SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
John Markoff writes in the NYT on a new report written by a former Pentagon official who helped establish United States policy on autonomous weapons who argues that autonomous weapons could be uncontrollable in real-world environments where they are subject to design failure as well as hacking, spoofing and manipulation by adversaries. The report contrasts these completely automated systems, which have the ability to target and kill without human intervention, to weapons that keep humans "in the loop" in the process of selecting and engaging targets. "Anyone who has ever been frustrated with an automated telephone call support helpline, an alarm clock mistakenly set to 'p.m.' instead of 'a.m.,' or any of the countless frustrations that come with interacting with computers, has experienced the problem of 'brittleness' that plagues automated systems," Mr. Scharre writes.
The United States military does not have advanced autonomous weapons in its arsenal. However, this year the Defense Department requested almost $1 billion to manufacture Lockheed Martin's Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, which is described as a "semiautonomous" weapon. The missile is controversial because, although a human operator will initially select a target, it is designed to fly for several hundred miles while out of contact with the controller and then automatically identify and attack an enemy ship. As an alternative to completely autonomous weapons, the report advocates what it describes as "Centaur Warfighting." The term "centaur" has recently come to describe systems that tightly integrate humans and computers. Human-machine combat teaming takes a page from the field of "centaur chess," in which humans and machines play cooperatively on the same team. "Having a person in the loop is not enough," says Scharre. "They can't be just a cog in the loop. The human has to be actively engaged."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:20AM
from the time when oog and pals raided boog's tribe and stole their flint and wenches, up until approx WW1, the military to civilian death ratio was approx 9 to 1...
from about WW1 on, it has flipped, where it is now 90% civilian deaths, 10% military...
um, is there anyone else who thinks this might be a bug, not a feature ? ? ?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:27AM
There's a few things that happened there. Up until then militaries mostly met each other on fields for battles. And the weapons weren't that powerful. Try accidentally killing civilians with a sword some time and you'll see what I mean. Whereas a bullet can travel rather far if you miss your target.
Also, bombing raids and deliberately targeting civilians are relatively new occurrences. I'm sure they happened in the past, but not to the extent we've seen in the 20th and 21st centuries.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:52AM
Starving everyone within the walls was the point of castle sieges.
Flinging a few decaying bodies to cause diseases is commonly referred to as the first case of biological warfare.
In both cases, the civilians, amateur defense forces, are also a target.
Also, while less civilians died on the battlefield, traveling or occupying armies were always causing a lot of "collateral" damage, with or without weapons.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:59AM
Ah, yes... raining rocks and fire from catapults over a fortified township full of civilians is indeed recent (at geological scales, perhaps).
Notable mention to the "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women."
Not for the lack of trying, no. It was only due to the limitations of their weapons.
It is the protection of civilians at the time of war that is recent:
Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. [icrc.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deadstick on Tuesday March 01 2016, @04:45AM
bombing raids and deliberately targeting civilians are relatively new occurrences.
Leave out the aerial bombing and read Joshua 6:21.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2016, @04:19AM
Genghis Khan
The movie 'Hero'
United State's takeover of western North America.
I'm sure there are dozens of other examples.
Civilian populace has been targetted since time immemorial. And if they are not outright butchered, their males often are and their females raped and usually impregnated to ensure subjugation is complete.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:45AM
You know how I know you never read Thucydides?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:44AM
In the past everyone who could throw a stone was military. I dunno what history you've been reading but in the old days wiping out entire villages, towns and cities wasn't that uncommon. Keeping fertile women alive is common and so was enslaving the able bodied ones, but also common was completely killing everyone.
Nowadays the military is the tip of the spear, and rest of the spear is the industrial and population base. Those ships, planes, tanks, and munitions aren't built by soldiers nor are the raw materials mined by soldiers. So of course you destroy the spear.
In the old days before the agricultural or industrial revolution killing everyone could be more beneficial. In those days one farmer couldn't feed that many others and there weren't decent birth control methods. When agricultural and industrial productivity was low if you're going to take over the land and resources, eliminating the current inhabitants isn't such a bad move. But as technology and productivity improved, collecting tribute/taxes started becoming more and more attractive.
Then when productivity improved even more and "norms became more civilized", trade actually makes more and more sense and war less so. And you start hearing leaders say stuff like:
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
In the ancient days, that poor slob on a farm was often willing to risk his life in a war because he had much to gain too: gold, slaves (including sex slaves), his own land (he might not have owned the farm he was working on).
Today that poor slob is risking his life just to make the Military Industrial Complex and their friends richer and more powerful. But of course they tell that poor slob he is defending his country/religion/family. And those poor slobs are usually stupid enough to believe it.