"War robots will lessen killing – not increase it" Topic

"Stemming from fear that autonomous robots could embark on a campaign of indiscriminate killing, some have called for a global moratorium on 'lethal autonomous robotics.' In fact, there is a convincing base of evidence that robots are more likely to prevent slaughter than engage in it…"

Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

One man's opinion, but… FALSE.

Taking the risk out by not having a MAN in the machine, whether by aerial drone or autonomous tracked/walking/wheeled war "bots," will only increase the the likelihood of opting for violent resolutions of conflict instead of hashing it out and reaching compromise.

If you are risking at least "a" life, be it a pilot or a soldier, your decision-making process at least INCLUDES taking that life (or lives of your own forces) into account in the pro/con columns… Take that element away, and it will only INCREASE the likelihood of using force instead of diplomacy.

Fact is noone knows. Could be that it enables you to take more 'risks' to identify the correct target and ensure that that, and that alone, is hit.

Afew minutes extra in the danger zone, a few hundred yards closer to the target…

I too find the "Less Death" opinion to be false.

Without balance of loss to your side (outside monetary) it removes the self-assured destruction clause from the unspoken agreement. It means I can spend as many drones as I need to get my point across. I don't have to care how many I wipe out getting the final result I want.

False.

Watched Doomsday Apocalypse last night.

One guy's theory is that the army will revolt (well, at least most of them), when ordered to fire on their own citizens.

So the corrupt leaders will just switch over to robots, which will have no such qualms, in order to keep themselves in power, and to control the masses.

Seems pretty plausible to me.

They also mentioned that quite soon, robots will be smarter than we are (that IBM computer already beats the chess masters), so they surmise that it won't be long before the robots are in control, and we will be working for them. They'll be linked to the most up to date info, and humans won't have a chance, since we can't think as quickly as they do.

Do we rely on Asimov….
'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.'

Or Skynet………..?

Asimov's Laws don't work without a definition of acceptable risk.

Historically new weapons have only increased lethality. Although one has to give the Spartans props for killing 100,000 guys with spears. One of the things humans excel at is killing each other. Robots will just be a new means to that end. Fact is for much of the world life is cheap.

To paraphrase Zap Brannigan "whatever it is, I'm willing to throw wave after wave of war bots at it"

Didn't Alfred Nobel assume that his invention of dynamite, among his other tools and weapons used by the military, would put an end to war itself? Maybe they'll start a peace prize named after some awesome killing robot.

There have been lots of times and places in the past where war was mainly conducted by professional armies. How lethal a weapon is doesn't determine how many people it kills. How it is used determines that.

Corrupt leaders may well use robots to kill more people – but then they would do the same using human soldiers.

The higher cost of robotic weaponry suggests that using them indiscriminately would be wasteful – you use your small number of weapons against the population while your opponent uses their small number against military targets, you're going to lose.

The reason it's easy to beat swords into plowshares is that many melee weapons started as farm implements.

IMO: anything that removes the savagery of the act from those who commit it makes it easier to kill, not less.

To offer a counter opinion, the drone/robot/whatever using force can be much selective in how it uses force precisely since it's own guys AREN'T at risk. A lot of military decisions are made on the basis of 'it's not acceptable to risk our soldier's lives in order to make sure we don't hit any non-combatants/hit only the intended target/etc'. There's only so much chance you can reasonably ask a living soldier to deal with; if option A kills the enemy and lot of civilians but only exposes your soldiers to a 10% risk of death, and option B kills ONLY the enemy soldiers but puts your soldiers at a 50% chance of death, what do you choose? For example, if you're a military commander and the enemy is holed and well dug in some village, are you going to shell or bomb the village into oblivion, possibly killing some civilians, and save some of your men's lives, or are going to assault the fortified enemy knowing you'll lose a lot more men in the process? I think most commanders would reasonably choose the first option over the second, even with civilians caught in the cross fire. If you're sending in robots though, suddenly assaulting the village directly, possibly saving a lot of civilian's lives in the process, becomes much more viable; the robot's much higher acceptable casualty rate will result in less people being killed over all.

Would it turn out this way all the time? Certainly not. But it's the use of robot systems changes a lot of the 'game theory' that goes into military planning, possibly for the better.

-Will

We've had bloody wars fought with anything from clubs and swords, up close and personal to bombers and rockets controlled from the other side of the world. Fought by professional soldiers or armed mobs of civilians. We've had state sanctioned genocide, religious wars, wars of conquest etc.

Robots don't change a thing, it's just another method of killing in the toolbox and at worst it allows those in charge to further isolate themselves from the violence and the aftermath.

-Dr. Richard Gatling followed that line of thinking in developing his eponymous weapon. It now can fire over 6000 rounds per minute.
-The entire Mutually Assured Destruction concept warplan was designed to make war too horrible to rationally contemplate--but since when has war ever been rational?
-Even defensive systems designed as countermeasures have been friction-points that might themselves cause an enemy to pre-emptively strike their owners because of a perceived invincibility the system would confer. See "Star Wars" and the Reagan era.
War cannot be made obsolete until man's innate need to impinge himself on his fellow man can be stopped permanently: which is, _never_.
<rant mode off, for now>

Didn't Alfred Nobel assume that his invention of dynamite, among his other tools and weapons used by the military, would put an end to war itself? Maybe they'll start a peace prize named after some awesome killing robot.

Thus, the Peace Prize when he realized that he was full of .
Asimov had too big an ego to ever contemplate that perhaps he too could be wrong.

Don't really care. Just know that every bot on the front lines is one less young American on the line. Money before blood.

But its not like we haven't been using bots for a long time. What is a guided missile or homing torpedo but a bot. Just like our everyday life, more and more smart machines will be used by the military. War is hell and saying otherwise is plain wrong. What is the difference when you die by a knife or a guided bomb? Dead is dead, no one can bring the dead back to life.

I have no problem with my country using drones or armed robots destroying our enemies. Is one side using advanced drones or robots any worse then what happened in the far corners of Africa, Asia or South America when a colonial power met a tribal nation? The one thing it teaches is if your opponent so out classes you in firepower, better to not fight the battle in the first place. Is there another nation on earth that can stand up to an angry US determined it will have vengeance.

I never believe one should go seeking war, but if one must fight make sure you do it with all possible force, terror and destruction that you can apply. What is more terrifying then a robot coming at you that takes more firepower then you have at hand to stop? What destroys ones nerve more then a missile coming down from the sky, like the hand of God, to destroy everyone around you?

I'd preface by saying that there's no absolutely no way any of us, or any analysts, can talk about this with authority. It hasn't happened yet. With a million opinions, SOMEONE is bound to be proven right after-the-fact, but purely by virtue of random chance.

With that said, military operations are at least partially ordered by political leaders on a cost/benefit basis. Lower the first-order potential human cost, and you'll see more frequent fighting. Fighting that will last until the HUMAN cost (lives or wealth) becomes prohibitive for one side or the other.

Skynet Peace Prize.

They Have A Plan.

You Will Be Assimilated.

Hasta la Vista, Baybee.

Sounds kinda the same, if they even bother to tell us what they're up to.

I think the author's argument isn't without merit. He's saying that if robots are in a dangerous situation, fewer accidental collateral damage to the other side may occur because in a similar situation a real soldier may decide to 'shoot first and ask questions later' because of his belief that his life is at risk. The robot will not be in the same 'clear and present danger' situation as a flesh-and-blood soldier and can take much greater risks and the time to ascertain the nature of the enemy.

I remember reports in newspapers by embedded journalists attached with various American units during the second Gulf War about soldiers who fire at targets they believed to be enemy combatants and later find that they're unarmed civvies including children.

G Dog – you are horribly misquoting even in the paraphrase…

It was the OPPOSITE – Zap threw wave after wave of HIS OWN TROOPS at killbots until they reached their, "kill limit," and shut down – so it was massive HUMAN deaths.

As already noted, Richard Gatling and Alfred Noble hoped their inventions/designs would save lives too … But as a former Company Commander, I would have liked to have a few T-2 types in each Squad … If for no other reason than they can stay on 100% alert, 100% of the time …

That guy needs to watch "Screamers".

Garrisson, How much money does it take to train and equip 1 GI in the US Army? I'd wager a couple hundred grand for a year in toto. If they can get an effective battlefield robot mass produced for twice that cost they are in business.

Asimov was hoping that robots would be developed for peaceful means …..much in the vein of Nobel & co.

Oh, there are PLENTY of robots being used for peaceful ends, and more on the way. Military applications are definitely the second string currently.

But 28mm Fanatik hit what was I trying to say but much more elegantly; when it's a robot on the line and not a living soldier, you can always afford to shoot second. And that's what is going to save lives.

-Will

Asimov had too big an ego to ever contemplate that perhaps he too could be wrong.

I disagree. How many of his books are built around the problems caused by his Laws of Robotics?

when it's a robot on the line and not a living soldier, you can always afford to shoot second. And that's what is going to save lives.

Good point. Makes it relatively easy to confirm hostility that way!

Of course it may cost the side using robots less human losses … but may certainly increase losses for the other side … Which would have worked for me as a Commander if I had a few T-2s in my unit …

"Yo,Gilgamesh !"
"Nebuchadnezzar, my main man !"
"What's up dude ?"
"I have made an invention that will change history."
"Testify, man."
"You know we have a serious clubbing problem. We have people fighting at the drop of a hat and out come the clubs, but I have solved the problem with this, the sword."
"Wow, radical !"
"The problem with the club is that it's too easy, it's not involved. You knock somebody over the head, they go down and that's it. But with the sword you have the sharp edge, blood, guts, you are directly confronted with life and death, there is no denying it or living with the thought that your opponent was merely stunned and didn't die. Once the sword is out there, everybody will be confronted with the harsh reality of war, see the consequences of violence and death up close and nobody will dare start a war ever again !"
"U r genius, we'll mass produce it so everybody can have one to remind them of the brutality of war !"

Unless we go back in time to Bronze Age notions of champions – my robot versus yours to determine the outcome of a conflict – any argument defending the development of yet more technologies in the pursuit of killing and destruction are disingenuous, fatuous and I have to say bloody-minded in the literal sense. It has long been the sustained argument of the bomber – any type of bomber whether you are a terrorist with a time-bomb or a pilot with a B52 – killing is okay if you aren't at risk and it's just the 'other side' the faceless enemy, the dehumanised foe who dies. Death and statistics.

Yeah, war is a , ain't it … And it does not look like it is going to change anytime soon, even with the addition of robots in the weapons' inventories … But again, from a former Grunt's tactical point of view, as long as the guys on the other are dieing … it's O.K. with me …