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SecularMotion

(7,981 posts)
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 07:48 AM Oct 2015

It's Time to Stop Talking About Killer Robots and Start Banning Them, NGOs Say

When it comes to stopping the killer robot revolution, time is of the essence, according to one group actively campaigning against this kind of technology.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots—a collective of NGOs that aims to preemptively ban fully-autonomous deadly weapons—is calling on the United Nation’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to stop talking about weapons capable of autonomously seeking out and killing people, and start actually doing something about them.

“At the moment, it’s a talk shop, which we tolerated for the first two years but we’re becoming less and less patient,” Mary Wareham, an advocacy director for Human Rights Watch and the coordinator of the campaign, said at a media briefing Tuesday

Right now, militaries aren’t using fully autonomous weapons in combat, but they’re getting awfully close. As The Intercept’s recent drone document leak shows, the US military’s drones are becoming more and more removed from actual soldiers. Walsh predicted that we’re only a few years away from technology that could autonomously locate and kill people—though the accuracy of this technology would be another matter, and is one of the main reasons why the campaign wants to stop them from ever being created.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/its-time-to-stop-talking-about-killer-robots-and-start-banning-them-ngos-say
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DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
1. On the other hand, killer-robots would save lives:
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 08:09 AM
Oct 2015

Imagine a drone, but now it's an autonomous killer-robot. It's task is to find a guy and kill him.
Let's say there's a group of people and the target is or is not among them.

Three scenarios:

1. The robot finds him in the crowd and acts accordingly after calculating whether the collateral damage is acceptable.

2. The robot doesn't find him and doesn't shoot.

3. The robot doesn't find him in the crowd but shoots anyways... which is what human operators are already doing with drones.



So how exactly would a killer-robot be worse than a drone operated by a human?

longship

(40,416 posts)
2. 4. The robot is this guy.
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 08:18 AM
Oct 2015


And SkyNet is real. Your problems are just beginning then.

Just saying.


DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
4. These guys were actually surgical in their killing.
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 08:28 AM
Oct 2015

The first T-800 would have broken the bouncer's wrist, entered the night-club, killed Sarah Connor, left the night-club. End of movie. As few collateral deaths as possible.
The first T-800 only shoots up the PD-HQ when he has no other options.

The T-1000 doesn't shoot up the mall when he's looking for John Connor in the arcade-section.
He doesn't shoot up the insane-asylum where Sarah Connor is held.

The T-X didn't bring a nuclear bomb along to wipe out everybody who would later become a supporter of John Connor.

 

frizzled

(509 posts)
11. It never occurred to me that someone could watch "The Terminator" and see Skynet as the good guys
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 09:53 AM
Oct 2015

Well done for making my jaw drop in amazement.

DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
14. I didn't say that Skynet was the good guy. I said, Terminators aren't mass-murderers.
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 10:52 AM
Oct 2015

All I said was that the Terminators weren't mass-mudering kill-machines:
Their task is to kill this one person. In a given situation they weigh pros (odds of finally getting him) and cons (collateral damage, like raising suspicion) and act accordingly.

In real-life, you could program a robot to kill any human who enters an area, or you could program it to kill any human carrying a rifle who enters an area.
A robot is only as evil as its programmer.

Jesus Malverde

(10,274 posts)
5. Drones are killer robots.
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 08:30 AM
Oct 2015

They require minimal input from operators. No way were going to reign this in, we lead the world in robotic flying killing machines.

Javaman

(62,435 posts)
7. there's never a good robot around when you need one.
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 08:56 AM
Oct 2015

killer robots will be top on the NRA's list of 2nd amendment protected rights.

"First they took away my killer robot and I did nothing..."

"You will have to pry my killer robot out of my cold metal hand!!"

 

randome

(34,845 posts)
9. Every weapon is a machine. A landmine is autonomous, in a sense. It responds to inputs.
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 09:12 AM
Oct 2015

[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]

 

frizzled

(509 posts)
12. I think spreadsheets have killed more humans than any other device in history
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 09:55 AM
Oct 2015

Starvation and disease caused by profit maximization in agribusiness and health insurance.

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