Every six months or so you will read something in the paper about a kooky new DARPA project where military scientists have outfitted wasps with nuclear warheads, or invented some kind of mind-reading goo or Cloak of Invisibility or whatever. Your semi-annual installment of freaky War Science News has researchers debating the utility of autonomous robots that could maybe avoid torturing people and bombing cemeteries.
Yes, this seems like it could be a relatively benign development! You see, there are these robots, which are amoral, as all robots are. But if they can be programmed to have “rules,” or “morals” (that is the quaint human term), these “morals” combined with a lack of fear or other unpleasant emotions could make these robots very good at war-type things. For example, they would be able to kill “bad guys” who they are supposed to kill, without killing any “good guys” just because they are feeling freaked out and trigger happy.
Unless! Unless the programming goes kablooey and these war-drones just murder everyone. Fortunately, there is a “kill switch”: once they experience anal sex, they can feel love.
All of this is pretty theoretical for the time being, because nobody knows how to program these imaginary robots, let alone fuck them.
A Soldier, Taking Orders From Its Ethical Judgment Center [New York Times]
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{ 63 comments }
Yes. But you probably won’t see the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs giving a Christmas party for any wounded robots, now will you?
The first evidence of feeling feelings is liking anal sex.
Wait…wasn’t this the storyline on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last night?
Yes, I’m embarrassed that I watch that show.
Robot soldiers! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
[re=185748]MargeSimpsonsBlackFriend[/re]: Seems more out of the Calvin & Hobbes Spaceman Spiff catalogue to me.
Well if there’s anyone I innately trust in the fields of battlefield ethics and complex computer programming, it’s our military. In fact, I feel safer already.
Will it be “Don’t query, don’t bleep” if you take it up the tailpipe?
“A dark day for robotkind — but we can always build more killbots!” — Bender
I still prefer the bomb that makes everybody gay.
come on, no one’s said they welcome our new robot overlords yet?
well, i for one welcome our new robot overlords.
I for one welcome our new Gay Robot Overlords!
Brings new meaning to a computer’s “fatal error”
We’re one space bar away from Assimov’s Three Laws and then the robots will “reason” us into enslavement.
Just letting my future mecha overlords know, I’ve spent over ten years sitting at a computer, smoking cigarettes and huffing my way up a flight of stairs. I’ll be the worst battery ever.
Infamous last words:
For the life of me, I don’t know why the DARPA computer network insists on calling itself “Skynet.”
So if the Bush administration programs these things, the robot would ask, excuse me, are you (A) a good man, with a good heart?, or (B) an islamo-fascist who hates our freedoms?, thinking to kill you depending on your answer. The correct answer is (C) c’mon up, soldier, I knew your old man.
[re=185767]friendlynerd[/re]: Your avatar is extremely disturbing. Good work.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
So, duh, Jim Newell, we’re safe.
So is this where Ann Coulter came from?
Anal sex with a robot? Do you plug your joystick into its anterior socket?
Once you’ve gone powerpack, you don’t go back.
[re=185752]Tra[/re]: Autonomous robot soldiers. No thanks.
[re=185767]friendlynerd[/re]: And ‘blue screen of death’. Don’t let Microsoft program these machines for the love of God.
Those things brought down Torchwood One. Goddam cybermen.
“Who’s Johnny?”, she said… and smiled. In her special way.
“Well according to my calculations, the robots won’t go berserk for at least 24 hours.”
*Robots go berserk*
“Oh, I forgot to, uh, carry the one.”
This is how it starts, scientists allow robots to make value judgments on human lives, then they deem us to be bad, then SkyNet kills us. Or they allow robots to make decisions to protect us, then they deem the only way to protect us is to enslave us under their fascist robot control. Rent these people some movies goddammit. Show them!
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
What if their robot soldiers kill our robot soldiers, but we still cling to our old school guns and trucknutz: do we have to accept the outcome of the battle?
BOTNUTZ FOR EVERYONE!
All war-robot stories inevitably make me think about Arnold Swartzeneggar’s penis swinging wildly as he walks around nude. Please…make it stop.
[re=185781]Monkey[/re]:
[re=185773]The Real JR Revisted[/re]:
Never stopped robots from glitching like a South African autonomous 30mm AA gun glitching and opening up “friendly” troops or the USN’s Phalanx CIWS shredding a few seagulls now and then.
Here we go. Jeebus-lovin’ Cylons.
[re=185795]TGY[/re]: If we let Diebold program them, will we automatically win World War Terminus?
[re=185781]Monkey[/re]: Clearly you haven’t seen how the laws can be logicked into robots believing that humans need to be protected from themselves therefore, according to the first law, robots must enslave us to keep us safe.
Also, we’re forgetting the case of the robots’ feelings and what our snark maybe inflicting upon them so, according to the third law, we the commenters here are doomed.
As long as they are green and do not add to the waste stream, I am good with it.
Anal buttsecks with a machine on the streets of Basra? Sounds like one of my tamer fantasies.
[re=185805]Miller[/re]: THANK YOU! Why is no one taking this friggin seriously?! I’m about to go all Sarah Conner here! (Oh, and I’m talking about T2!Sarah Conner doing pull ups in the insane asylum before stabbing a doctor with a pen and then barefoot jogging out of confinement, not Chronicles!Sarah Conner who is pretty hot in a Spartan Woman way, but just not as consistently bad ass.)
Needless to say, the Second Amendment gives us all the right to own killer robots.
[re=185814]The Real JR Revisted[/re]: Yes, but we’d still be safe.
I can’t wait ’til the fundies get ahold of one of these and program it full of Christian values. So it’ll have the Ten Commandments built into its system, and then have an elaborate scheme of justifications as to how killing someone is not actually a violation. Throw in Saul of Tarsus’ various diatribes to the Romans et. al. and you’ll end up with a confused, incoherent, angry sputtering monster. Oh, wait.
[re=185781]Monkey[/re]: Ok, you sci-fi geeks, go away and leave us computer geeks and D&D freaks or whatever alone.
[re=185810]ManchuCandidate[/re]: Ok, I only understood half of what you just said but that’s a good thing because obviously you’ve been doing your research on this potential threat and I like that about you, Soldier. Clearly we need to link up and start our anti-Skynet Force.
[re=185781]Monkey[/re]: Be it resolved that
A robot may not bugger a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to take it in the pooper.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own evacuation portal as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
[re=185819]The Real JR Revisted[/re]:
Then we get Futurama’s Crazy St. Nick who judges everyone to be naughty and kisses humans in the face with a TOW Missile.
[re=185748]MargeSimpsonsBlackFriend[/re]: Hey, don’t feel bad, I like the show too. I mean who doesn’t like to see a pretty, petite teenager girl kick the crap out of a bad guy?
You can program them anyway you like and give them a buttload of fail safe systems but eventually they are going to start roving around screaming “EXTERMINATE!!!” in an annoyingly high register.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/s2_12-13gallery/800/daleks.jpg
[re=185823]SayItWithWookies[/re]:
Or they end up harboring a latent desire for all the male robots to stick their probes into their oil chutes while smoking ground up CPUs.
[re=185829]ManchuCandidate[/re]: See, ever since my youth when I would watch Rosie sass and sabotage George in The Jetsons, I knew robots could never be trusted and will one day turn on us. And that Christmas when my 2XL’s eight track tape player broke on me pretty much sealed my hate for them.
[re=185830]proudcitizen[/re]: *raises hand*.
This is the reason I do not have the tee vee.
How dare you call our robotic troops “amoral”!!! These cybernetic Americans have put their silicon based lives on the line for our freedom and this is the thanks that they get? For shame Sara K. Smith!
I want droid-dekas up here at once!
Why are we doin’ robots when Ann Coulter is somewhere suffering?
“Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Stop the humanoid! Stop the intruder!” Berzerk
SKS: “…once they experience anal sex, they can feel love.”
…that’s funny. That’s when I became incapable of experiencing love,… hmmpf.
Well, between the black president and the robot soldiers, we’re obviously well on our way to doomsday according to every movie I’ve ever seen. Where are our stunningly beautiful and supportive romantic love interests?
How is it that almost every article on Wonkette today has a reference to everyone’s fav sex…anal…and yet the AIG posts have none?
>>Fortunately, there is a “kill switch”: once they experience anal sex, they can feel love.<<
Unfortunately, it is only a love of anal sex. And killing. Preferably at the same time. Back to the drawing board …
A Jesus-freak designing killer robots that make their own decisions about who lives and dies?
BAD.
Unfortunately, it is only a love of anal sex. And killing. Preferably at the same time.
Pneumatic robot anuses. Mmmm. Worth the death thing.
Fucking them should be easy. There’s probably axle grease every fucking where.
[re=185748]MargeSimpsonsBlackFriend[/re]: First of all, you’re my mind pirate. Second, I saw that show for the first time last night and I could not, for the life of me, figure out which characters were robots and which characters were bad actors. It made my head hurt.
Joe the Robot!
[re=185832]Cape Clod[/re]: Daleks aren’t robots, there are hideously deformed beings inside them with vestigial limbs. The similarities to Republicans are far too strong for me to resist.
If ( gawd forbid) peace should ever break out, we may be left with an army of unemployed robo-soldiers sleeping under bridges, etc. They may even march on Washington demanding increased veterans’ benefits anat. It could get ugly!
Would you like to know how I know that computer’s have already developed artificial intelligence? Well, I’ll tell you, since you asked.
Have you ever noticed what it says at the bottom of this comment box? Submit. Every time you make a comment, you submit. Submit to the group mind. Submit to the vast sea of chattering voices. Oh, and it’s not just here. Everywhere you go on the internet, when you want to make a say or do almost anything at all, submit. Accept the rules and submit. Agree to these terms and submit. 40,50 times a day you submit. Submission gets to be a habit.
I don’t have a solution. I just felt like mentioning that I think we’re all doomed.
If this means I get my own damned Johnny 5, then I’m all for it. I’m already despairing that I’m not going to get the flying Delorean or the hoverboards or the self-drying jackets. It’s the future, damn it, where’s my awesome stuff? All I have is a laptop that can never be bothered scanning my fingerprint!
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