The Pentagon Is Accelerating AI and Autonomous Technology America’s military leaders are racing to deploy thousands of autonomous weapons and an AI-powered air monitoring system for Washington D.C.
Maybe can we take a step back and ask whether we need thousands of AI defense bots at all? Or are we past that point?
Realistically, who’s gonna stop them?
Autonomous drones made by China have been used in Papua New Guinea to bomb at least one village so I think the US is actually behind the curve in terms of the AI arms race.
This is one of those classical sci-fi apocalypse ideas, where humans make autonomous war machines they can’t turn off, and the machines outlive the humans and continue the war for them.
How is it that when it comes to reckless ideas and notions Congress takes millions of years and the Pentagon takes no more than three business days to implement?
Most military networks are closed circuit by design. I’m not sure how this could be implemented without also allowing back doors to be exploited. You wouldn’t want someone to be able to turn off your defenses as they begin an attack, for example.
There are a number of ways to do it. You can transmit a one-time code to the device that you set up right beforehand. No one’s going to be able to guess your 1024 character one-time password.
You can even protect the password entry program itself with port knocking. If the right ports aren’t accessed in the right sequence, the enemy doesn’t even get a chance to try their passwords.
Every server is on the Internet 99.999% of the time. They are constantly being tested. The right cybersecurity tools are available now.
Just make the code 00000 like the nuclear launch codes were for years.
I’m sure (or at least I hope) nuclear weapons have similar systems in place so that they can be launched or shut off as needed?
In what ways would this be different
Yeah, they don’t. Nuclear systems are for the most part closed sourced and built on DOS level hardware. Most of that shit can’t connect to the internet even if they wanted it to. The system you’re thinking about is radio waves between people talking.
Makes sense :)
The department of defense was hacked just a few years ago, suck a button would have to have access to an internet. Meaning anyone could get to it and shut off the drones and such
humanity sucks
They’ll just murder a bunch of people and then be turned off after having been shown to be
ineffectivetoo dangerous.It’s not like AI is reliable at this point. Way too many people are actively ignoring experts pointing this fact out and instead obsessing over Skynet or w/e made up sci-fi BS.
Rather than be used for war, they’ll be used for threats of violence and propaganda. It’s not a new problem. It’s just a new version of that same problem.
Rather than be used for war, they’ll be used for threats of violence and propaganda
Surveillance is the word you’re looking for. Take all those NSA pipelines and run them through an AI and BAM, you’ve got your “terrorists”.
Well said.
It should be noted that individuals at the forefront of AI research have a direct bias against saying AI is dangerous. It’s their job, and saying anything which presents this research as dangerous could halt funding, and put them out of a job. It’s also their passion, though, so it’s an even bigger deal for them.
We have also seen individuals who have exited AI research calling for more regulation and ethics requirements. At the same time we are seeing AI ethics departments dismantled. These should stand out as red flags.
Autonomous drones are actively being used to bomb villages in Papua New Guinea. The idea that this kind of tech is “only going to be used for threats of violence and propaganda” is already outdated. It’s being used today, and the US just plans to also adopt the tech itself.
There is also a danger that the kill switch command could be leaked to the Russians or the Chinese who would use it to shut down the USA’s defenses just before a full scale invasion of a now defenseless USA.
I don’t think the robots are the only military America would have. The military is kind of their thing.
should there be an “all off” button?
NO! Movies would be so much more entertaining if the bad guy learned the error of his ways but was still unable to stop the robot slaughter.
No. Such a thing would only be a good idea if you want the enemy to be able to turn your shit off when they please.
You’re thinking of ‘AI’, as something intelligent that can go rogue. Current and near future that’s just sci fi.
Military AI is already going rogue. It doesn’t need general intelligence to act unpredictably.
That’s called a bug - aka what it’s called when a program behaves unexpectedly and against design intentions.
That’s not going rogue, that’s doing what it was programmed to do.
By your standards you’d also have to consider WW2 acoustic homing torpedos as rogue AI because they might home in on the ship that fired them.
Edit:
A followup thought: the only real question is whether they can realistically test and refine these systems enough to trust them to carry out attacks autonomously without serious errors.vIm gonna guess no, but they’ll use them anyway.
Your edit follows the point I was making. It doesn’t need to truly “go rogue” according to your definition, and it doesn’t need general intelligence to have the same disastrous outcome. We have examples of AI killing humans to accomplish the goal it is given, so we need to be damned sure that’s not going to happen in real life before deploying them over Washington DC.
Honestly that wasn’t even a bug, it was a perfect execution of the instructions it was given to perform its task with maximum efficiency and would have been incredibly easy to see in advance if anyone had spent 5 minutes thinking about it. Classic paperclip maximizer style literal interpretation of goals.
Logic errors are bugs.
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and an AI-powered air monitoring system for Washington D.C.
This is the most troubling to me. They’re entrenching themselves. They already wrapped razor wire and concrete walls around the white house. Now they’re deploying military assets on US soil.
They have been deploying military equipment for decades now on US soil, under the guise of police.
The new development here is that this system depends on far fewer humans and their consciousness.
Sounds like the beginnings of the plot to Horizon Dawn. Can’t have it both ways, either it’s a secure closed system with no way to stop it if it goes rogue or it has safety’s built in but then those could be exploited.
I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
More likely we’ll see a button to instantly transfer money from tax payer pockets to these companies’ CEO’s pockets
More likely we’ll see a button to instantly transfer money from tax payer pockets to these companies’ CEO’s pockets
Don’t forget to add the option to tip that’s in vogue for everything these days.
Would you like to add a tip for your robot defenders to this months subscription fee for AI Protection Max Ultra ™?
Sounds like the opening to the most recent Battlestar Galactica series. A kill switch can be hacked.
Most people in this thread need to learn the difference between AI and AGI
