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The Military

UN To Debate Lethal Autonomous Weapons 166

Hallie Siegel writes: Should robots be allowed to make life and death decisions? This will be the topic of heated debate at the United Nations (UN) Palais des Nations in Geneva next week (April 13-17th, 2015). As part of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), experts from all over the world will gather to discuss 'questions related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems.' The Open Roboethics Research Initiative will be presenting public views at the debate. Human rights groups are urging the UN to ban such weapons. A new report titled "Mind the Gap" details the accountability issues that need to be solved before going any further. "A key concern with fully autonomous weapons is that they would be prone to cause civilian casualties in violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The lack of meaningful human control that characterizes the weapons would make it difficult to hold anyone criminally liable for such unlawful actions."
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UN To Debate Lethal Autonomous Weapons

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  • better idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @12:42PM (#49453429) Journal
    Why don't we figure out a way to end war? There are better ways to resolve conflict than killing each other.
    • by prefec2 ( 875483 )

      Great idea. 2000 years ago they nailed someone to a tree for saying that. And I don't think the general attitude has changed that much. For starters, the US (and other countries) should stop using drones to kill people. Especially in other countries. It does not matter that the targeted people are considered terrorists. If so catch them or help those countries to catch them and give them a fair trail.

      Alternatively, we could say to Ukrainians, NATO, EU and Russia to stop the bloody stupidity taking place in

      • Re:better idea (Score:5, Informative)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @01:07PM (#49453549) Journal

        Great idea. 2000 years ago they nailed someone to a tree for saying that. And I don't think the general attitude has changed that much.

        Maybe. The number of deaths [googleusercontent.com] over time from war [cloudfront.net] has dropped dramatically, not even adjusting for population growth.

        Western Europe has managed to completely give up fighting each other, and that was after millennia of fighting each other. So in 2000 years a lot has improved.

        • by Kergan ( 780543 )

          Europe didn't *completely* give up fighting. Let's not forget the Balkans after the break up of Yugoslavia. Or Ukraine in recent months.

          • by henni16 ( 586412 )

            *Western Europe*

            Look at how many wars EU members / NATO allies used to fight against each other.

        • Western Europe has always been on the forefront of civilization, no? Except perhaps for the Dark Ages. Sorry about that one.
          • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

            by phantomfive ( 622387 )

            Western Europe has always been on the forefront of civilization, no?

            No. Through most of history, Western Europe has been a wasteland of culture......starting around a thousand years BC, a small corner of the region (Greece) started getting some culture, but the rest was still a garbage heap of warring tribes, mainly until the Renaissance.

            Of course, then Europe made a fairly tremendous leap forward, but that was relatively recent in historical terms.

            • by radtea ( 464814 )

              the rest was still a garbage heap of warring tribes, mainly until the Renaissance.

              The tipping point was around the Gregorian revolution in the late 11th century (1050-1150 or thereabouts.) That was the point when Eastern civilizations were starting to stagnate and Western Europe was starting to get its act together. So the Renaissance was less of a "tremendous leap forward" than the bursting in to flower of a plant that had been growing for several centuries.

              With regard to concerns about autonomous weapons, the things that people are pointing out as dangers are features from the point o

              • The tipping point was around the Gregorian revolution in the late 11th century (1050-1150 or thereabouts.)

                Why date it to then, instead of the blossoming under Charlamagne?

        • While things are a lot better at the moment, let's not forget there was also a Pax Romana [wikipedia.org] where there was a lull in major conflict.

          My worry is that we are building towards another major explosion of violence as resources start to run out, threatening our comfortable way of life. While we have plenty of oil in the world, cheap oil is rapidly running out. Also, we are running out of fish stocks in a large number of areas and population growth is still happening - even if it is slowing down - putting further

          • by qbast ( 1265706 )

            While we have plenty of oil in the world, cheap oil is rapidly running out..

            You would be more convincing, if oil price has not dropped 50% in last months.

            • Yes. And everyone is losing money - including the Saudis.

              However, in a few months, when the fracking industry has been destroyed, and the tar sands have been shut down, the prices will return to "normal". It will take years for production to ramp up to where it was before the drop in prices, with the Saudis (and OPEC) reaping all of the profits.

          • Pax Romana

            Which one was that ? Mary Tamm or Lalla Ward

        • by Kjella ( 173770 )

          Western Europe has managed to completely give up fighting each other, and that was after millennia of fighting each other. So in 2000 years a lot has improved.

          About 2000 years ago, we mostly kept the peace for over 200 years [wikipedia.org]. And you're measuring the casualties after the deadliest war in human history [wikipedia.org], particularly when you consider #2 and #3 being ~100 years long and WWII six so it's no wonder normal years look good. And when you consider the global thermonuclear war that almost happened in 1962, I think you're cherry picking data. I think perhaps it's safe to say we've swapped frequency with severity, because I don't think there's any doubt that a potential WWI

          • About 2000 years ago, we mostly kept the peace for over 200 years

            That's silly, there were constant wars going on during the times of the Roman Empire. It was called Pax Romana because it was peaceful compared to what came after.

        • Western Europe has managed to completely give up fighting each other, and that was after millennia of fighting each other. So in 2000 years a lot has improved.

          Ha! It has not been NEARLY long enough for you to make such a claim.

          Give it 500 years and we'll see if it holds. Heck, give it 100 years.

          I doubt it will, humans are funny things...

      • Because massive disarmament by the Allies after WWI sure did prevent another Great War.

        • by prefec2 ( 875483 )

          First, the causes of WW II are much more complicated than a disarmament or appeasement politics. Second, I am not proposing that. Especially, not unilaterally. The only thing I said was: Stick to the treaty no missile shield in East Europe. That is not a disarmament. Actually, as it has not been deployed yet, it would be just the status quo.

      • Re:better idea (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @01:29PM (#49453671)

        For starters, the US (and other countries) should stop using drones to kill people.

        Yes, it makes much more sense to go back to using manned aircraft in those situations, because that way the aircraft can be louder, bigger, and burn more jet fuel. As a bonus, the planes can perform a lot more dangerous in-flight refueling maneuvers, or make make many more trips to the same region, require larger localized airbases and far more on-the-ground support people and a bigger supply chain.

        Or are you really saying you'd prefer that we use a massive ground force to attempt to achieve the same goals?

        Oh, I get it. You're speaking code. When you say you don't want drones to be used, what you really mean is you don't want people like ISIS to be counter-attacked, or for it to be risky for groups like Boko Harom or AQAP to move their leadership and people around between attacks on infidel schools, that sort of thing. Can you expand on why you think that's a good thing?

        catch them or help those countries to catch them and give them a fair trail.

        Oh, I get it, now, You DO want a huge new ground invasion into places like Syria and a giant new force back on the ground in Iraq, so that we can surround and capture thousands of heavily armed militants in what would be a sustained series of big battles and firefights ... which the jihaddis would make absolutely sure occurred in and around innocent civilians, which they've shown repeatedly they're more than happy to see die in order to score propaganda points. Why you prefer prolonged gun battles in populated areas in order to capture people who post videos of themselves torturing people to death in the name of their religion (rather than simply removing them from the battlefield when we catch them out on the road in a vehicle or small convoy) is beyond me. You seem to have no problem with huge numbers of casualties in the interests of trying to capture for trial people who would see a ground force coming for them weeks in advance. Strange priorities you have.

        Alternatively, we could say to Ukrainians, NATO, EU and Russia to stop the bloody stupidity taking place in Ukraine

        I see. So we should tell Russia to stop attacking Ukrainian military positions, and that will cause Putin to stop doing so? Do you pay no attention at all to what's going on? The Russians have already been "told" to stop invading Ukraine, and they agreed to do so. But of course they're still doing it, and shelling Ukrainian positions every day. What, specifically, do you think should be said to Putin, differently, that would have him change his mind about lying, the way he's doing right now? What words would you use? Be specific.

        No, I do not trust the Russians.

        Then why are you even saying what you're saying?

        However, the West violated with that missile shield the post cold war treaty.

        "The west" has violated no such thing. The Soviet Union no longer exists, though it sounds like you'd prefer that it does.

        • "Yes, it makes much more sense to go back to using manned aircraft in those situations, because that way the aircraft can be louder, bigger, and burn more jet fuel"

          Now you are getting it. War should be costly, difficult, and sap your resources. Otherwise you make mass killing far too easy.
          • War should be costly, difficult, and sap your resources. Otherwise you make mass killing far too easy.

            So what happens when you do have a costly, difficult war that saps your resources? Why propaganda of course! And the effects of that propaganda don't simply go away when the war is done. Neither will the military-industrial complex which now represents a huge proportion of your GDP. A costly war requires the entire society to be reshaped around it, and thus acquires a life of its own, which lasts way beyon

          • Now you are getting it. War should be costly, difficult, and sap your resources.

            Exactly. And we use all of the tools at our disposal - especially the most efficient ones we can when they make sense, things like drones - to make it costly and more difficult for groups like ISIS and Al Queda to do what they're trying to do.

            Otherwise you make mass killing far too easy.

            That's the whole point. Tools like drones are designed to help stop mass killers like ISIS without having to use less-precise, larger-scale weapons. You do get that, right?

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        Great idea. 2000 years ago they nailed someone to a tree for saying that.

        And by a thousand years ago they were going to war in his name. People will seize on anything to rationalize what they want to do, aided by the bottomless human capacity for inconsistency. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if someday to learn there were "Gandhian" terrorists.

        Don't get me wrong, I think ideals are important. But we shouldn't expect too much from them. An ideal is only as good as the people who espouse it.

      • For starters, the US (and other countries) should stop using drones to kill people. Especially in other countries. It does not matter that the targeted people are considered terrorists. If so catch them or help those countries to catch them and give them a fair trail.

        What is interesting is how far off you really are there, without even knowing it.

        "give them a fair trial"

        Interesting choice of words, the only catch is most of the people in those countries have a different idea of what that means than you do. Most of them don't feel that you have the right to capture and judge them in the first place.

        To their way of thinking, killing them with a drone and capturing them and giving them a mock trial (as they would view it) is really two sides of the same coin.

        If you are go

        • You did not understand what I intended to day. For example, in Pakistan, we should let the Pakistani deal with it. In Yemen we should not support Saudi Arabia which resulted in terrorists being released from prisons. If someone needs to be arrested somewhere for crimes let the locals do that because it is their territory and not ours.

      • The USA should stop using drone strikes, but not because of any morality reason. 1-Public executions make you the enemy, and the more enemies you have the less "safe" you are. 2-America needs public goodwill to rule the world cheaply, and their finances show they can't afford the expensive way to rule the world.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      We have all the resources to enable a leisure society with resources for all. Yet the resistance to this simple and obvious truth, even from so-called intelligent people on this forum, is quite remarkable.

      People don't want solutions, they want impossible to achieve dreams. Witness the success of religion, or its geek equivalent, Cosmism.

    • That would be great, but until there is nobody left that wants to hurt, dominate, exploit, or kill someone else, then it won't happen.
      • There may always be people who want to "hurt, dominate, exploit, or kill someone else", but for a war to happen, there needs to be a critical mass of such people big enough to believe they could win such a war.
    • I think perhaps "ending war" is looking at the wrong end of things, because there's nothing much you can do other than say "let's be nice to each other." Peace isn't obtained by banning weapons of war. It's obtained when there's no longer any reason to fight a war. Or, perhaps put more cynically, when both sides have too much to lose by fighting a war.

      Let's start by making the world free and prosperous, and encouraging the free trade of not only products, but culture and ideas. I have a feeling that thi

      • by itzly ( 3699663 )

        Let's start by making the world free and prosperous

        We don't have the energy and resources for that. In fact, a lot of the resources are used faster than they are replenished. Not only fossil fuels, but also old aquifers and phosphorous, for example.

        • by khallow ( 566160 )

          In fact, a lot of the resources are used faster than they are replenished. Not only fossil fuels, but also old aquifers and phosphorous, for example.

          So what? The resources which aren't being recycled happen to be quite plentiful and/or have adequate substitute goods.

          • by itzly ( 3699663 )

            The resources which aren't being recycled happen to be quite plentiful and/or have adequate substitute goods.

            Yeah, when you're part of the top 1% of the world, everything seems quite plentiful.

            • by khallow ( 566160 )

              Yeah, when you're part of the top 1% of the world, everything seems quite plentiful.

              I guess witty and at least moderately intelligent comebacks are another depleted resource. There are objective ways to measure these things which don't require me to be part of the "1%".

    • at least large scale wars. They're bad for business, so the mega corps say 'no' whenever anyone wants to start one up these days.

      What you might be looking for is a way to end occupations and large scale violence. Iraq and Afghanistan aren't wars. What's going on in Mexico isn't a war. There's no single combatant to subdue. There's no legitimate government organization to fight. etc, etc. If you want that you have to deal with poverty. People with good economic options don't become terrorists or a drug lo
    • Autonomous weapons will make the world a nicer place. 1-If someone shoots at a human soldier they will always respond, if someone shoots at a drone you can choose not to. A willingness to take casualties gives the military more options to solve the problem. 2-Drones always follow orders. If a drone executes someone it's a deliberate attack ordered by the government of that country. There is no human error excuse.
    • +5 Insightful, really?

      Assuming war isn't going to disappear overnight, this is a conversation that has to happen.

      • Heh, you think fully autonomous weapons are going to come before the end of war? Do you count landmines as fully autonomous?
        • You're seriously saying that there's nothing to discuss here, then? Seriously?

          Heh, you think fully autonomous weapons are going to come before the end of war?

          I don't care about 'fully'. In the short term, I care about the technology that's already at our fingertips: a robot with a machine-gun that is able to assess a situation and then 'decide' (without human intervention) to shoot the people it deems to be the enemy.

          Do you count landmines as fully autonomous?

          Interesting example. In a sense, yes, I guess so. The problems with landmines arise precisely because they make poor 'decisions' to kill people, no?

          • I don't care about 'fully'. In the short term, I care about the technology that's already at our fingertips: a robot with a machine-gun that is able to assess a situation and then 'decide' (without human intervention) to shoot the people it deems to be the enemy.

            OK, that's not really much more interesting than land mines, is it?

            • Sure it is. A landmine malfunction can't take out a village, and it's not actively selecting targets.

              • We're not going to have a weapon that can do both of those for a long time. Even drones aren't really autonomous, they're just remote-controlled.
                • We're not going to have a weapon that can do both of those for a long time.

                  Wrong. [wikipedia.org]

                  • The Wikipedia entry you linked to says it is under control of a human operator.
                    • Ah, right you are :-P

                      Google also turned up the Super aEgis II, but there doesn't seem to be much out there on it - I'm not sure quite how automated it really is.

                    • My reasoning is this: in the military, you don't even trust soldiers with live ammo unless they are on a mission, because they are going to make mistakes. AI is not nearly to the quality level where it can make decisions better than even a stoned soldier.......
                    • I imagine 'quality' can be parameterised, in a sense. If you have a very conservative turret, it would only shoot when it's damn sure it ought to, even if that means letting friendly soldiers get shot down because it's so cautious.

                    • I really think it will be a long time before AI can even remotely guess whether a target is friend or foe.
  • by koan ( 80826 )

    You can't give "things" that have nothing to lose that power, it should always be a human that the same could happen too.

    • by Shakrai ( 717556 )

      You can't give "things" that have nothing to lose that power, it should always be a human that the same could happen too.

      Really? Because the consensus on Slashdot seems to be that pilot-less airliners and driver-less automobiles are a good thing that removes human error from the equation. We're to believe that software engineers are smart enough to account for all conceivable air disaster scenarios but not smart enough to build an IFF [wikipedia.org] system into an armed autonomous weapons system?

      Personally I think both ideas are bad ones, I just find it curious that the group-think around here views humans behind the controls of an airli

      • You can't give "things" that have nothing to lose that power, it should always be a human that the same could happen too.

        Really? Because the consensus on Slashdot seems to be that pilot-less airliners and driver-less automobiles are a good thing that removes human error from the equation. We're to believe that software engineers are smart enough to account for all conceivable air disaster scenarios but not smart enough to build an IFF [wikipedia.org] system into an armed autonomous weapons system?

        Personally I think both ideas are bad ones, I just find it curious that the group-think around here views humans behind the controls of an airliner as a problem but desires them behind the controls of a hellfire missile platform.

        Those are easier scenarios to program. I believe we also have plenty of computer-fired weapons systems, but only for very specific scenarios.

        • by Shakrai ( 717556 )

          It's easier to write a program that can pull this off [wikipedia.org] than to write one that can identify this guy [wikipedia.org] as an enemy and launch a hellfire at him?

          Facebook has already figured out how to do #2, sans the actual launching of weapons part.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's not actually as if human soldiers were infallible, never kill civilians or loot and rape...

    I mean, if you look at REAL wars you see everything of this happening all the time. Because humans are not only error-prone too, they're also prone to act out of hate or revenge.

    The first thing to do would be to determine the level of things going wrong when soldiers are involved. Then look if and how things could improve with robots.

    It's just as with self-driving cars: as long as you compare their safety with an

  • What exactly constitutes an "Autonomous Weapon". Dead falls, punji traps, and other set and forget things meant to "passively" kill, mechanical traps...ect. I see this more of just, letting the people who don't care about the laws having these things and the people looking to defend themselves that do abide by the law not. /never owned a fire arm in my life. I do own a sword and a nice set of steak knives, which if I set up right could also be a considered "autonomous" weapons.

    • Traps are fundamentally defensive in nature. Autonomous robotic soldiers are offensive.

      • No they are not, you certainly can use traps as offensive weapons, have you looked at what IAD's are used for? They restrict movement in both time and resources to clear them. They are used to harass supply lines. They can be well unitized to cover potential escape and maneuvering routes that you can use you own maneuvering to make appealing or push your opponent into.

        Automated weapons are potentially much safer to civilians than land mines.

  • Isn't a landmine a "lethal autonomous weapons system?"
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @01:31PM (#49453683)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Cars that parallel park themselves in live traffic. Airbag systems that use sensors to decide whether or not to deploy. Devices embedded in people's bodies, deciding when and how to stimulate their heart muscles.
  • by koan ( 80826 )

    would make it difficult to hold anyone criminally liable for such unlawful actions."

    Not in my mind, the corporation would be one guilty party, then the power structure that ordered it built.

  • I don't see an issue with letting Cybernetics creatures make Logical decisions in Natural environments. We could call it, I don't know... a CyLoN. What could possibly go wrong?
  • by seven of five ( 578993 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @04:23PM (#49454427)
    Thought headline said "UN To Debut Lethal Autonomous Weapons"
  • I think if nations are going to continue to engage in warfare to achieve their goals, it's time to get civilized about it. Let's just take a gander at the old original Star Trek episode for a nice glimpse of what civilized war will look like some day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]

  • Going back to 1960 or so we have weapons that launched and delivered nuclear pay loads at long distances. From my point of view that is a lot more of a hazard than some robot planted to destroy any tanks that come near by. More recently we have items like the Cruise Missile that can launch and defeat an enemy or erase a city if need be. If automated weapons can keep our soldiers out of harms way I think they are a great development. In the past the ability to win a war somewhat depended upon the
  • People who stand around shooting their mouths of about "breaking international law" really need to learn what the fuck they are talking about. Show me the treaty that talks about autonomous weapons, and who is a signatory to it.
  • It ought to be obvious for any sane person that the one who authorized the deployment of the autonomous weapon must be held criminally responsible for any civilian casualties or war crimes this authorization leads to.

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