this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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What if the human is pulling the trigger to "paint the target" and tag it for hunt and destroy then the drone goes and kills it? Because that's how lots of missles already work. So where's the line?
The line is where an automatic process target and execute a human being. When it is automated. The arming of a device is not sufficient to warrant a human interaction, and as such mines are also not allowed.
This should in my opinion always have been the case. Mines are indiscriminate and have proven to be wildly inhumane in several ways. Significantly, innocents are often killed.
But mines don't paint the picture of what automated slaughter can lead to.
The point has been laid that when the conscious mind has to kill, it makes war have an important way to end, in the mind.
The dangers extend well beyond killing innocent targets, another part is the coldness of allowing a machine to decide, that is beyond morally corrupt. There is something terrifying about the very idea that facing one of these weapons, there is nothing to negotiate, the cold calculations that want to kill you are not human. It is a place where no human ever wants to be. But war is horrible. It's the escalation of automated triggers that can lead to exponential death with no remorse which is just a terrible danger.
The murder weapons has nobody's intent behind them, except very far back, in the arming and the program. It open for scenarios where mass murder becomes easy and terrifyingly cold.
Kind of like the prisoner's dilemma shows us, that when war escalates, it can quickly devolve into revenge narratives, and when either side has access to cold impudent kills, they will use them. This removes even more humanity from the acts and the violence can reach new heights beyond our comprehension.
Weapons of mass destruction with automated triggers will eventually seal our existence if we don't abolish it with impunity. It has been seen over and over how the human factor is the only grace that ever end or contain war. Without this component I think we are just doomed to have the last intent humans ever had was revenge, and the last emotions fear and complete hopelessness.
Well, that's all very idealistic, but it's likely not going to happen.
Israel already used AI to pick bombing sites, those bombs and missiles would have been programmed with altitudes and destinations (armed) then dropped. The pilots only job these days is to avoid interception, fly over the bombing locations, tag the target when acquired, and drop them. Most of this is already done in software.
Eventually humans will leave the loop because unlike self-driving cars, these technologies won't risk the lives of the aggressor's citizens.
If the technology is seen as unstoppable enough, there may be calls for warnings to be given, but I suspect that's all the mercy that will be shown...
... especially if it's a case of a country with automated technologies killing one without or with stochastically meaningless defenses (eg. Defenses that modelling and simulations show won't be able to prevent such attacks).
No, in all likelihood the US will tell the country the attack sites, the country either will or will not have the technical level to prevent an amount of damage, will evacuate all necessary personal, and whoever doesn't get the message or get out in time will be automatically killed.
Where defenses are partially successful, that information will go into the training data for the next model, or upgrade, and the war machine will roll on.
Sorry I was stressed when replying. Yeah in those cases humans have pulled the trigger. At several stages.
When arming a murder bot ship and sending to erase an island of life, you then lose control. That person is not pulling loads and loads of triggers. The triggers are automatic by a machine making the decision to end these lives.
And that is a danger, same as with engineered bio warfare. It just cannot be let out of the box even, or we all may die extremely quick.
The entire point of automating the killing is that it is no dead man's switch or any other human interaction involved in the kill. It is moot if there is one such. Call offs or dead switch back doors safety contingencies are not a solution to rampant unwanted slaughter as it can fail in so many ways and when the wars escalate to the point where those need to be used it is too late because there are 5 different strains of murder bots and you can only stop the ones you have codes to and those codes are only given to like three people at top secret level 28
Nope
You described a scenarios where a human was involved in several stages of the killing so it's no wonder those don't hold up
If it is a bad kill, is there a person who will go to jail or be executed for it?
Only the losing side is subject to war crimes trials, and no doubt rules of engagement will be developed and followed to prevent people going to jail due to "bad kills".
There are really no "bad kills" in the armed services, there's just limited exposure of public scandals.
Especially for the US who doesn't subject its self to international courts like The Hague. So any atrocities, accidents, or war crimes will still just be internal scandals and temporary.
Same as it is today.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/23/politics/eddie-gallagher-navy-seal-trial/index.html
Biological and chemical warfare
If a country implements murder machines that efficiently slay a continent then does not stop at the sea.
Will nobody for real do nothing?
Is that your belief for bad kills? Same with gas and engineered disease?
Very mature
Of course there isn't just like there isn't when a human makes a mistake on the battlefield, you think that every civilian killed by an American soldier in Afghanistan resulted in a trial and punishment? American hasn't executed amy soldiers since 1961 (for rape and attempted murder of a child in austria, not during war)
Honestly at least the military code will obey orders and only focus on the objective rather than rape and murder for fun.
Like if someone made a biological weapon that wipes out a continent
Will someone go to prison?
It's no difference