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[–] 102 points 3 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 65 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

    The one-off test involved 10 AI-controlled “Terminator” drones on the front line of the Ukraine war.

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  • [–] 41 points 3 months ago* (22 children)

    Military training exists to brainwash decent human beings with a sense of morality and critical thinking abilities, who know they mustn't kill and would refuse requests to kill, into killing machines who are proud to follow orders (and then experience PTSD when they're returned to civilian life and realize what they've done).

    Therefore, I contend that fully autonomous drones have killed human beings since wars have been a thing, and those drones are called "soldiers".

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  • [–] 32 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    Fun and interesting take, as far as commentary on soldiers.

    These new fully autonomous drones though, are able to be mass produced by Capital. That's the important difference. It means that there is a nascent way, to bypass the need to have a country with high births to fuel a war machine, and you can just more easily Capital your way to domination.

    And that's kinda scary.

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    [–] 40 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Ah, splendid. We are barreling towards the Forever Winter nicely.

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    [–] 34 points 3 months ago

    You don’t often get a military holding a press conference to announce it has committed a war crime.

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  • [–] 25 points 3 months ago* (4 children)

    Eh. I see this as an "flying landmine," not an existential Terminator kind of thing.

    A computer is not making a "decision" to kill. Its a machine. It's bomb exploding when triggered, just with extra steps of flying to a specific spot.


    It's morally problematic. Like landmines.

    But I think people are falsly attributing anything resembling sentience to this system, like they do with conversation-trained LLMs. Humans made the “decision” way ahead of time, just like when they set up land mines or perform a bombing run.

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    [–] 16 points 3 months ago (15 children)

    Yeah, let's hope we don't make a habit out of this. Landmines are already bad enough.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    The only thing that could have stopped this would have been the lower classes, worldwide, becoming a unified front for the last century or more. These killbots are not only here, already and being used, they will become the default within 5 years. Watch.

    None of the world's governments have lifted a finger in the last year of continuous, televised genocides of civilians, women, the elderly, and children. They certainly aren't going to draw a line in the sand for unseen killbots that nebulously might be responsible for some civilian deaths at some point in the future.

    Not only will these be used in war, these will be used in civilian life too. How do you think the world's wealthy plan to stay that way?

    They know very well that in the past when inequality has risen to these levels, they fall. They know it's because no guards will chose them over the mass of, now angry, people that the guards were birthed from and spent their lives with.

    The killbots are for you and me baby. It is already written.

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    [–] 16 points 3 months ago* (17 children)

    I'm glad they, allegedly, stopped after the one test. This sounds an awful lot like a war crime on Ukraine's part. Enemy combatants (especially since we know most of Russia's army are being trafficked) need the opportunity to surrender peacefully.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 months ago* (12 children)

    Pretty sure it's not a war crime yet. Damn sure it should be. Human in the loop. Update Geneva conventions.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    As if having a human in the loop would make slaughtering people more humanitarian. How many reports have we read of soldiers from any power perpetrating horrendous acts on enemy combatants, or worse, civilians?

    I agree that murder without prejudice should be curtailed if at all possible and that autonomous robots are not likely to accept surrender, but it's not like human agressors are always open to it either.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

    Not saying it's good, or humanitarian. War crimes don't stop war (much as I would prefer it all to be called murder rather than state sanctioned violence). The Geneva accords create a bottom level of godawful that is unacceptable that the various militaries agree on. Hopefully it helps protects civilians and soldiers both. AI weapons are a plausible existential threat, they should be treated as such, also, importantly, they are also a vector for plausible deniability.

    'Humans in the loop' could also provide a level of friction that might make atrocities less common as the commanders cover their asses by putting responsibility on those lower down in the hierarchy, who might choose not to. The only reason nuclear war didn't happen in the 60s was one person saying NO

    Of course, the US is (likely) currently bombing civilian water supplies, so we need to drag ourselves back up to basic humanity (and yes, humanity is anything but basic as history attends).

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    In this role, it should already be covered under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention IMO.
    Drones that kill anyone entering an area are just more sophisticated land mines.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago*

    Perhaps (and the uncertainty is part of the problem), but a more general scope is needed. If it's AI arguments will be made that no-one is responsible. Someone should be responsible for people getting killed, and justify themselves if needed, and face consequences if they cannot.

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    [–] 13 points 3 months ago* (5 children)

    Even setting aside any apocalyptic scenarios, this is bad. You used to have to look your enemy in the eyes and stab them. Then you just had to see them from afar and shoot them. Now you don't have to acknowledge them at all.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

    Most of the casualties were from bombers for a long time already, this is that but one step removed.
    It's bad for a different reason, you in this case don't exist anymore. We used to have people killing people, now there are autonomous robots doing this, and that's a new, completely different class of warfare.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Hasn't anyone seen Screamers (1995)? Or read Second Variety?

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    [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    Headline is somewhat misleading, article is based off an admission from a Ukrainian military officer about a test that happened two years ago.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    We are SO over due for revolution.

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    [–] 5 points 3 months ago* (8 children)

    No video? They did not know what the Ai chose until it sent a manned vehicle to check it out. That's extraordinarily concerning.

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