Coming Soon to a Battlefield: Robots That Can Kill

The Atlantic ^ | September 3, 2019 | Zachary Fryer--Biggs

[C19fan]

Replacing citizen-soldiers with robots will have profound societal impacts. A major force behind the liberal-constitutionalism movements of the 19th century was the replacement of small professional armies with levée en masse armies. What happens in a country where robots can do the fighting and a governing elite does not need ordinary citizens to be soldiers?

[fruser1]

“what happens”

They enact red flag laws.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[EEGator]

Soylent Green, Terminator or Idiocracy.

[neverevergiveup]

But, ‘the three laws’..

[dfwgator]

From the movie “Patton”:

“Wonder weapons... my God, I don’t see the wonder in them. Killing without heroics, nothing is glorified... nothing is reaffirmed? No heroes, no cowards, no troops, no generals? Only those who are left alive... and those who are left dead. I’m glad I won’t live to see it.”

[Buckeye McFrog]

More frightening is the thought of this technology in the hands of environmental extremists who believe that Earth’s #1 problem is that it has too many people.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Soldiers sailors and airmen fighting with joy sticks. Uniform patches forthcoming. Purple Hearts for carpel tunnel syndrome.

[treetopsandroofs]

But-but-but.... what about the sacred Three Laws of Robotics?!

I’ve guffawed at Big Media when they often report on them being anything other than a fictional sci-fi construct.

[plain talk]

Robotic soldiers. Fully robotic factories. It’s coming.

[tbw2]

They’ve been debating letting armed UAVs shoot targets without asking for human permission for several years. That implies the robots can already kill per program.

[dsrtsage]

[freedumb2003]

Wait, what about the First Law????

[Disambiguator]

Predictive programming from 50 years ago:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/

[freedumb2003]

>>Robotic soldiers. Fully robotic factories. It’s coming.<<

Worse, what if they are AI and together decide something terrible? Before everyone says “Skynet” (or V’ger) you may have heard about the experiment where they hooked two AI negotiating computers together and the two invented a language the designers could not even understand. MUI it scared the hell out of them (and they cut the connect) — and it should scare the hell out of all of us.

[PIF]

Already fielded by the Russian Army.

[DouglasKC]

Replacing citizen-soldiers with robots will have profound societal impacts. A major force behind the liberal-constitutionalism movements of the 19th century was the replacement of small professional armies with levée en masse armies. What happens in a country where robots can do the fighting and a governing elite does not need ordinary citizens to be soldiers?

Profound is the right word. Imagine a tiny oil rich country that hasn't the manpower but can afford to build a massive robot army and send it virtually anywhere without any way of identifying where it was sent from.

[Brilliant]

They did not keep it secret enough.

[Lazamataz]

In the short run, this will be the death of liberty.

In the long run, this will be the death of mankind.

[TADSLOS]

Old news.