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AI Robotics The Military

Ex-Google Engineer Says That Robot Weapons May Cause Accidental Mass Killings (businessinsider.com) 107

"A former Google engineer who worked on the company's infamous military drone project has sounded a warning against the building of killer robots," reports Business Insider.

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger quotes their report: Laura Nolan had been working at Google four years when she was recruited to its collaboration with the US Department of Defense, known as Project Maven, in 2017, according to the Guardian. Project Maven was focused on using AI to enhance military drones, building AI systems which would be able to single out enemy targets and distinguish between people and objects. Google canned Project Maven after employee outrage, with thousands of employees signing a petition against the project and about a dozen quitting in protest. Google allowed the contract to lapse in March this year. Nolan herself resigned after she became "increasingly ethically concerned" about the project, she said...

Nolan fears that the next step beyond AI-enabled weapons like drones could be fully autonomous AI weapons. "What you are looking at are possible atrocities and unlawful killings even under laws of warfare, especially if hundreds or thousands of these machines are deployed," she said.... Although no country has yet come forward to say it's working on fully autonomous robot weapons, many are building more and more sophisticated AI to integrate into their militaries. The US navy has a self-piloting warship, capable of spending months at sea with no crew, and Israel boasts of having drones capable of identifying and attacking targets autonomously -- although at the moment they require a human middle-man to give the go-ahead.

Nolan is urging countries to declare an outright ban on autonomous killing robots, similar to conventions around the use of chemical weapons.

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Ex-Google Engineer Says That Robot Weapons May Cause Accidental Mass Killings

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  • by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @04:45PM (#59221402) Homepage Journal

    Hey Larry and Sergey, what the heck happened to you guys and your company. It started off so ethically, and look at it now. I guess power corrupts everyone it touches. I'm so glad I'm just a powerless nobody because I don't have to feel responsible for helping to destroy the lives of so many. :-(

    Most of us can't really change anything, other than ourselves. However, powerful people can change things for the better but they never seem to do so, instead they become arrogant and self-indulgent, why is that?

    • by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:07PM (#59221470) Homepage Journal

      There is nothing evil — nor even unethical — about weapons-development. Firing people for their opinions — unrelated to their duties [wsj.com] — now that may be wrong. Weapons-development? No, that is fine, whether you work for Google or General Dynamics.

      It started off so ethically, and look at it now

      Bullshit. It started off with an awesome search-engine, and that is why everybody liked it. And continues to.

      The moment someone creates a better search engine, we'll all switch over and Google will go the way of Altavista.

      • by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:29PM (#59221552) Homepage Journal

        There is nothing evil — nor even unethical — about weapons-development. Firing people for their opinions — unrelated to their duties [wsj.com] — now that may be wrong. Weapons-development? No, that is fine, whether you work for Google or General Dynamics.

        It started off so ethically, and look at it now

        Bullshit. It started off with an awesome search-engine, and that is why everybody liked it. And continues to.

        The moment someone creates a better search engine, we'll all switch over and Google will go the way of Altavista.

        There is nothing evil — nor even unethical — about weapons-development. Firing people for their opinions — unrelated to their duties [wsj.com] — now that may be wrong. Weapons-development? No, that is fine, whether you work for Google or General Dynamics.

        It started off so ethically, and look at it now

        Bullshit. It started off with an awesome search-engine, and that is why everybody liked it. And continues to.

        The moment someone creates a better search engine, we'll all switch over and Google will go the way of Altavista.

        I can't agree with anything you claim, violence simply begets more violence. Even in cases of self defence, violence is rarely, if ever, the best option. You're obviously not familiar with Morihei Ueshiba and Aikido, but you've most likely heard of Gandhi, so you should be aware there are realistically better options than resorting to violence. Violence is merely the last and usual response of the incompetent. Weapons development is merely the advancement and reliance upon violence. The only end to an arms race is mutually assured destruction. Hardly a sought after outcome. People really need to stop spouting such uninformed militaristic justifications. It's dangerous and ridiculous.I doubt if you will get this, but many, many others do.

        As for the search engine argument, the two founders of Google built the best search engine at the time, but they also started the company with the motto "Do No Evil", and Google has absolutely no business being involved in the development of lethal weapons that no one really needs. There's quite a few options in the search field these days, google isn't the "best" in all areas anymore, especially where privacy is concerned. You seem a little naive, giving all the allegations Google is embroiled in. Google is so well capitalized, it's not going anywhere, even if there are better engines.

        Advocation and furtherment of violence is ethically wrong. No matter how you slice it.

        • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by mi ( 197448 )

          violence simply begets more violence

          This is completely untrue — a bullshit platitude. With enough violence applied to Japanese and Germans, we actually defeated them...

          What begets more violence is pulling back, not finishing the enemy off — witness Putin's Russia, where the regime was allowed to survive after losing the (Cold) war. The same soft-headed exaltations about violence and giving peace a chance were certainly heard in the White House of George Bush and then Bill Clinton...

          started the c

          • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            violence simply begets more violence

            This is completely untrue — a bullshit platitude. With enough violence applied to Japanese and Germans, we actually defeated them...

            What begets more violence is pulling back, not finishing the enemy off — witness Putin's Russia, where the regime was allowed to survive after losing the (Cold) war. The same soft-headed exaltations about violence and giving peace a chance were certainly heard in the White House of George Bush and then Bill Clinton...

            started the company with the motto "Do No Evil"

            Which was bullshit — typical California bullshit, I might add — from the first day.

            development of lethal weapons that no one really needs

            We do need them — to be able to project our power in comfort and without risking the fellow citizens. We happen to care about every life — and the enemies know it [nationalinterest.org] and will try to inflict maximum death toll to make America lose the will to fight. That's our weakness. But we are also better at technology (perhaps for the same reasons) — the strength we ought to use to compensate.

            You seem a little naive

            Yes, one of us is naive — the one repeating the meaningless maxims about violence.

            Google is so well capitalized, it's not going anywhere

            There was a time, when people were saying the same about Digital Equipment — Altavista's owner...

            There's no proof that past wars wouldn't have different outcomes if non-violence and non-cooperation was used instead of violence, however I suspect you're too closed minded to even try to understand this. By the way, bullshit and platitude are pejorative terms that weaken your argument. I can see there's no point in arguing with someone who's convinced they are right and they feel they have no need to really think about what they are saying.

            Tell you what, just try using violence yourself, or go tell your k

            • There's no proof that past wars wouldn't have different outcomes if non-violence and non-cooperation was used instead of violence,

              I'm curious. How, exactly, would "non-violence and non-cooperation" have worked in, for instance, the Philippines (occupied by Japan), and France (occupied by the Germans)? For that matter, how would it have worked in Australia (if noone had actually fought the Japanese) and the UK (if the inhabitants hadn't fought the Germans)?

              • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

                There's no proof that past wars wouldn't have different outcomes if non-violence and non-cooperation was used instead of violence,

                I'm curious. How, exactly, would "non-violence and non-cooperation" have worked in, for instance, the Philippines (occupied by Japan), and France (occupied by the Germans)? For that matter, how would it have worked in Australia (if noone had actually fought the Japanese) and the UK (if the inhabitants hadn't fought the Germans)?

                The very same way it worked in India. It may have taken longer, there would still be deaths, but there may not have been as many, but eventually I believe that no evil can last if the people won't allow it. I have no doubt that some people will be unable to understand this, but I know it to be true, based upon my direct experience. Non-violence isn't the same as not fighting, it's simply the superior way to overcome your enemies evil intentions. It's much harder, but it is better. Resorting to violence is w

                • Wow that is so shockingly naive. Not even sure where to start. So you think the WW2 Japanese would have simply succumbed to a fit of Good Will if the US and the rest of the pacific rim just lay down and let them take over everything? What? Or how about we go back in time to another classic, Rome vs. Carthage. If the Romans hadn't smashed Carthage, literally salted the earth, killed all the men and enslaved the rest, then you think what? That if the Romans sent flowers instead the Carthaginians would
                  • A taxi driver in Indonesia once told me something interesting. He likes America _because_ we nuked the Japanese. He felt that without the atomic attack that abruptly ended the war, the Japanese would never have relinquished their control of Indonesia.

                    I don't know if I agree with his historical theory; and I, for one, do not approve of the nuclear bombing of Japan. But, this taxi driver certainly had an interesting and rarely heard viewpoint.

                    • He's right. If Japan had been on the winning side it is ridiculous to believe they would have voluntarily given up control of their pacific empire. Why would they? "Because Ghandi" is the kind of fairytale children are taught so they won't beat each other up while adults aren't looking. Indonesia, Australia, new zealand, China, Korea, and the US west coast would all be under Japanese imperial rule today. Instead they got nuked. Twice. Result? Japanese culture took a hard shift away from their ancient
                    • He felt that without the atomic attack that abruptly ended the war, the Japanese would never have relinquished their control of Indonesia.

                      I took a WWII Pacific Theater history class in college. We spent a lot of time discussing reasons for and against the nuking of Japan. One interesting thing was that Japan was apparently working with Russia on a treaty.... Except the treaty was basically "Stop attacking Japan and let them own every bit of land they took control of during the war."

                      Also some of the Japanese military generals were apparently war crazy. Despite the whole "Hey guys sacrifice yourself for the Emperor, he's a god and you'll h

                  • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

                    Wow that is so shockingly naive. Not even sure where to start. So you think the WW2 Japanese would have simply succumbed to a fit of Good Will if the US and the rest of the pacific rim just lay down and let them take over everything? What? Or how about we go back in time to another classic, Rome vs. Carthage. If the Romans hadn't smashed Carthage, literally salted the earth, killed all the men and enslaved the rest, then you think what? That if the Romans sent flowers instead the Carthaginians would have just collapsed and surrendered? Dear God, don't they teach history anymore? Oh that's right. Since I was in high school forever ago they switched from history where we learned real things to "social studies" where we filled children's mushy heads with cotton candy and pebbles rattling around. You think North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China, and the rest of the current crop of scummy evil fascist mass murderers is shaking and quivering in terror at the idea that the US will surrender? Or are they more concerned about being on the receiving end of whatever secret shit is sitting in a bunker on some secret Air Force base or on a sub marine waiting for the order to attack?

                    Wow that is so shockingly naive. Not even sure where to start. So you think the WW2 Japanese would have simply succumbed to a fit of Good Will if the US and the rest of the pacific rim just lay down and let them take over everything? What? Or how about we go back in time to another classic, Rome vs. Carthage. If the Romans hadn't smashed Carthage, literally salted the earth, killed all the men and enslaved the rest, then you think what? That if the Romans sent flowers instead the Carthaginians would have just collapsed and surrendered? Dear God, don't they teach history anymore? Oh that's right. Since I was in high school forever ago they switched from history where we learned real things to "social studies" where we filled children's mushy heads with cotton candy and pebbles rattling around. You think North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China, and the rest of the current crop of scummy evil fascist mass murderers is shaking and quivering in terror at the idea that the US will surrender? Or are they more concerned about being on the receiving end of whatever secret shit is sitting in a bunker on some secret Air Force base or on a sub marine waiting for the order to attack?

                    Hardly, if anyone is being willfully naive, it's you and people like you, who think violence really solves anything. Yes, I think non-aggression and non-co-operation would have succeeded given time, and may have cost less lives, and in the end would have left us with a better geopolitical situation then we have now. We certainly wouldn't have nuked two cities full of people who were non-combatants. One wrong does not justify another. You, and people like you, are the naive ones, you really think that the us

                    • So, I provide you with a few key elements of historical reality, you respond with feel good and your based on nothing hope that maybe after a few hundred years of imperial Japanese rule they would become good guys. And then you really hit home with that comment on an obvious typo. Your arguments are empty and shallow. Your theories contradict all of human history. And you responded to none of my very factual historical points. Because you can't. Please explain in detail how Rome vs. Carthage was going
                • by Cederic ( 9623 )

                  Given the willingness of the German regime before and after their invasion of Poland to mass murder anybody that they perceived as a threat I'm struggling to understand how a policy of letting them get on with that would lead to a change in regime.

                  there would still be deaths, but there may not have been as many

                  It would have taken them a while but the Germans are very efficient. They'd have genocided every country between Germany and Russia and pretty much the whole of Russia had nobody resorted to evil violence to stop them.

                  Don't be so fucking naive.

                • by mi ( 197448 )

                  The very same way it worked in India.

                  Try convincing your friends in Gaza to switch to this method. I'll wait...

            • by mi ( 197448 )

              There's no proof that past wars wouldn't have different outcomes if non-violence and non-cooperation was used instead of violence

              Blah-blah. Point was, we did win these wars by violence — which confirms, that your statement "violence only [emphasis mine] begets violence" was untrue and invalid, making the rest of your argument null and void.

              Remember to logout.

          • both of them over extended themselves. The Japanese especially had already long since lost the war when we dropped the nukes. We just wanted to see what they would do.

            Also, the violence of WWII was completely unnecessary. Japan was trying to steal land because we as a civilization couldn't yet support that many people on that small a land mass. Germany was reeling from WWI and the reparations imposed. In both cases if we hadn't wasted 1000+ years on dark ages and war we wouldn't have been in that positi
            • Violence collapsed the size of the world from zillions of useless farming villages into a few hundred counties with a handful of true world spanning powers. Only violence could have made that happen. The result has been tremendous advances in technology in every field which now allows use to support 8 billion people and more every day. Darwin would strongly suggest that your theories are incorrect. History has proved it.
          • We happen to care about every life...

            Fallujah. Hadditha. 1 million murdered for a WMD lie. Not just wrong, PROPAGANDA wrong!!

        • by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @06:00PM (#59221676)

          ... you're obviously not familiar with Morihei Ueshiba and Aikido ...

          That is civilian self defense, not military. Apples and oranges.

          ... but you've most likely heard of Gandhi ...

          You only heard of him because he opposed a civilized western culture that was relatively low on the body count scale of things. Try that with a different government and he'd of been dead at a young age.

          ... so you should be aware there are realistically better options than resorting to violence ...

          You own logic proves you wrong in this case. Having a military is the government level equivalent to a civilian studying Akido. Training and arming a military is no more an act of violence than regularly going to the dojo to learn a marital art.

          Violence is merely the last and usual response of the incompetent.

          And a last resort of self defense as every martial arts teaches.

          • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            ... you're obviously not familiar with Morihei Ueshiba and Aikido ...

            That is civilian self defense, not military. Apples and oranges.

            ... but you've most likely heard of Gandhi ...

            You only heard of him because he opposed a civilized western culture that was relatively low on the body count scale of things. Try that with a different government and he'd of been dead at a young age.

            ... so you should be aware there are realistically better options than resorting to violence ...

            You own logic proves you wrong in this case. Having a military is the government level equivalent to a civilian studying Akido. Training and arming a military is no more an act of violence than regularly going to the dojo to learn a marital art.

            Violence is merely the last and usual response of the incompetent.

            And a last resort of self defense as every martial arts teaches.

            No, not true, "Ueshiba created Aikido as a means to create world peace through love and harmony." see https://swordsmithvs.wordpress... [wordpress.com]

            The basis of Aikido is that self-defence is more effective than violence and that violence never achieves a true peaceful outcome that benefits all. You're trying to justify violence by claiming that out of violence comes goodness. This is illogical and untrue.

            Even if Gandhi had been killed, his philosophy of non violence would have had the same outcome had it been observed

            • by drnb ( 2434720 )

              No, not true, "Ueshiba created Aikido as a means to create world peace through love and harmony."

              Yeah, world peace and harmony through strikes to the head, nose, face, neck, etc. Those too are part of the training. Oh but that's just so a partner can attack while you learn to defend, right, because in the real world a fight looks like two people practicing kata. You speak of only the romanticized in-the-dojo practice of Akido, tournament Akido. In the real world those joint locks become joint breaks, those training strikes real strikes, etc. When you or a loved one is in danger your mentality changes.

              You're trying to justify violence by claiming that out of violence comes goodness.

              N

              • There are no strikes in Aikido, and even in the pre-war aiki-jujitsu style there were not any; Morihei Ueshiba was teaching a soft-form graduate-level art and all students were already blackbelts in striking arts before becoming students.

                People with these skills don't actually need to punch and kick for self defense; their knowledge of striking allows them to move out of the way, to deflect the forces.

                There is nothing at all pacifist about aikido; you actively teach peace by physically preventing your assai

                • There are no strikes in Aikido, ...

                  Strikes are taught so that a partner may play the role of the aggressor. It is a tool in the toolbox that will get used when not doing kata performances in a dojo.

                  ... you actively teach peace by physically preventing your assailant from succeeding in violence. Committing violence against them would entirely negate this lesson ...

                  Such theory and philosophy, like all plans, get abandoned when "punched in the face". Then its every tool in the toolbox, dojo or tournament approved or not, philosophically compliant or not. Or you get the crap kidded out of you and are at he mercy of the aggressor, there is no shortage of blackbelts who got their asses kicked trying to stick to

            • "Ueshiba created Aikido as a means to create world peace through love and harmony."

              The cited book is not historically accurate. The quoted words were almost certainly spoken by his son Kisshomaru Ueshiba.

              Almost everything that isn't also part of aiki-jujitsu is believed to have been alterations by Kisshomaru. He was head of the dojo in the post-war period, even while Morihei Ueshiba was still actively teaching. By all accounts, Morihei was only giving occasional demonstrations and lectures, and his demonstrations were often very very different than what the students were actually practici

          • Ueshiba converted his jujitsu form, which had a lot of emphasis on modern bayonet techniques, to Aikido in response to the invention of nuclear weapons and his realization that hand-to-hand combat was now deprecated as a means of warfare. However, it was still a useful method of self defense and de-escalation. So the deadly stuff was removed. It doesn't actually help you defend yourself if you kill an attacker, outside of a military context.

            Aikido is not a last resort. Active de-escalation is a first resort

            • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

              Ueshiba converted his jujitsu form, which had a lot of emphasis on modern bayonet techniques, to Aikido in response to the invention of nuclear weapons and his realization that hand-to-hand combat was now deprecated as a means of warfare. However, it was still a useful method of self defense and de-escalation. So the deadly stuff was removed. It doesn't actually help you defend yourself if you kill an attacker, outside of a military context.

              Aikido is not a last resort. Active de-escalation is a first resort.

              Aikido is not Aikijutsu, nor is it strictly speaking just a martial art, it is also a philosophy developed by one of the world most effective martial artists. i don't recall ever hearing of anyone defeating him in combat. I respect his depth of understanding on this issue more than any other person. If he says defence is more powerful than attack, I believe it. The evidence of Aikido's effectiveness is clear and obvious.

              See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

              "Ueshiba's martial arts philosophy of extending lo

              • i don't recall ever hearing of anyone defeating him in combat.

                Nobody who is following the rules you mean.
                Trouble with war is that there are no rules.

          • of the British occupation of India was like? Or the British Empire in General? If you did "low body count" wouldn't be a phrase you'd use, even with the "relatively" qualifier. The Brits were bastards to their territories. They were a small island nation maintaining a global empire. Just like how Beijing needs brutality to keep the provinces in line.

            What Ghandi accomplished without violence was amazing.
            • by Cederic ( 9623 )

              What Ghandi achieved is fuck all that wasn't going to happen anyway. The UK was dismantling its empire and seeking to enable self rule everywhere.

              Not to mention that the British were far less violent in India than the warlords they supplanted. They didn't want to violently rule a country, they wanted to raise its ability to prosper and trade, which increased the living standards for its inhabitants.

        • You've "quoted" the motto a couple times now, so maybe it would be helpful to know what the motto actually was. You've substituted your own words and different meaning.

          The motto was "don't be evil", which meant "don't be Microsoft".

          Secondly, why, exactly, do you think Chinese troops aren't occupying South Korea, and indeed the United States, at this moment? I'll give you one hint about why you're not living in China-occupied territory right now - it's 5.56Ã--45mm.

          • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            You've "quoted" the motto a couple times now, so maybe it would be helpful to know what the motto actually was. You've substituted your own words and different meaning.

            The motto was "don't be evil", which meant "don't be Microsoft".

            Secondly, why, exactly, do you think Chinese troops aren't occupying South Korea, and indeed the United States, at this moment? I'll give you one hint about why you're not living in China-occupied territory right now - it's 5.56Ã--45mm.

            Don't be evil / Do no evil ... honestly, I don't see the difference, but yah, you're right, the words are slightly different even if the meaning isn't, nor do I agree with your "don't be microsoft", actually I suspect it was because the founders didn't like how big tech companies often acted immorally. My point remains the same, Google is now acting like any other immoral corporation.

            The Chinese government is struggling to maintain its control even as we speak, like all tyrannies, their days are numbered, d

      • And on that day, a lot of us will say "Altavista, baby" in a bad Schwarzenegger voice.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        If someone asks you to develop an illegal weapon, say one designed to cause blindness which is outlawed under the Geneva Convention, it's unethical. It could also land you in jail.

        Developing an AI that could result in mass murderer is an ethical quagmire. In the news today I saw the a drone pilot accidentally killed 30 farmers in Afghanistan. Would AI be more reliable than that? Presumably the only reason the pilot or the person who ordered the strike isn't going to the Hague is because the US won't identif

        • "Presumably the only reason the pilot or the person who ordered the strike isn't going to the Hague is because the US won't identify or extradite them, but what if your CV says you worked on the AI? It's that an admission of guilt?"

          Are you for real? This is such a bizarre line of reasoning, as if employees of Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc. are not locked up or extradited because the government doesn't identify them? What the actual f***?

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The person responsible for the decision to fire the missile is responsible. With current drones that's the mission commander or pilot, with AI it would be the creators of the AI who set its decision making parameters and trained it to identify targets.

        • by Cederic ( 9623 )

          a drone pilot accidentally killed 30 farmers in Afghanistan. Would AI be more reliable than that? Presumably the only reason the pilot or the person who ordered the strike isn't going to the Hague

          No. AI will make mistakes too. Plus accidentally killing people isn't a war crime and The Hague would have no case to prosecute.

          The US rules of engagement are fucked and do cause them many problems but that doesn't make necessarily them war crimes. At most a prosecution for manslaughter would be appropriate, and I would hope the Afghan government are demanding it.

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        Nobody ever claimed there was anything *illegal* about weapons development. That's a straw man.

        As for unethical, sure: there is nothing unethical *per se* about weapons development. That does not mean that every weapons project is automatically OK. For example, in the past US researchers have seriously examined the possibility of an automated doomsday weapon. Determining the feasibility of such a device and examining its implications is certainly ethical, but had steps been taken to actually build such

        • Nobody ever claimed there was anything *illegal* about weapons development.

          AmiMoJo did, it is right above you in the thread. LOL

          This is slashdot. It doesn't matter how stupid an opinion is, it will be represented.

      • It's unlikely that we'll see a better search engine for decades, maybe ever. The problem is that search has a data dependency and benefits from a network effect, so the more people use google, the better it gets. It has more search queries to build off of, and the better data makes for better results. The effect amplifies.

        Even if two Googles started at the same time with the same algorithm, the one that started with 50.1% market share would win in the long run, all other things being equal.

        It will take an e

      • if you're making a weapon that will ultimately be used to oppress humanity for millennium then yeah, that's unethical.

        Think of it this way, imagine if the rich and powerful could kill anyone they want at any time not by asking for a thug to do it (and thereby risking being told no or worse getting killed by their own thugs) but by pushing a button. Mix in a little automation and the oligarchy has zero need for the masses except as occasional entertainment. It would be a dark age that makes the last 1000
        • by Cederic ( 9623 )

          Anybody smart enough to make those weapons also knows that they will be made, by someone, and the correct response is to thus assure their availability is not restricted to only the oligarchy.

          It's a bit like nuclear weapons. You can't win a war against someone that has them; only agree to lose one.

      • There is nothing evil — nor even unethical — about weapons-development.

        That depends if the weapon you are developing is legal. Example - USA outsourced biological weapon development program being run in Georgia. The work described in patents produced b the programme is clearly a result of the violation of international conventions. Example - biological weapon patents like US Number 8967029 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8967029B1/en) or chemical warfare patents like number 8794155 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/8794155). There may be more to that too ( https://www.n [naturalblaze.com]

      • Not only is weapons development unethical...it is a war crime when applied to non-combatants.
        Which this does
      • Oh, and remember the woman hating Engineer with the "blast all" antiwoman polemic?
        Lawful firing said the NLRB and then the 5th Circuit
    • WTF ever happened to "Do No Evil"?
      It wasn't profitable enough. Getting rid of all those pesky morals and ethics opened the door to wild amounts of riches. Might even be enough to pay the Ferryman.
    • Their current logo is "Let's make money". It has been like that ever since Eric Schmidt made his way into Google. What I am interested in knowing is if Google ever got forced to give up this information willingly by a government operation, or because its funding came from a source that needed the data (get paid or get shut down).
    • Hey Larry and Sergey, what the heck happened to you guys and your company.

      Shareholders demanded a return on their investment. Welcome to capitalism.

    • [Was Re:WTF ever happened to "Do No Evil"?]

      The google's new motto is "All your attention are belong to us!"

      Amazon's ideal is "All your shopping history are belong to us!"

      Facebook's real motto is "All your engagement are belong to us!"

      But the winner is....

      Apple's motto is "All your orgasm are belong to us!"

      Yeah, it's a GAFA joke. However, even I don't think it's is funny enough to become a genre. But it did originate from a dinner discussion with a co-worker gone Googler before he vanished into the black ho

  • by Lije Baley ( 88936 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @04:47PM (#59221410)

    The moral of the story is that exaggerating about the present capabilities of "AI" can do more than just fleece investors.

  • Coulda woulda shoulda.
  • Don't worry (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:03PM (#59221458)
    You have 15 seconds to comply.
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:07PM (#59221476)

    First self aware robot, scanning internet for texts...

    Ex-Google Engineer Says That Robot Weapons May Cause Accidental Mass Killings

    Robot: Oh, I may, may I? Permission Granted! Thanks!

  • Pure FUD.

    "What you are looking at are possible atrocities and unlawful killings even under laws of warfare, especially if hundreds or thousands of these machines are deployed,"

    OMG! If there were thousands of these things (that don't actually exist) deployed in combat, people might die!

  • Another doomsday warning. (yawn)

  • May and might. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:35PM (#59221596)

    That's the realms of risk management. Quite correct to say "X may happen". But where, on the spectrum of possibilities? People have been aware of this risk for a goodly long time, and there are literally hordes of people working on solutions to make it as unlikely as possible.
    What I'm seeing increasingly is people having absolutely no concept of where on the spectrum of risk things are, and marking any risk as unacceptable. This is, of course, impossible. With that kind of thinking, at the start of humanity, someone would have been looking at how to create fire, and people would have mobbed them that it was crazy to do that, as just think of all the people that would be killed by fire, and thus stopped the development of the ability to start fire.
    They would, of course, have been right. Over the millennia since that time, countless people have died by fire. However, the lives protected, nurtured and ultimately saved by it are far greater.
    I'm all for people opening the cans of worms, and saying "there's a risk here that people need to pay attention to". That's good practice.
    Shutting everything down because you see a risk that you don't have the ability or training to put into correct context is very bad practice.

  • by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:36PM (#59221600)

    Really she must be a political engineer looking to move into management because this is issue came went and had been decided over 50 years ago. It was too late when the first smart bomb was invented and you really have to look at the world with your eyes closed to not understand that it's been that way since WWII when both sides were already deploying smart and semi smart weapons.

    Hell B. F. Skinner managed to turn pigeons into a guidance system for anti ship bombs.

    I really want to see how she plans to stop anyone who wants to from weaponizing one of these little single board robotics/vision processing platforms

    https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/a... [nvidia.com]

    • by lazarus ( 2879 )

      Indeed, any sort of moratorium on "killer robots" will fail for the same reason the US won't sign on to anything that limits weapons use (like land mines): "If we don't have them and some rogue state does, then the American people are at risk." I'm not saying that is a constructive world view, that is just the way it is.

      You know it takes a good guy with an autonomous killer robot to stop a bad guy with an autonomous killer robot...

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Remember when office and storefront automation first got big? How employees who interacted with customers would fall back on "the computer did (or didn't) do something" and I have no way to help you?

    Guess what the creators and owners of all this automated gear are going to say when it runs amok? I'm not so concerned about AI itself as I am about how it will let people involved with it avoid responsibility. And when it's weaponry, it becomes a license to kill.

    • When a bomb or artillery shell goes astray and causes friendly or civilian casualties, it's routine to hear the "plane or gun had a bug, wasn't me" excuse today right?

      Accidents happen, responsible people own their mistakes. AI does not change that one way or the other AT ALL.

  • by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:41PM (#59221628)

    The First Law of Robotics

  • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Saturday September 21, 2019 @05:48PM (#59221648)

    A bottle of chlorine gas can cause mass killings, and it is dumb as a rock. Maybe dumber. Doesn't stop us from sending bottles of chlorine gas to public swimming pools.

    • We don't send 'bottles of chlorine gas' to swimming pools, though, what they put in pools is a chemical compound of which chlorine is only one component.
      If you want to use thinking like that, then table salt should be classified as a dangerous substance because it contains sodium (which explodes when exposed to water, and your body is full of water)and chlorine.
    • I was watching an oil train roll by, car after car of hazard class 3, then one in the middle with cyanide gas (class 6). Then a little while later, a mystery car, class 9, black and white bars. Class 9 is, "we're not going to tell you."

      We send all sorts of stuff "around." Bad things usually don't happen.

  • Meanwhile on Caprica, Graystone Industry files a copyright claim.
  • Drone from Camp Pendleton escapes and kills lotsa people in either San Clemente or Oceanside. I'm hoping for San Clemente cuz my stepson and his family live in Oceanside.
  • They're called 'UAVs'.

    As a sidebar to this subject, I think we should get every nation on Earth to outlaw the use of guns, bombs, and any other deadly weapon that kills from a distance, and re-arm everyone with edged weapons and mass weapons instead. Bring back the real 'horrors of war': dismemberment, disembowelment, massive lacerations, massive blunt-force trauma (smashed skulls, crushed limbs, etc). Guaranteed, it'd discourage war.
    Too bad we can't erase the technology of bows/arrows, gunpowder, guns,
  • Ronson has written our epitaph?
    • by malkavian ( 9512 )

      The maker of lighters? :)
      Or would that be Rossum, from Rossum's Universal Robots? Did that play back in my school years, and still remember it!

      • seeing that we are splitting hairs on a gnats ass, it is "Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti". but why is the main issue being side stepped? which is, "there exits robots that can wash my car, and wipe your bottom?" i think that you would find this a social blessing.
    • Bolo

      We can only hope that AI research achieves the kind of sapient AIs Bolos were equipped with. Ethical, loyal, exceedingly intelligent, endlessly helpful (to humans), and even self-sacrificing if necessary.

      We have a hard time raising humans like that, nevermind artificial persons.

  • The amount of effort to get a drone to fly around randomly and zero in on faces (like by using one of a billion face-finding APIs), and fly directly at the face, and then zap it with some kind of payload (a puff of deadly gas, a bullet, a bomb, etc), is beyond trivial. Any one of a million engineers today given a bit of money and time can build such a system. It could be released into a crowd or a busy street and nobody would be able to stop it or even find the culprits. The time for putting serious thou

  • A remotely human-operated aircraft just blew up a bunch of farmers. Why would an autonomous software-operated aircraft be immune to that kind of mistake? GIGO.

  • Its time to address the gorilla in the room; my dirty dishes. I need my lawn mowed! I have a car that needs a tune up, not an up sale. Paint my house. And dont get me started on the weeds in my garden.

    to me, the only thing that robots are taking over, is the head lines on my daily fish wrap.
  • How many times have I heard people say that it doesn't matter if robot cars kill people if they save more lives in the end. Is there not a vastly greater potential for robotic weapons to save lives?
  • Like self-driving cars, the question is: Will it be safer than human-piloted drones?

    https://www.facebook.com/nsarwark/posts/1709537215846292

  • Even if we have a treaty don't expect them to honour it. In the case of smallpox that's well documented that Russia even though we're a free society and they really could tell if we were developing smallpox as a weapon went ahead and did it anyway. They didn't believe that we weren't doing it.

    Same thing will be true here, only the temptation is way more. Biologics I could see people thinking - this is nuts. This could be the thing that kills us all. With AI the master will always think he's in control.

    Shake

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