Skynet Becomes Self Aware and Goes Active In 3...2...1....

Started by stromboli, February 23, 2013, 10:42:14 PM

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stromboli

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... ler-robots

QuoteA new global campaign to persuade nations to ban "killer robots" before they reach the production stage is to be launched in the UK by a group of academics, pressure groups and Nobel peace prize laureates.

Robot warfare and autonomous weapons, the next step from unmanned drones, are already being worked on by scientists and will be available within the decade, said Dr Noel Sharkey, a leading robotics and artificial intelligence expert and professor at Sheffield University. He believes that development of the weapons is taking place in an effectively unregulated environment, with little attention being paid to moral implications and international law.

The Stop the Killer Robots campaign will be launched in April at the House of Commons and includes many of the groups that successfully campaigned to have international action taken against cluster bombs and landmines. They hope to get a similar global treaty against autonomous weapons.

"These things are not science fiction; they are well into development," said Sharkey. "The research wing of the Pentagon in the US is working on the X47B [unmanned plane] which has supersonic twists and turns with a G-force that no human being could manage, a craft which would take autonomous armed combat anywhere in the planet.

The idea of autonomous hunter/killer machines seems very creepy. I think we need to mandate laws that stop this before it becomes an evil reality. But is it inevitable? I fear that it is.

_Xenu_

If they start mass producing cyborg Summer Glaus, I can't really complain.
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NitzWalsh

I'm not worried about robots. I'd be worried about the kind of laws this would bring about. Maybe they become so paranoid that any AI research becomes banned. I wouldn't like that.
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Jmpty

I, for one, will welcome our new robot overlords.
???  ??

AllPurposeAtheist

Yeah, this is not good, but someone's awake at the switch..
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PopeyesPappy

Quote from: "stromboli"But is it inevitable? I fear that it is.

My brother was getting DARPA funding to work on autonomous behaviors for killer robots more than a decade ago.

Yes, it is inevitable.
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Bobby_Ouroborus

It would be way too expensive for most nation to field an army of androids. Only the richest nation would have them and will probably utilize them in domestic policing actions too which is way more scarier. I also think since cybernetic will become more advanced we will probably field armies of cyborgs too

stromboli

I think we are a long way away from Terminator androids. What we will see initially is advanced versions of the current drones, and smaller autonomous intelligence drones. I think the combination of autonomy and nanobots is a real possibility, and frankly scary.

commonsense822

Quote from: "Bobby_Ouroborus"It would be way too expensive for most nation to field an army of androids. Only the richest nation would have them and will probably utilize them in domestic policing actions too which is way more scarier. I also think since cybernetic will become more advanced we will probably field armies of cyborgs too

Holy shit!  RoboCop!

Thumpalumpacus

I think it's inevitable.  They've been in the works for thirty years here in America, and there's no way that the Pentagon is going to let that investment turn into a chargeoff.  No way.  If I remember correctly, armed robots (controlled by humans) have been in use in Iraq for quite a while already.

I agree that the idea is dreadful, and would like to see it shelved ... but I don't think that will ever happen.
<insert witty aphorism here>

Hydra009


Thumpalumpacus

QuoteA recent news report that armed robots had been pulled out of Iraq is mistaken, according to the company that makes the robot and the Army program manager.

We linked last week to a Popular Mechanics article reporting that the armed SWORDS robots, made by Foster-Miller, has been pulled out of Iraq after several incidents when the robot's gun started swinging around without being given a command.

Here is text from the original Popular Mechanics article:

This is how fragile the robotics industry is: Last year, three armed ground bots were deployed to Iraq. But the remote-operated SWORDS units were almost immediately pulled off the battlefield, before firing a single shot at the enemy. Here at the conference, the Army's Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey, was asked what happened to SWORDS. After all, no specific reason for the 11th-hour withdrawal ever came from the military or its contractors at Foster-Miller. Fahey's answer was vague, but he confirmed that the robots never opened fire when they weren't supposed to. His understanding is that "the gun started moving when it was not intended to move." In other words, the SWORDS swung around in the wrong direction, and the plug got pulled fast. No humans were hurt, but as Fahey pointed out, "once you've done something that's really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again."

So SWORDS was yanked because it made people nervous.

One problem: SWORDS wasn't yanked. "SWORD is still deployed," Kevin Fahey, the program manger quoted in the original article, tells DANGER ROOM in an e-mail. "We continue to learn from it and will continue to expand the use of armed robots."

"The whole thing is an urban legend," says Foster Miller spokesperson Cynthia Black, of the reports about SWORDS moving its gun without a command.

There were three cases of uncommanded movements, but all three were prior to the 2006 safety certification, she says.  "One case involved a loose wire. So, now there is now redundant wiring on every circuit. One involved a solder, a connection that broke. everything now is double-soldered." The third case was a test were the robot was put on a 45 degree hill and left to run for two and a half hours. "When the motor started to overheat, the robot shut the motor off, that caused the robot to slide back down the incline," she says. "Those are the three uncommanded movements."

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/04 ... robots-st/
<insert witty aphorism here>

BlackL1ght

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Bibliofagus

As long as they don't self replicate it's okay I guess.
I'm confident I would be equally inconvenienced being shot by either people or robots.
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Quote from: \"AllPurposeAtheist\"The moral high ground was dug up and made into a walmart apparently today.

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BlackL1ght

In all seriousness, I don't see the problem. Anyone who thinks that robots are going to go terminator/vicki on us needs to cut down on the scifi. Robots always do exactly as they're told. Period. It's just the way they work. Sure we may eventually have artificial intelligence complex enough to come up with the concept of killing humans, but we're not anywhere near there. Like not even close. So if in the meantime, wars change to scrap metal and resistors instead of blood and kidneys, I am totally totally fine with that.
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