Musk, Wozniak and Hawking urge ban on warfare AI and autonomous weapons More than 1,000 experts and leading robotics researchers sign open letter warning of military artificial intelligence arms race Over 1,000 high-profile artificial intelligence experts and leading researchers have signed an open letter warning of a “military artificial intelligence arms race” and calling for a ban on “offensive autonomous weapons”. The letter, presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was signed by Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis and professor Stephen Hawking along with 1,000 AI and robotics researchers. The letter states: “AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] is – practically if not legally – feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.” The authors argue that AI can be used to make the battlefield a safer place for military personnel, but that offensive weapons that operate on their own would lower the threshold of going to battle and result in greater loss of human life. Should one military power start developing systems capable of selecting targets and operating autonomously without direct human control, it would start an arms race similar to the one for the atom bomb, the authors argue.Unlike nuclear weapons, however, AI requires no specific hard-to-create materials and will be difficult to monitor. “The endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting,” said the authors. Toby Walsh, professor of AI at the University of New South Wales said: “We need to make a decision today that will shape our future and determine whether we follow a path of good. We support the call by a number of different humanitarian organisations for a UN ban on offensive autonomous weapons, similar to the recent ban on blinding lasers.” Musk and Hawking have warned that AI is “our biggest existential threat” and that the development of full AI could “spell the end of the human race”. But others, including Wozniak have recently changed their minds on AI, with the Apple co-founder saying that robots would be good for humans, making them like the “family pet and taken care of all the time”. At a UN conference in Geneva in April discussing the future of weaponry, including so-called “killer robots”, the UK opposed a ban on the development of autonomous weapons, despite calls from various pressure groups, including the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/27/musk-wozniak-hawking-ban-ai-autonomous-weapons
It is a creepy idea, that people of this ilk, people famous for other endeavors, that have never fought a fight, or been shot at, should decide to determine the weapons available to those that do the job. Sort of seems like stroking a Quark for attention.
It's one thing to remote control a drone from half a world away. It's another to unleash artificially "intelligent" robot drones that can choose to fire on their own. The A.I. might fire on all sorts of things that aren't threats, and if you have 100 of them out there, they could fire on 100 innocent targets.
Remotely-controlled drones operate based on programming. Autonomous AI weapons operate based on...programming. Either option is only as safe and accurate as the programmers design them to be.
To err is human. Garbage in, garbage out. No software is bug free. Remotely controlled drones don't choose targets and fire. A human does...
We know what's gonna happen. The Russians and Chinese do it so we better get into the game. Besides this who would accept responsibilty for this eye stab. Time for the Rogue secret service agency splinter group...
Well technically it could be much more depending on their payload. One mag has 30 rounds. That's 30 potential targets. Then you give GI Silicone 10 mags and he can unleash God's wrath to an entire village
Profiling make good use of resources. There is no good reason not to use profiling. If any racial group doesn't like fitting in a profile, then change the reason for the fit, not the good logic.
Yeah like the idea that black men carry guns, leading to unarmed teens being shot. I suppose those kids that lost their life were responsible since they did not put an end to gang violence on their own. Racial profiling is in no way good...
Sending drones to foreign villages is bad enough. Sending Mags...that would be a violation of the Geneva convention.
No I think they need a little help. But tell me, if you were going to get serious and help those kid end the gang violence, would you start in the Norwegian neighborhoods?
