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Opposition to the creation of autonomous robot weapons have been the subject of discussion here recently. The New York Times has added another voice to the chorus with this article:
The specter of autonomous weapons may evoke images of killer robots, but most applications are likely to be decidedly more pedestrian. Indeed, while there are certainly risks involved, the potential benefits of artificial intelligence on the battlefield — to soldiers, civilians and global stability — are also significant.
The authors of the letter liken A.I.-based weapons to chemical and biological munitions, space-based nuclear missiles and blinding lasers. But this comparison doesn't stand up under scrutiny. However high-tech those systems are in design, in their application they are "dumb" — and, particularly in the case of chemical and biological weapons, impossible to control once deployed.
A.I.-based weapons, in contrast, offer the possibility of selectively sparing the lives of noncombatants, limiting their use to precise geographical boundaries or times, or ceasing operation upon command (or the lack of a command to continue).
Personally, I dislike the idea of using AI in weapons to make targeting decisions. I would hate to have to argue with a smart bomb to try to convince it that it should not carry out what it thinks is is mission because of an error.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:09AM
"The previous generation of autonomous weapons have already been outlawed. They were called land mines."
Might want to tell that to the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh sure they call them by a different name, IED in this case, but at the end of the day they are using landmines to great effect.
Chemical and Biological weapons were easy to outlaw. They were temperamental at the best of times and as dangerous to the person using them as the person they were being used against.
Nukes are avoided because using them escalates a conflict to a point that politicians don't want to go to.
Landmines are cheap and highly effective. Yea you can "outlaw" them, but the moment someone feels the need for them they're gonna have them rolling off the assembly line in two weeks at most.
The ban is bad in that once someone feels the need for them and gives the finger to whatever treaty, they are probably gonna go for cheaper persistent mines rather than mines that deactivate. Instead, it should have "banned" persistent mines and encouraged mines that deactivate, best method I have seen is simply require a battery to detonate and let the battery life be the limiting factor.
Such a blanket feel-good measure is certainly going to be broken sometime in the future and we will be back to the same problem we had before, persistent landmines.