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[scriver]

Officer receives his department's "Officer of the Year" award for shooting at two people (killing one) huddled in a corner during a no-knock raid that lasted 16 seconds.

The reason for the shooting was finally determined to be debri from the explosion of his own flash grenade hit him in the chest, leading him to believe shots had been fired at him.  Of course, they had to deconstruct a bunch of lies first about the suspects resisting.  At least that's how I'm reading it.  The structure of the article isn't the clearest.

This is just so depressing I don't know what to say.

[Pnx]

Officer receives his department's "Officer of the Year" award for shooting at two people (killing one) huddled in a corner during a no-knock raid that lasted 16 seconds.

The reason for the shooting was finally determined to be debri from the explosion of his own flash grenade hit him in the chest, leading him to believe shots had been fired at him.  Of course, they had to deconstruct a bunch of lies first about the suspects resisting.  At least that's how I'm reading it.  The structure of the article isn't the clearest.

This is just so depressing I don't know what to say.

Look on the bright side, maybe he won officer of the year award because while he cocked things up, his colleagues all performed bigger and uglier cock-ups...

Or wait, was I trying to cheer you up or make you more depressed? Eh, never mind.

[Owlbread]

I want gun toting machines running around battlefields for the simple reason that one day we could have armies composed of robots fighting other robots and no people would have to waste their lives.

I think the problem is that you fail to grasp the core purpose of war.

Surely the core purpose of war is to accomplish objectives. The methods by which that is achieved is usually violence and results in a lot of people getting killed. No country goes to war with the express purpose of killing as many of the other country's people as they can, and if they do they're killing those people for a specific reason. The killing is not the end in itself.

The problem is, battles aren't fought only in the designated battle site #358608-1C, they're fought in and around places with significant civilian populations. Just because the two sides would be fighting solely with machines (something probably only a few nations could even afford) wouldn't remove human presence from the battlefield. A pair of boots and a rifle is just too cheap to ever go out of style. And while "never shoot civilians" sounds nice, how do you manage that? How will the machine tell a difference between a soldier and a civilian? The blog palsch linked to had a few very realistic examples of what could go wrong with giving a machine full autonomy in deciding whether a human target is lawful or not.

I have no idea how these machines would tell the difference between soldiers and civilians, who is lawful and who is not, even what the machines would look like. None of us do, and we can't until we do research into it. That's why it's silly to make calls to pull the plug on research like this.

And yet I would still rather give sufficient autonomy to a machine to decide whether or not a human target was lawful rather than give it to a human. They're just governed by code, that's all. Code is reliable if it's correct.

[Glowcat]

Surely the core purpose of war is to accomplish objectives. The methods by which that is achieved is usually violence and results in a lot of people getting killed. No country goes to war with the express purpose of killing as many of the other country's people as they can, and if they do they're killing those people for a specific reason. The killing is not the end in itself.

A war is only fought with two sides who're willing to die for a cause and when the non-sapient weapons are destroyed people will still fight unless their spirit is completely crushed. That is an advantage that could arise from AI/drones fighting all crucial battles, since if one side wins enough the other can possibly be driven to give up before too many actual lives are put on the table, though it won't mean a deathless war. It could also have the opposite effect and lead to more conflicts if people aren't scared of war because they can send in the robot armies while they sit back in relative safety.

[SalmonGod]

It could also have the opposite effect and lead to more conflicts if people aren't scared of war because they can send in the robot armies while they sit back in relative safety.

This is what I would worry about.  I can see the average U.S. citizen having a much more careless attitude towards war.  As it is, it still seems like the majority of people don't even care about innocent people dying "over there".  They only care about home team casualties and economic costs.

[Owlbread]

This is what I would worry about.  I can see the average U.S. citizen having a much more careless attitude towards war.  As it is, it still seems like the majority of people don't even care about innocent people dying "over there".  They only care about home team casualties and economic costs.

President Obama cried (understandably so) over the deaths of children at Sandy Hook but has not shed tears in the same way for the far greater number of innocent children killed as collateral damage in drone attacks. Given that nearly everything Obama does is politically motivated, as is the case with most successful politicians, that tells us a lot about the American public.

[MonkeyHead]

Removing humans removes the human element.

[10ebbor10]

I want gun toting machines running around battlefields for the simple reason that one day we could have armies composed of robots fighting other robots and no people would have to waste their lives. They could also be programmed to never shoot civilians, to speak the native language of the country they're in, they would never use ethnic slurs or show resentment to the populace (unlike our brave boys)... yeah they're just about better in any way than our failed, rural high school students who're good at sports and love computer games. Only problem is if their respective government programs them to commit war crimes but I think humans can hide stuff like that better than a robot could.

The problem is, battles aren't fought only in the designated battle site #358608-1C, they're fought in and around places with significant civilian populations. Just because the two sides would be fighting solely with machines (something probably only a few nations could even afford) wouldn't remove human presence from the battlefield. A pair of boots and a rifle is just too cheap to ever go out of style. And while "never shoot civilians" sounds nice, how do you manage that? How will the machine tell a difference between a soldier and a civilian? The blog palsch linked to had a few very realistic examples of what could go wrong with giving a machine full autonomy in deciding whether a human target is lawful or not.

The question is not wherether the computer has optimal judgement, it's wherether it's better than humans. And with smart programming, it certainly will be. A robot is always objective and always follows it's orders.

[SalmonGod]

I want gun toting machines running around battlefields for the simple reason that one day we could have armies composed of robots fighting other robots and no people would have to waste their lives. They could also be programmed to never shoot civilians, to speak the native language of the country they're in, they would never use ethnic slurs or show resentment to the populace (unlike our brave boys)... yeah they're just about better in any way than our failed, rural high school students who're good at sports and love computer games. Only problem is if their respective government programs them to commit war crimes but I think humans can hide stuff like that better than a robot could.

The problem is, battles aren't fought only in the designated battle site #358608-1C, they're fought in and around places with significant civilian populations. Just because the two sides would be fighting solely with machines (something probably only a few nations could even afford) wouldn't remove human presence from the battlefield. A pair of boots and a rifle is just too cheap to ever go out of style. And while "never shoot civilians" sounds nice, how do you manage that? How will the machine tell a difference between a soldier and a civilian? The blog palsch linked to had a few very realistic examples of what could go wrong with giving a machine full autonomy in deciding whether a human target is lawful or not.

The question is not wherether the computer has optimal judgement, it's wherether it's better than humans. And with smart programming, it certainly will be. A robot is always objective and always follows it's orders.

Works both ways.  They will follow both ethical and unethical programming without hesitation.

[kaijyuu]

Well unethical orders occur with human soldiers as well, except when robots are caught the authorities can't blame it on the robots "acting on their own volition."

Basically unethical programming is far easier to trace back to the true source than unethical military orders.

[MonkeyHead]

Heh.... "open source" order code in accordance with the Geneva convention?

[Leafsnail]

"It was a bug"

[MonkeyHead]

"It was a feature"

FTFY

[Scoops Novel]

It could also have the opposite effect and lead to more conflicts if people aren't scared of war because they can send in the robot armies while they sit back in relative safety.

This is what I would worry about.  I can see the average U.S. citizen having a much more careless attitude towards war.  As it is, it still seems like the majority of people don't even care about innocent people dying "over there".  They only care about home team casualties and economic costs.

Hadn't thought about it, far too troubling.

[PanH]

"The robots of Eastasia attacked us last night, but we won the battle by eliminating them without any loss."