandoned mines are blowing limbs off of innocent civilians years later. And then there is the Korean DMZ.
Planting mines unmarked say on trails, with the intention of killing the enemy is a violation of the Rules of War. The mine is triggered by the victim, automatically, so there is no discrimination. A booby-trap mine will take out friend or foe, livestock or wildlife, children, equally well. Mines that are under command control are better, but it is like the difference between a claymore on trip wire versus one on a clicker with a responsible combatant.
AWS are similar, in that the victim triggers the weapon, by being the target. Of course, mistakes in programming are possible, but the main thing is no person is responsible for the attack. So they are similar to booby-trap mines, and thus illegal under the Hague Conventions, and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) - 1980. https://research.un.org/en/mines/treaties [un.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 06 2021, @11:53PM (6 children)
First you point out that a mine is completely indiscriminate, and set off by the first person or animal to come along.
TFA indicates that one certain individual was being sought out, and killed by this drone. The drone was very discriminating.
No, they are very dissimilar, and you can't equate the two. Complete fail.
I have problems with these drones, but please highlight the actual problems, and stop trying to draw nonexistent parallels.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @12:58AM (4 children)
I see you fail to grasp the concept. I is not the targeting, it is the decision to target. If you automate the targeting, then it is the target itself that prompts the attack, not the attacker. Now just a certain amount of pressure on a plate may seem different that all the parameters that might go into the programming of a killer robot, put they are exactly the same in that you are setting up those conditions of initiation in advance. That is what makes it a booby-trap.
And, no one really cares what your problems are with killer drones, Runaway. Just hold still, for a bit.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 07 2021, @01:43AM (3 children)
Translation: Poster doesn't understand how a booby trap is made, nor does he understand how to program a drone, therefore the two are equivalent.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 09 2021, @03:17AM (2 children)
It is certainly a wide gap between a pressure plate calibrated for human (or vehicle) weight versus loading a facial recognition profile, but it is an interesting train of thought. At what point between "anyone/thing matching this weight" to "anyone/thing matching this 3d profile" do you go from indiscriminate to discriminate? If your 3d profile is simply a generic anthropomorphic model with wide matching parameters, what then?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 09 2021, @04:51AM (1 child)
Good question. If your parameters are too broad, well, you'll fail to get the guy you want. The drone/weapon will have been wasted. Of course, that won't stop the military claiming that they actually killed a terrorist, even if that terrorist happens to be a little 6 year old girl playing with dolls.
I suppose that I've given the benefit of the doubt to the programmers, assuming that they at least tried to use meaningful input.
#warmonger #Biden #impeach_Mayorkas
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 09 2021, @07:02AM
If it's a single-shot device, sure, you wasted it. But what if it has whole magazine of "terrorist"-dispatching munition? At that point someone might very well be tempted to go lose with the parameters in an effort to ensure that it /at least/ gets the intended target. A walking sentry gun seems all too doable already...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @07:41AM
"Believe it or not, your opinion on this topic is really not necessary,"
[Though this says the exact same thing as some other comments (probably by another AC!) it is not spam, because it bares repeeting since Runsaway does not seam to stand under it. ]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @10:43PM
so it's like a tomahawk but it can hover?