[HN Gopher] Israel's autonomous 'robo-snipers' and suicide drone...
___________________________________________________________________
Israel's autonomous 'robo-snipers' and suicide drones raise ethical
dilemma
Author : YeGoblynQueenne
Score : 154 points
Date : 2021-03-14 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.trtworld.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.trtworld.com)
| throwitaway12 wrote:
| They are always using weapons for offense, never defense.
|
| Just give back the land already.
| Lucasoato wrote:
| Next warfares will be much deadlier for civilians... These
| automated systems can scale in a devastating way, imagine million
| of people deciding between dying of hunger at home or getting
| shot automatically in the streets.
|
| Imagine if the military forces of Myanmar had this kind of robots
| and decided to deploy them during civil protests...
| imtringued wrote:
| That makes no sense. It's just another nuke at that point.
| amitport wrote:
| killing civilians is easy, it's not something newly enabled by
| modern "robot" technology... I image they could just as well
| use bombs and bullets
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _killing civilians is easy, it 's not something newly
| enabled by modern "robot" technology_
|
| It's easier to kill civilians and blame it on a bug than to
| admit that someone ordered the attack.
| ruined wrote:
| modern warfare is already extremely deadly to civilians. you
| don't need a robot to kill innocent people when soldiers of all
| stripes are apparently perfectly willing.
| vijayr02 wrote:
| I highly recommend Ronen Bergman's account of the Israeli covert
| assasination programme: Rise and Kill First [0].
|
| It's a very nuanced book, grappling with the moral issues of a
| single death now to avoid multiple deaths later, and the
| unintended consequences of these decisions.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_and_Kill_First
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " Demand for autonomous 'suicide drones' is at an all-time high
| after the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict of 2020, which established
| a benchmark for the effective use of kamikaze drones against
| conventional military forces."
|
| I have read many statements similar to this in recent months, but
| I haven't come across a good analysis of how offensive drones
| were used/defended against (if they were) in that conflict.
| Anyone have a good resource?
| sn_master wrote:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/nagorno-karabkah...
|
| You'll also find countless combat footage from the azeri drones
| destroying Armenian positions. Some are even on YouTube, most
| on the azeri defense ministry.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xme_NTpVauU
|
| Israel been supplying the azeris with drones for a while, and
| were even accused of "test firing" it on real Armenian troops
| themselves to impress the azeris into buying them.
|
| https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-company-charged-l...
| Justsignedup wrote:
| Just curious... Suicide drones... how is that different from
| missiles?
| jxcole wrote:
| I think it's mostly psychological...since missiles move so
| quickly you might not be able to see them people think of them
| as more like bullets, regardless of the complex technology
| involved. People see these slow moving AI powered drones and
| they think it's a suicidal robot.
| amitport wrote:
| They have bigger wings...
|
| This article is just anti-Israeli propaganda
|
| I find it disappointing to read how it's being received on HN
|
| ---
|
| EDIT: Why is this being down-voted?
|
| Are those drones different from missiles in a meaningful way?
| No, certainly not in any "ethical" way
|
| Is there a reason to single-out Israel here? No
|
| Explain if you disagree and actually have some knowledge and
| experience with this international industry.
| skinkestek wrote:
| HN is slightly anti-jewish.
|
| It is just a matter of fact.
|
| A good thing however is it seems to changing slowly towards a
| more nuanced perspective.
|
| Here's a true story which kind of describes a very similar
| situation but with a different outcome than what we've seen
| (yet).
|
| For years I was bullied at school, and anytime I took revenge
| teachers arrived swiftly, telling me that even if the others
| started I wasn't allowed to respond. I still did though but
| it was obvious that I got more trouble for it than them.
|
| Then I came to a new school. Pattern continues. I complained,
| nobody did anything.
|
| Then one day I gave another bloke a real beating, and for a
| change my teacher stepped up and told the other teachers that
| if they couldn't ensure skinkestek was left alone they better
| not interfere when I gave the bullies a beating.
|
| That was the last fight. Once they realized they wouldn't get
| any sympathy anymore it stopped. My siblings also stopped
| being harassed.
|
| Generally everything got quieter because I was top dog now -
| and I didn't want to fight.
|
| I feel this is the same in middle east. Israel is strongest
| but want peace. The international community keeps this
| conflict going like my teachers used to do by verbally
| abusing the strong but peaceful one.
|
| My guess is the moment Hamas realizes there is no more
| sympathy to be gained by doing insane attacks that only serve
| to anger the neighbor then we'll get peace.
| tomcooks wrote:
| This is about Israel not Jews. Israel is a country, Jews
| are not a country. Israel is not made of Jews, there are
| other religions in Israel. Why do you have to invent things
| and call them "matter of fact", such as Israel being a
| bastion of peace when they invest so much money and energy
| on Army and weapons or HN being pro/anti certain religions,
| is beyond my comprehension.
| amitport wrote:
| Funny you say this is beyond your comprehension AND be so
| biased against Israel.
|
| Either you're incredibly naive about what an actual
| threat to a country and its civilians means (oh no! they
| invest in Army and weapons), or you're just a little bit
| anti-semite.
| Banana699 wrote:
| Just an honest question: do you think Manifest Destiny
| and killing native Americans was justified or in any way
| legitimate ? If you answer with a no, how can you support
| a country that arose and expanded exactly the same way ?
| is it the "old homeland" bullshit Israeli propoganda
| loves to spew ? If so, why not be completely fair and
| give back the balkans to the turks or spain to the Greeks
| or the whole mediterranean coast to the Italians?, the
| last two in particular were a true homeland for their
| conquerors for at least a millennia. What's the
| difference ?
|
| Its ridiculous and pathetic you want to frame this as an
| attack against jews. I guess you took a page from ultra-
| islamists calling every criticism of islam
| "Islamophobia". But that's just you closing your ears and
| shouting "Blah Blah Blah I don't hear you.. Israel good,
| Israel good, Israel good", _Every_ Nation State in
| existence is an organized crime organization with a seat
| in the UN, Israel is just unlucky enough to have come
| late to the game, when Universal Human Rights were
| recognized as a good idea. You don't gain points for
| pointing out how this country or that killed n millions
| more than Israel, at least those other mobsters got a
| claim to the territory they rule that is more solid than
| "Well there is this book that a sky daddy wrote and it
| says right there that this piece of land belongs to us".
| skinkestek wrote:
| > If so, why not be completely fair and give back the
| balkans to the turks or spain to the Greeks or the whole
| mediterranean coast to the Italians?, the last two in
| particular were a true homeland for their conquerors for
| at least a millennia. What's the difference ?
|
| If so, all the Jews that were chased from their homes in
| all the neighboring countries should also be given their
| homes back too, right?
|
| Because this is a lot more complex than the media
| typically give it credit for.
|
| Media conveniently forget that Jews were also driven from
| their homes and into Israel - only Israel integrated
| their refugees instead of putting them in refugee camps
| for use as a political pawn.
| askvictor wrote:
| What is your evidence for HN being anti-Jewish, as opposed
| to anti-Israel or anti-Zionist? I'm genuinely interested;
| it's easy to conflate these three (on both sides of the
| argument)
| skinkestek wrote:
| If you consequently attack woman I don't care if you do
| it because they look feminine or because they are
| actually woman.
|
| If you attack the only national home of the Jewish
| people, the only state that can be relied on to stand up
| for them, I don't care if you do it because they live in
| Israel, because the care about Jews or because they are
| Jews.
|
| The result is the same.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Too late to edit, but it seems the tide has already turned:
| for what I think is the first time I'm net positive for
| defending Israel. Maybe I've become more careful over the
| years, but personally I think it is more about HNers
| starting to question the media narrative.
| [deleted]
| m463 wrote:
| Probably harder for missiles to hover or turn corners.
| Animats wrote:
| _" Automated 'Robo-Snipers' set up along the Gaza border,
| designed to create "automated kill-zones" at least 1.5 km deep.
| But they aren't merely robotic guns. The turrets feature heavy
| duty 7.62 calibre machine guns tied into a network spanning the
| entire border. If any turret detects human movement, the entire
| chain of guns can train their sights and concentrate firepower on
| the interloper. Some turrets are also able to fire explosive
| rockets."_
|
| It's surprising that wasn't proposed for the US-Mexico border
| wall.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| >It's surprising that wasn't proposed for the US-Mexico border
| wall.
|
| With enough scapegoating and propaganda, anything is possible.
| Rule35 wrote:
| Do you use that to adjust your opinion of Trump and of what
| you're told he said, or do you just assume that he wanted auto-
| cannons but couldn't ask for them?
|
| Lol, I'll take that as a strong 'No'.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| The only way drones and other devices like robo-snipers could be
| thought of ethical is if the conflicts are drone vs drone and
| robot vs robot.
|
| Basically, this seems like a terrible idea, and will enable
| futher distancing between crime/action and responsibility.
| ta8645 wrote:
| That's way too simplistic. If one of these drones could have
| killed Hitler and saved millions of innocent people, would you
| still say it's not ethical?
|
| The reason to dislike these machines is because of the
| practical problem of making sure they only target bad-guys.
| That said... their continued development and deployment is
| essentially inevitable anyway.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If one of these drones could have killed Hitler and saved
| millions of innocent people, would you still say it's not
| ethical?
|
| I don't think a hypothetical requiring time travel to obtain
| 20/20 hindsight is a very reasonable basis for discussion
| here.
| ta8645 wrote:
| Come on, that's not a charitable interpretation of my
| argument. It's meant to highlight the idea that there are
| targets _today_ that would make the world a better place if
| we could kill them. And it doesn't matter what tool we use
| to do so, it's still an ethical action.
|
| I don't like the idea of these devices very much, I see the
| problem with controlling them. But there's no way to stop
| them from being created. The required technologies are too
| pervasive and reproducible.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It's meant to highlight the idea that there are targets
| _today_ that would make the world a better place if we
| could kill them.
|
| We _think_ it would. We thought that about knocking off
| Saddam Hussein, but the resulting power vacuum killed a
| lot more than he ever did and gave rise to ISIS.
|
| It turns out predicting "if we kill this guy, it's good"
| can be far more difficult than you're making it out to
| be. Hell, we don't even know if killing Hitler would've
| been good; it might've given rise to someone far more
| competent.
| ta8645 wrote:
| That argument has absolutely nothing to do with this
| article. Not saying I disagree, but it's true or false
| regardless if we kill with a robot or not. It's
| irrelevant to the discussion.
| [deleted]
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Ironic how the Gestapo and SS would have salivated over the
| technology and policy that's applied at the Palestinian border.
| ufmace wrote:
| Pretty meaningless. I'm sure that every fighting organization
| that has ever existed would love to have more effective
| weapons.
| [deleted]
| leetcrew wrote:
| this is affirming the consequent. "liking bad things -> you are
| bad" might be true, but it does not imply "bad person liking
| thing -> thing is bad".
| fishmaster wrote:
| > but it does not imply "bad person liking thing -> thing is
| bad".
|
| It does imply this if it's in the exact context of the
| Gestapo and Stasi and surveillance technology.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Weird, I didn't make a value judgment, I had only pointed out
| the biting irony of the situation at hand. Any assumption
| you've made from my post is just that: an assumption.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the irony kinda depends on the value judgment though, at
| least under my reading. if the israelis invented a
| delicious new candy, would it be ironic that nazis would
| have enjoyed it? or slightly less ridiculous: the nazis
| would certainly have loved to have a rifle like the galil.
| is that ironic?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| The irony is that the Nazis are famous as sadistic
| torturers and deniers of human liberty and these days it
| is Israel which is famous in the world as one of these
| along with some other shameful nations (i.e. North Korea)
| flyinglizard wrote:
| They'd also love Twitter.
| helge9210 wrote:
| Most Israelis are OK with what happened to Jews during WWII,
| except that it happened to Jews.
| solarkraft wrote:
| No, it's not. They'd also have loved modern cryptography and
| reconnaissance satellites.
| somehumanbeing wrote:
| " Take the Israeli Border Control Sentry-Tech turret currently
| deployed along Gaza's border. They were designed to prevent
| Palestinians from leaving the Gaza strip and entering Israeli
| territory.
|
| Automated 'Robo-Snipers' set up along the Gaza border, designed
| to create "automated kill-zones" at least 1.5 km deep. But they
| aren't merely robotic guns. The turrets feature heavy duty 7.62
| calibre machine guns tied into a network spanning the entire
| border. If any turret detects human movement, the entire chain of
| guns can train their sights and concentrate firepower on the
| interloper. Some turrets are also able to fire explosive
| rockets."
|
| Literally created to destroy a population they already control at
| will. If this were China people would be up in arms, but because
| it's Israel I have to make a private account to post comfortably.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| It's really important that actual humans are sent to war and die
| because it's the o ly think that makes us hesitate to go to war.
| Otherwise your in Ray Bradbury's distopia where wars are just
| rich countries slaughtering people in poor ones with no sense of
| hesitation. That's what drones represent: not skynet but man's
| inhumanity to man. Imagine wars being like action movies, watch
| the assassination live, tonight at 9!
| vidarh wrote:
| The philosopher Arne Naess once argued that cannibalism
| practiced by eating the fallen would be a moral good because it
| would serve as a strong incentive to limit war.
|
| The idea is the same - war should not be sanitized, because it
| removes pressure to constrain them.
|
| It's important that the cost of war is visceral to both sides.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Playing devils advocate here: arguably our hesitation for war
| has contributed to horrible atrocities, such as the Rwandan
| genocide.
| naringas wrote:
| I guess so did machine guns and all ways to kill more people for
| cheaper and with more effectiveness (rockets, etc..). then again,
| it doesn't matter; they're here to stay, cat's out of the bag.
| aaron695 wrote:
| It's good to see the comments bike-shedding on the ethics don't
| even understand the technology.
|
| I think that sums up ethics well, 'Those who can, do; those who
| can't, ethic.'
|
| Although Google has shown people employed in the field are also
| genuinely awful people. How have we got to a stage where the
| worst humans of society are employed doing ethics?
|
| Here's a loitering munitions meme if you don't know why the Harop
| is different to missiles -
| https://twitter.com/MENA_Conflict/status/1371106931109167105...
|
| At least one of the 'autonomous'robo-snipers photos linked is
| photo-shopped, but here's a very dystopian real photo that at
| first I thought was a Bansky
| https://akhbaar24.argaam.com/article/detail/171579 (last photo)
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| They need open borders the same as us.
| [deleted]
| cwkoss wrote:
| I'd really love if the US stopped sending foreign aid to
| apartheid states
| skinkestek wrote:
| Then they should start with Israels neighbors.
|
| Arabs in Israel have good lives and prefer living in Israel
| strongly to living in neighboring countries.
|
| Contrast that to trying to live as a jew in a neighboring
| country.
| imtringued wrote:
| Foreign aid is just an indirect military subsidy in most cases.
| Give someone money so they can buy your guns.
|
| It would be more effective to just build schools, roads and
| invest into agriculture.
| [deleted]
| mrtksn wrote:
| There's a brilliant short film on the subject of autonomous
| weapons, "slautherbots":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Science fiction really does predict reality. Sometimes I feel
| like I'm living in a video game world.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > More critically, it's nearly impossible to externally
| distinguish between a kill made with human oversight or machine
| autonomy, blurring the lines of accountability on the
| battlefield.
|
| This seems like the real threat to me. The ethics of outright
| autonomous weapons have a straightforward solution, at least in
| theory: giving the order to deploy them is precisely morally
| equivalent to pulling the trigger yourself. A flying bullet is a
| simpler system than an autonomous network of machine guns, but
| you still set it in motion and are responsible for its path. No,
| the tricky part is when you can't tell who set it in motion.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Slaughterbots come to anyone's mind?
|
| For those that haven't seen it, it's on youtube.
|
| Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterbots
|
| Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
| cryptica wrote:
| This could be a positive. It will create a disincentive for
| people to pursue political power or to get any kind of public
| attention. Anyone who draws attention to themselves could
| become a target. Control over the bot armies is likely to
| change hands frequently until they become fully autonomous and
| wipe us all out.
| a_f wrote:
| Phillip K Dick's Second Variety came to my mind (or the film
| Screamers 1995)
| baybal2 wrote:
| Protein based slaughterbots cost USD $4k a month to hire, and
| $2k to arm, house, and feed.
|
| And they've been on battlefields for much longer.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They have an intermittent tendency to have human emotions
| like "I should not commit a war crime", though.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Intermittent at most
| nkrisc wrote:
| You can find many without that particular constraint, if
| history is any evidence.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My use of the word "intermittent" was intentional, yes.
|
| My point: you're not going to find many drones like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov in the
| foreseeable future.
| scrollaway wrote:
| You're talking about the ones that can't fly and can't be
| manufactured by the millions by anyone with the right amount
| of money?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| They're in luck, because as long as there are people who
| aren't born into means there will be a steady supply of
| people who choose to join the military over other pursuits.
| imtringued wrote:
| You can't manufacture military drones by the millions.
|
| It's also failing to actually realize military objectives.
| The problem isn't delivering bullets or explosives to the
| target, it's finding the target in the first place.
|
| Drone surveillance is a much bigger threat than killer
| drones. You are more likely to be thrown into prison
| because of drone technology than being killed.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| I think researching this stuff today is pretty immoral. If you're
| creating shit like this, you're inventing the next land mine.
| Stop it.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| There is a remorseless logic in a race to the bottom, though.
|
| Anyone who eschews development of such military system risks
| becoming a toy of those who went all in.
|
| The Armenians just lost a lot of territory in Nagorno Karabakh
| they considered their own - to an enemy who had suicide drones.
| Their country wasn't exactly big even before that loss.
|
| Fifty other nations in potentially similar position looked at
| that war and its outcome. I doubt that their decisions were
| "let us stay moral and possibly be next on the chopping block".
| LegitShady wrote:
| >The Armenians just lost a lot of territory in Nagorno
| Karabakh they considered their own - to an enemy who had
| suicide drones.
|
| IMHO while it's true their enemy had 'suicide drones' (which
| are actually loitering munitions, but 'suicide' makes it
| sound so much more evil) that wasn't a deciding factor - they
| also had Turkish drones that didn't require self detonation
| to work.
|
| Azerbaijan put a lot of videos on youtube showing them
| bombing and pursuing groups of Armenian soldiers with those
| drones, not the suicide drones. The suicide drones were anti
| material weapons against mobile air defense and other harder
| targets.
|
| The azeris even used old (trash) AN-2's turned into drones to
| get a response from Armenian air defense systems so that
| loitering munitions like the herop could identity air defense
| systems with minimal danger.
|
| We are already in this race. Everyone is, even if they won't
| acknowledge it. Without anti air/anti drone technology no
| ground force is safe. This isn't new or unique to drones -
| it's the truth of every war where air dominance occurs.
|
| In the Six Day War Israel destroyed most of Egypt's air force
| on the ground in its opening strike, and when Egypt tried to
| retreat from the Sinai they used their air force to bomb the
| retreating units with impunity. The remnants of Egypt's air
| force couldn't fight against an intact air force so they flew
| support sorties but were overall ineffective. No drones
| required. It's just gotten cheaper to do.
| mLuby wrote:
| Like with the prisoners' dilemma, what's "logical" in a one-
| time two-player game isn't true for a multi-round multi-
| player game.
|
| If the Meanie Republic uses Agony Clouds against the citizens
| of Goodistan, the rest of the world notices. Maybe the Meanie
| Republic completely wins and even annexes Goodistan, but the
| bystander countries are going to take Meanie atrocities into
| account when deciding how to interact with that state.
|
| Relatedly, a year ago "Why don't we use chemical weapons
| anymore" was trending on HN (it's a good read):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22661465
| inglor_cz wrote:
| True, but the trouble is, use of killer robots or suicide
| drones does not lead to spectacular atrocities. Much like
| targeted advertising, it works in a pinpoint fashion.
|
| So the moral outrage is likely to be absent, at least
| compared to things like flattening of Rotterdam by
| Luftwaffe or Rape of Nanking.
| samatman wrote:
| Land mines exist for a reason, as weapons, they have advantages
| and disadvantages.
|
| The advantage is that you can set them up and get automatic
| area denial: if your enemy (or your friends, or civilians, or
| large dogs, or cattle) enter the minefield, they're going to
| die or at least be mutilated.
|
| Obviously, some of that is disadvantage. The biggest
| disadvantage is that they're cheap, and buried in the ground,
| so it's tempting to leave them there, especially if you happen
| to lose the conflict. So they continue to kill people long
| after there are no enemies left.
|
| Automated gunbots have the same advantage as landmines. They
| share a shade of the minor disadvantage, namely they can't
| reliably tell enemies from friendlies or civilians. But neither
| can a grunt in a machine gun emplacement.
|
| They are expensive, and above the ground, so there's no world
| in which civilian children, years after the conflict, are shot
| to death while playing in a field.
|
| So if these are the "next landmine" I say: good. We would all
| love to live in the world in which there is no war, but, we
| don't. Until we do, we will need the weapons of war.
| seneca wrote:
| While I understand the sentiment, the problem is that
| abstaining from weapons research due to moral qualms leads to
| the least moral being the most well armed.
| lupire wrote:
| Invest in defensive research.
|
| "War is symmetric" is a fallacy. You often can't shoot back
| at who is shooting at you, but you can shoot at others.
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| A more humane version may be to set up turrets with auto-aim
| lasers that can instantly blind targets rather than outright kill
| them.
| the8472 wrote:
| > Article 1 of the 1995 Protocol IV to the Convention on
| Certain Conventional Weapons provides:
|
| > It is prohibited to employ laser weapons specifically
| designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their
| combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced
| vision, that is to the naked eye or to the eye with corrective
| eyesight devices.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That'd be an explicit war crime.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Certain_Conventi...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea...
| foota wrote:
| Right, better shoot them instead. Maybe we just need a new
| convention on AI weaponry.
| badRNG wrote:
| You can use this line of thinking to justify any war crime
| that doesn't involve killing the adversary. "Well, we
| could've just killed them, better we dragged them to a
| black site to be tortured instead."
|
| A scenario where Palestinians are permanently blinded for
| approaching the prison fences in Gaza or elsewhere is
| honestly horrifying.
| foota wrote:
| I think it needs to be considered why the Geneva
| convention was held, because it was now possible to kill
| or injure in ways never thought possible before. I don't
| think they've stood the test of time though, if things
| like drone strikes and AI weaponry are allowed. I would
| rather combatants be blinded than gunned down by a
| terminator. Istm like prohibition of violence against non
| combatants is orthogonal to the means.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| i take your point, but they're not prison fences. Lets be
| clear about that.
| pessimizer wrote:
| But is not improved by shooting Palestinians who approach
| the prison fences in Gaza.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Remember: the border used to be more open and I guess it
| will be in the future as soon as attacks decrease.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| It seems pretty obvious to me this is a slippery slope, and
| humans won't be in the loop forever. When you're already using
| weapons to kill your enemies, it's pretty easy to justify killing
| them easier when your goal is just to kill them already. It even
| gives them plausible deniability over individual deaths (not that
| it should, but it will).
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| There's a funny Asimov short story about improving technology
| for guided missiles. The solution: put a pilot in each guided
| missle. The entire story is tongue-in-cheek, but characterizes
| the ebb and flow between ethics and military technology.
| owyn wrote:
| Back in WW2 the US worked on pigeon guided bombs but it never
| got very far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
| beaconstudios wrote:
| And the Japanese had torpedoes with actual pilots
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiten
| vijayr02 wrote:
| If people are interested, the story is "The Feeling of Power"
| [0]. I remember reading this as a child and feeling a
| profound feeling of sadness. Now I tell myself I'm older and
| more cynical, but being reminded of it brought a rush of
| those feelings back... human memory is a strange thing.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power
| holbue wrote:
| I didn't know about the story yet, but the reality was
| already very close to that terrible scenario:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachem_Ba_349 (One of the
| launch sites is quite close to where I live)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That looks like the pilot was intended to survive.
|
| A better comparison would be the Japanese approach.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze
| evgen wrote:
| More specifically, the Ohka:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokosuka_MXY-7_Ohka
| birdyrooster wrote:
| How is it more dignified to have another human decide to kill
| you? It seems just as undignified to have a human with agency
| disregard your well being in a way which is indistinguishable
| from an automated killing.
| xjabskns wrote:
| Because I can kill you back.
|
| It is said that Al Saladin, upon learning that Richard
| Lionheart's horse had died in battle had the best horse in his
| own stalls sent to his opponent as a gift.
|
| It would appear that Saladin held King Richard in high esteem
| (he was brutal to those he did not)
|
| Compare that behavior with our drones and F-16 raining death
| from the safety of miles of distance, and you see how
| pusillanimous we've become. Im sure NPR will wax poetically
| about drone operator's PTSD, but it's not PTSD what they suffer
| from for there was no trauma. It's shame, guilt and disgust.
|
| In the Christian West we held Saladin in the highest esteem for
| the way he conducted himself in war. We sought to emulate him,
| added his behavior to our codes of chivalry. Now, there is no
| doubt in my mind that future generations will spit on the
| memory of our generals loosing wars from the safety of
| telework.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it's not PTSD what they suffer from for there was no
| trauma. It's shame, guilt and disgust._
|
| Given PTSD manifests in people who have never killed and is
| not restricted to soldiers ( _e.g._ victims of sexual assault
| and traffic accidents [1]), this claim is unsubstantiated.
|
| > _we held Saladin in the highest esteem for the way he
| conducted himself in war_
|
| You're transporting values from a zero-growth world, where
| war was practically the only route to advancement, to a
| positive-growth one. War was honourable when it was
| necessary. It is no longer necessary. The era of celebrating
| our enemies has long passed. (That is why everything is now
| framed in terms of defense.)
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
| traumatic_stress_disord...
| throwaway31338 wrote:
| It doesn't feel like it will be long until we're getting CAPTCHAs
| like: "Click the pictures of humans brandishing firearms."
| fishmaster wrote:
| "Tag the insurgents"
| vmception wrote:
| As long as I get to look at cat photos afterwards I'm good
| strulovich wrote:
| > The turrets feature heavy duty 7.62 calibre machine guns tied
| into a network spanning the entire border. If any turret detects
| human movement, the entire chain of guns can train their sights
| and concentrate firepower on the interloper. Some turrets are
| also able to fire explosive rockets.
|
| > With such overlapping fields of fire, even heavily armored
| vehicles would be quickly eliminated. The effect on a human body
| would be overwhelming, disproportionately violent, and would
| leave little in the way of human remains.
|
| You can tell this is not written by a person with any military
| knowledge or with an agenda against weapons.
|
| Non peaceful borders have been manned with such weapons operated
| by humans for more than a century (in the case of machine guns).
| And generally, if you can shoot one bullet and kill someone, you
| don't use keep shoot hundreds of bullets, and if you can stop a
| threat with bullets, you don't launch a rocket at it.
|
| Israel doesn't launch rockets at people next to the border. And
| tries to avoid killing unarmed people (for example by aiming for
| the legs). I assume every sane military does the same. Killing
| unarmed people, besides obviously being immoral, is bad
| strategically as well.
|
| (This comment deals with a specific paragraph, and not the actual
| interesting issue raised by this article, which is not unique to
| Israel I presume, and is practiced by all military industries
| capable of building such weapons today)
|
| EDIT: well, I had it coming. I didn't mean for it to become the
| classic Israel vs Palestinians flame war - just wanted to point
| out the realities of borders, wars and weapons which I suspect
| most HN readers are not exposed to. But again, I should have seen
| this coming. :(
| nezirus wrote:
| "tries to avoid killing unarmed people"
|
| I respectfully disagree, Israel is an occupation force, has
| overwhelming power (military, economical and diplomatic) and
| they do kill grown people and children almost without
| prejudice. Some official numbers (I suspect it is even worse in
| reality):
|
| https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-208380/
|
| P.S. I don't condone violence on both sides, eternal war like
| one in Palestine/Israel is horrible (I've lived through 4 years
| of war, believe me a day of it is too much), but I really don't
| like political correctness, where we must have "balance" in
| reporting, but it is completely clear who holds the keys of
| peace and who has the finger on the trigger)
| ars wrote:
| Think about what you are saying. Israel has overwhelming
| superiority - and yet somehow the Palestinian population is
| growing?
|
| And this somehow mean "almost without prejudice"?
|
| To me it's exactly the opposite - Israel can do what they
| want, and yet, they aren't. They are barely harming the
| Palestinians (compare casualty figures to ANY other
| conflict).
|
| On the other hand Palestinians (mainly Hamas and other groups
| in Gaza) are attacking as hard as they possibly can.
|
| So why do you think Israel has the key to peace here? Seems
| to me it's exactly the opposite.
| strulovich wrote:
| What part of this link proves Israel is not trying to avoid
| casualties?
|
| At no point I'm saying there's not casualties, including
| civilian casualties, including horrible mistakes, including
| trigger happy psychos that make it through the ranks.
|
| But the imbalance of casualties is the result of Israel being
| better at it.
|
| It would be great if there was peace. But even if I ran
| Israel and the Palestinian Territories as a dictatorship
| tomorrow I still wouldn't be able to turn all violence to
| zero.
|
| Personally, as an Israeli I would love for Israel to evacuate
| settlements. But pretending that would bring peace is not
| even naive, it just doesn't align with anything anyone
| involved is saying.
| nezirus wrote:
| You should read your words out loud, to yourself, to your
| kids. Israel is better at it, better at killing people...
|
| There is no easy solution for that conflict, but killing
| more people and holding millions of people in de facto
| concentration camp sure wont help it.
| strulovich wrote:
| That's one twisted way to interpret it. A more charitable
| one would be that Israel is better at protecting its
| civilians.
|
| It sounds as if you have an idea that Israel could just
| make it all go away in a day if they'd like. I would love
| to know what you think that move would be.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Israel can end it tomorrow by leaving the middle east
| entirely, or by taking over the areas, kill the
| leadership of the various terror groups and grant full
| citizenship to everybody else. The top leadership is
| super corrupt and are doing nothing to help the people.
|
| Instead they keep doing this stupid inbetween thing that
| helps nobody but the weapon manufactures, and those who
| like to hurt humans.
|
| Granted neither of those options could be done in a day,
| but peace in two years seems about as good a solution as
| any, no?
| samatman wrote:
| Transforming an entire people into refugees is an
| unacceptable solution, whether it be the Gazans or the
| Israelis.
|
| So if you were wondering why they do this "stupid
| inbetween thing" instead, now you know.
| nezirus wrote:
| Well, for one it should (at least try to) protect all
| civilians not just "its own".
|
| I agree with you that no one can make it go away in a
| day, and that is a big problem. Every day of the conflict
| causes more pain, more casualties, and expands vicious
| circle of violence.
|
| I guess that current generations are lost cause, as long
| as we always frame it into "us vs them", "we are good,
| enemy is bad", the conflict will never end.
|
| Maybe the solution is one state, with citizens, not
| religious groups, maybe it is two states (dunno if that
| is even possible at this point).
|
| Also, extreme conditions in Gaza and West Bank don't
| help. Imagine if young people there have an option to go
| to real university, have a nice job, a house. Would they
| be willing to blow themselves, killing many innocent
| people. (Not to say poverty is the primary cause of
| attacks, but that level of desperation certainly doesn't
| help)
|
| Don't wish or do anything to other people which you
| wouldn't want for yourself. Imo, that should be a good
| start. To change the world one must start from himself.
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Well, for one it should (at least try to) protect all
| civilians not just "its own".
|
| They do. They are known to go to extreme lengths to avoid
| harming civilians, including calling up before bombing,
| dropping leaflets, "firecracker" bombing ahead of actual
| bombing etc.
|
| And why are they bombing civilian neighborhoods in the
| first place: because that's were Hamas puts their rocket
| lauchers. That is a war crime too, and it is worse,
| because the only reason they do it is to attract attacks
| towards civilian areas; tactically those rocket attacks
| are just dumb - they only serve to get media coverage
| when Israel find they have had enough of it and flatten
| it.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| If you read the very same report you linked, you'd see that
| of the Israelis that Palestinians killed, 69% were civilians,
| while from the Palestinians which Israel killed, 59% were
| civilians.
|
| It doesn't sound like Israel is deliberately targeting
| civilians.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Furthermore: It is also well known for anyone who wants to
| know that
|
| - Hamas deliberately launch rockets from densely populated
| areas and from hospitals. This is a war crime as big as
| anything Israel has done in recent years.
|
| - Israel goes out of their way to avoid harming civilians:
| often calling affected areas on phone, dropping leaflets,
| "firecracker" bombs that go off over rooftops and after
| that do they bomb the area.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| the un has proved countless times, since 1948, that they have
| no reliability when it comes to honestly presenting the
| Israel Arab conflict. To prove my point, look at UNRWA, a
| singular organization, whose sole aim is to maintain the
| status of the Palestinians as refugees. Show me a comparable
| organization to UNRWA. Show me any large group of refugees
| -and there are many- who have had their reputation maintained
| for 70 years.
| h3rsko wrote:
| Quoting fatality numbers does nothing to disprove the
| statement. How many armies fire warning shots to let people
| vacate the area before airstrikes?
|
| Regarding who hold the keys to peace, and who has their
| finger on the trigger, I think the government glorifying and
| paying people who sneak into towns and slaughter sleeping
| families with knives is a pretty big impediment to peace.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > aiming for the legs
|
| This doesn't make bullets any less lethal. If a bullet damages
| your femoral artery, you'll bleed out in minutes if not
| seconds.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Lets put it this way: a 7.62 to the head - an actual, literal
| "head shot" - is lethal in all but the most exceptional
| circumstances. Same with the hearth region. A hit in the leg
| can easily be survived, especially if someone is around you
| to put a tourniquet on it.
|
| In fact someone in the same boot camp as me got a 7.62
| through his thigh after he didn't get the notice and wandered
| around between the targets as people started shooting. He
| survived with no lasting injuries. Extremely lucky but still.
|
| Source: I got most of my small arms training on G3s which are
| 7.62.
| strulovich wrote:
| Maybe you mean it can still be lethal.
|
| It definitely make it less lethal. Your chances of dying from
| a well aimed bullet to the legs are an order of magnitude
| less than a well aimed bullet for the head or chest.
|
| In case it's unclear: Aiming for the legs would be an option
| for an unarmed person approaching the Israeli Gaza border,
| and not yielding to instructions, or warning shots. There's
| generally not any other good options if your goal is to keep
| your border protected, and protect your forces against such
| events being used as diversions for a real attack, which is
| why it's a common tactic.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Also an option: do not shoot at all. If they are unarmed
| they pose no threat to you, and cannot therefore be a
| diversion.
|
| It also remains the only moral option, but of course this
| assumes you consider other people to be humans - given that
| members of the Stern gang became impotent members of the
| Israeli government, I am basically convinced that the
| Isreali government does not, though some individuals do.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Oh no, who will be brave enough to take a stand against the
| all-powerful anti-murder lobby!
| strulovich wrote:
| Is your viewpoint that you see any person killed in an armed
| conflict as a murder?
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Let's see..
|
| 1. Did a human die? Yes.
|
| 2. Was it caused by another human, directly or indirectly?
| Yes.
|
| 3. Did the perpetrator intend for a human to die? Yes.
|
| Yeah, I'd call that murder.
| samatman wrote:
| It's fine that you adopt a definition of murder which
| means that absolutely clear-cut self defense (someone
| comes at you with a knife, you pick up a nearby wine
| bottle and clock them on the head, they die) is murder,
| it's your prerogative.
|
| The rest of us will ignore you, however. Personally I
| think your definition is evil, not just wrong.
| WitCanStain wrote:
| This seems like a clear example of a case where the
| culprit did not intend for the other person to die.
| Rather, they wanted to neutralize the threat by the means
| at their disposal, and the person's death was a side-
| effect.
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| These are not autonomous weapons. They are all remote controlled
| by a human operator.
| kjrose wrote:
| I don't make the apocalyptic predictions about AI that everyone
| else seems to. But there is a simple fact that anyone in IT has
| run into. Google (as an example) has a massive amount of money
| and spends it extensively to try and prevent fraud and issues
| with their various services.
|
| In the process, there is story after story of someone losing
| their entire Google history, being blocked from Google Ads, Mail,
| etc. all because some automated system kicked in and decided they
| were a problem. Since Google doesn't have any reasonable appeals
| process this usually turns into a kafkaesque hell for people who
| experience it.
|
| Now imagine you put that exact same computer system in control of
| sniper rifles and drones that can kill someone.
|
| Yeah. It's not an ethical dilemma, it's a hellish reality.
|
| Let's wait until Google (or someone with essentially an unlimited
| supply of money) can figure out how to make it so that they can
| run their own services without randomly killing people digitally
| before we start to kill people in real life with those same
| tools.
| onion2k wrote:
| Autonomous weapons don't decide whether or not to kill someone
| based on subjective moral criteria. They're dumb. They don't
| discriminate. They're essentially just working on a model that
| looks like "kill any human within this virtual fence". Building
| in features that try to be clever is unnecessary and
| complicated. You just need a sign that says "Don't go in here."
| kjrose wrote:
| Until the day that it messes up and thinks that a certain
| area outside the fence is within the fence.
| einpoklum wrote:
| They raise the dilemma of how to topple the oppressive Israeli
| regime.
|
| I live there (well, "here" for me), and it's already intolerable
| if you're a Palestinian; for Hebrews/Jews there's a process of
| gradual decline in democratic freedoms and a slide into religious
| obscurantism couple with jingoism. Not that this didn't exist
| before, or that the government had not fostered that before, but
| it looks like it's gradually "letting loose".
|
| (This is mostly, but not entirely, independent of the governing
| PM, Netanyahu.)
| gizmo wrote:
| There is no ethical dilemma here at all, because these automated
| killing machines aren't necessary. Borders are defended all over
| the world by conventional means. Execution by robot is another
| step towards dystopia, and we should absolutely reject the notion
| that this is some morally complicated issue.
| credit_guy wrote:
| It's not more morally reprehensible than landmines. Borders all
| over the world use landmines, one of the most common weapons
| for area denial. Remote controlled or autonomous machine guns
| have the advantage that you can retire them more easily. With
| landmines, if you misplaced the map, you have a problem. Even
| if you still have the map you have a problem: what if the map
| is only 99% accurate?
| [deleted]
| gizmo wrote:
| 164 states have already signed an anti-personnel mine treaty,
| and more countries will join in the coming years. 48 million
| land mines have already been destroyed because of this Ottawa
| treaty, and this is a moral good.
|
| There is a strong movement for banning anti-personnel mines
| precisely because they are horrific weapons that kill and
| maim indiscriminately.
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _precisely because they are horrific weapons that kill
| and maim indiscriminately_
|
| The problem with mines is less that they are indiscriminate
| and more that they outlast their battles.
| analog31 wrote:
| Those are two sides of the same coin, still
| indiscriminate if they are not limited in both time and
| target.
| jxcole wrote:
| You're right it's not an ethical dilemma at all, but your
| reasons are completely off. All killing of humans by other
| humans is unethical, regardless of technology. Saying there is
| a dilemma implies that somehow a human would make killing
| another human ok. I find the whole tone of this article to be
| ridiculous...I would love to find an actual discussion in which
| an ethicist rationalizes war, and if you can't find that then
| the implication that machines somehow make the situation less
| ethical is ridiculous.
| Teever wrote:
| > All killing of humans by other humans is unethical
|
| It's going to be difficult for you to find many people who
| agree with this assertion.
|
| Most people awknowledge the necessity of self defense, and
| many others who agree with the death or penalty agree with
| the idea of death as punishment for certain classes of
| crimes.
|
| Now there's an argument to be made about a judicial process
| being followed or the issue with unintended
| consequences/blowback but it's a hard sell to your average
| person that a brutal dictator shouldn't be killed.
| Lammy wrote:
| Borders are a fake idea in an age when our "elite" are rich
| enough to be global and stateless. Look at people straight-up
| buying NZ citizenship, for example. The ultimate divide-and-
| conquer for humanity as long as the "other side" can be made to
| sound scary enough.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Israel has three hostile borders with a close to an active war
| going on (Lebanon, Syria, Gaza).
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| >Borders are defended all over the world by conventional means.
|
| I think you are wrong. most countries do a terrible job of
| efficiently- or even effectively- defending borders. I'm not
| making a political statement, but just look how many illegal
| immigrants get into US, EU, etc. Even Israel, which is
| relatively small, has to invest vast resources into maintaining
| their fences. Please note, i don't want to be dragged into a
| political discussion, i'm simply explaining why i think your
| are wrong.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I'm not making a political statement, but just look how
| many illegal immigrants get into US, EU, etc.
|
| That's not inefficient/ineffective, the system is just
| optimized for different things. It ensures a cheap and
| compliant labor force for things like agriculture.
| maxlybbert wrote:
| Plenty of borders around the world are peaceful, and there
| isn't much "defending" going on. Those are maintained without
| much trouble.
|
| If we narrow the discussion to borders that aren't very
| peaceful, there aren't many successful solutions. It looks
| like "nothing gets through" works, but "only approved traffic
| gets through" doesn't work.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Nuclear weapons are not necessary either, but they certainly do
| give an adversary pause when considering to attack you.
|
| Autonomous weapon systems are no different. They raise the
| deterrence factor so that you are not likely to be attacked by
| simply having the capability and your adversary knowing that
| you have the capability.
| swarnie_ wrote:
| > Nuclear weapons are not necessary either, but they
| certainly do give an adversary pause when considering to
| attack you.
|
| This is something i've always found weird... Nukes arguably
| make the world safer by your definition one but particular
| country gets to decide who is safe and who gets a free
| conversion to democracy.
|
| Its maddening.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| > Nukes arguably make the world safer
|
| It depends on who has them and how they use them.
|
| Autonomous weapon systems are (theoretically) much more
| precise and don't leave radioactive destruction in their
| wake (unless they are nuclear-armed autonomous weapons
| systems--that's a terrifying thought).
|
| The greater precision and less permanent nature means they
| are more likely to be used offensively rather than just
| held in strategic reserve as most nuclear arsenals are.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Conventional autonomous weapons will not be enough to be
| a replacement for nukes - a peer nation can fight them
| off with their own autonomous weapons, so there's no MAD
| at play.
|
| What makes nukes unique, and MAD work, is the simple
| observation known to every nation: if one country decides
| to nuke another, there's _nothing_ anyone can do about
| this - once the decision is made and the button is
| pressed, the other country turns into glass. But since
| nukes fly longer than the time it takes to detect and
| launch a retaliation strike, no one dares to launch first
| because they 'll get glassed too, and there's also
| nothing anyone can do about it.
|
| Conventional weapons, autonomous or not, can't unleash
| destruction at necessary scale and certainty.
| [deleted]
| sgt101 wrote:
| >but particular country gets to decide who is safe and who
| gets a free conversion to democracy.
|
| There are quite a few countries that have nukes now, and
| not just half a dozen little ones. For example, India has
| SSBNs.
| whatthesmack wrote:
| "Borders all over the world" don't typically have Hezbollah
| shooting rockets over the border into civilian areas on a
| regular basis. This is a very unique scenario, and the best
| response to arbitrary rocket fire, if possible, is an automated
| and precise response. I highly doubt they're inventing these
| technologies for fun... there is a defensive need. It is a
| morally complex issue, because the whole scenario is more
| intricate than it seems you believe it to be.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Exactly. Roboguns enforcing the border are little different
| than a minefield except they're much easier to maintain and
| dismantle, as well as being more reliable and immune to
| sweeping. It's a no-go zone in either case.
|
| Like with a minefield, morally fine when marked, very immoral
| if not marked.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| Not all borders are enforced by violent colonisers that force
| a violent response, either. What's your point?
| amitport wrote:
| Sure, Hezbollah has a right to fire at civilians (which
| include other Muslims BTW). They're the "good guys":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah
| ruined wrote:
| none of these automated guns are shooting down rockets. they
| already have anti-missile shields that do that.
|
| nobody fires those rockets for fun, either. the casualty rate
| among the people doing it (and any civilians who happen to be
| in the area) is much higher than that of their targets.
| siculars wrote:
| Which leads you to wonder if casualty rate is a deterrent
| to firing rockets. What if it were different? Would that
| make an impact?
| meowface wrote:
| That's a good point. It seems like unless there's not
| only a 100% counter-attack success rate but also a 100%
| missile detonation prevention rate, many/most of the
| attackers will believe that they'll be entering paradise
| soon anyway, so even a chance of killing civilians means
| they likely won't be deterred.
|
| It might deter some percentage, but considering how many
| people gladly accept certain death, an increased chance
| of death isn't a big hurdle.
| bsanr2 wrote:
| This unnecessarily others the people on that side of the
| conflict. They are desperate because their credible and
| civilized protests of apparent apartheid, let alone
| global recognition of their claim to sovereignty, are
| ignored.
| amitport wrote:
| That being said. It is important to emphasis that Israel is
| _not_ automatically responding to rocket fire from Gaza or
| Lebanon. There are quite a few humans in the loop.
| philwelch wrote:
| South Korea uses unmanned sentry guns to defend the DMZ. This
| gives them some degree of protection from another Northern
| invasion, even without US assistance.
|
| If I were to characterize any part of Korea as a "dystopia", it
| wouldn't be the part that defends itself with robot machine
| guns. Indeed, the robot machine guns were invented to protect
| South Korea from falling under the dystopia that has overrun
| the North.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| Which side of Korea was bombed to the ground by the US in a
| war that has still not ended?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Which side of Korea is still firing missiles at it's
| neighbors and running a dystopian fascist state?
| samatman wrote:
| The only way you can insult fascists is by comparing them
| to communists, who are objectively worse by the metric of
| democide.
| creato wrote:
| What is your point?
|
| Would you rather be in North Korea or South Korea?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| And more importantly, would you rather put the north in
| charge of the south, or the south in charge of the north?
| Which scenario do you think would turn out better for the
| people who live there?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| So, I realize that lots of apocalyptic projections get made about
| AI that have a habit of not coming true, but this seems like an
| awful idea. Also, an awfully hard one to resist. If your opponent
| has fast-as-a-computer-can-pull-the-trigger firepower, it's going
| to be pretty hard to resist the urge to get your own.
|
| Once you have two sides with automated offensive capability, we
| are one bug away from the kind of mistakes that, during the Cold
| War, were intercepted by humans in the loop. I'm not sure how
| this can NOT end badly.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I have a feeling that humans will remain overwhelmingly
| responsible for most of the wartime mistakes.
|
| I think this will further reduce conflict between advanced
| nations (robots killing robots just becomes a stalemate) and
| will intensely escalate any asymmetric conflicts where one
| advanced nation can crush whoever without having to pay the
| price of deploying humans (think CIA drone strikes).
| gizmo wrote:
| "wartime mistakes" is a nice euphemism. And I'm sure that
| people will continue be held to account. For instance when
| somebody whoopsies and dronestrikes a wedding party in Jemen.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _I have a feeling that humans will remain overwhelmingly
| responsible for most of the wartime mistakes._
|
| Of course we will. It's not as though they're programming
| themselves. Somebody has to tell the computer what to do.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Hah. Good point. But I meant like self driving: we
| suuuuuuuck. Let's not fool ourselves acting like it's
| critical that there's a human touch to things.
| gmfawcett wrote:
| Nor should we fool ourselves that it's important for a
| machine to take over. We don't "suuuck" at driving -- or
| at killing other people, for that matter: as a species,
| on average, we're fairly competent at both tasks. The
| fact that a machine might have a lower failure rate isn't
| a singular reason to embrace the tech.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I agree with that. I was also referring to how much we
| suck at _not_ killing the wrong people. I imagine
| systemic racism would still exist, but at least the
| robots are making decisions consistently.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _I imagine systemic racism would still exist, but at
| least the robots are making decisions consistently._
|
| We program our robots with our prejudices[1]. If you
| don't control the machines, you can't change their
| programming. It's entirely possible that such prejudices
| are cemented through machines that cannot be influenced
| or changed except through actions of their owners.
|
| What happens when the owners of these machines are
| indifferent towards, or outright supportive of,
| prejudice? History is rife with owners of companies,
| industries and governments exploiting and furthering
| prejudice for their own benefit.
|
| [1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/publicati
| ons/jud...
| penetraitor69 wrote:
| Exactly. If your fire-control system is trained on a
| dataset that (through carelessness or malice) has some
| bias, you could end up with a racist machine gun turret.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I'd say more countries will choose a nuclear route over being
| droned to death at near zero cost to attacker.
|
| Atomic weapons are forties technology, and even nations as
| locked down, and downtrodden like North Korea, or Israel (as
| it was in sixties) can not only make one, but seemingly
| genuinely capable of keeping it hidden against modern spy,
| and nuclear detection tech.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Nuclear weapons still aren't easy to make by any means.
| It's not so much the nuclear physics that's the challenge
| as it is all of the engineering best-practices. That, and
| the difficulty of obtaining raw materials.
|
| And nuclear weapons aren't a binary either. North Korea has
| demonstrated the actual bomb, but their delivery systems
| are still far from reliable. Their rockets might
| technically have the range to threaten the US, but what are
| the chances they could actually hit their target? And how
| many launch vehicles do they realistically have? Not likely
| enough to seriously threated any other nuclear powers. And
| this after making decades of enormous political and
| economic sacrifices to pursue nuclear weapons. I don't
| think most countries will feel tempted to follow their
| lead.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You don't need 100% reliance on ICBMs if your only aim
| just to hit enemy's mainland for the sake of it. Cheaper
| means are on the table.
|
| Much more relevant theatre range weapons are things even
| NK can manufacture. I was very surprised to learn that
| North Korea not only designed a working cruise missile
| with their economy, but had a working terrain hugging
| flight on it.
| altcognito wrote:
| It's ridiculous to think that all the advanced countries aren't
| working on exactly this. To some extent, it totally makes
| sense.
|
| Defining an area as a kill zone and a bomb that is dropped on a
| particular area aren't all that different.
| [deleted]
| zamadatix wrote:
| In intent no, in unintended risk yes. And not in a
| "collateral damage" kind of way, more in a "it's hard to use
| a bomb in a way the damage zone becomes 100x bigger than
| intended".
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> It's ridiculous to think that all the advanced countries
| aren't working on exactly this.
|
| They are.
|
| And a centralized AI will be needed to coordinate all of the
| autonomous weapon systems and react faster than the bad guys
| --SkyNet is coming too.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a centralized AI will be needed to coordinate all of the
| autonomous weapon systems_
|
| Why?
|
| At a tactical level, an AI to coordinate a battlefield
| makes sense. (Speed of light means local computing has an
| advantage, particularly with directed energy weapons.) And
| an AI to advise on strategy, and coordinate those
| battlefield AIs, makes sense.
|
| But while battles are mechanical, war is political. At the
| point that the human becomes replaceable we'd have an AI
| substitute for government, which is a long way away.
|
| For grand strategic concerns, we have nukes, and those
| still fly slowly and detectably enough that an AI
| commanding counterstrike is unnecessary. (Unless submarine
| platforms become detectable and thus destroyable in a first
| strike.)
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Why? Each individual system is more than capable of simply
| fulfilling tactics on their own. We're not short computing
| power! Central coordination is a risk to be avouded -- each
| individual drone can simply be Skynet all in their own.
| bumbada wrote:
| The bad guys is the centralized AI.
| fossuser wrote:
| Reminds me in a weird way of this episode:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/
|
| A culture has computer simulated war and "casualties" must
| report to euthanasia chambers.
|
| This was the end result agreed to to stop actual bombings.
|
| Of course, the officers disrupt it in the end. But it'd be
| interesting if they returned and nothing was left but craters.
|
| More on topic, iron dome is an automated missile interception
| system and works well to protect Israelis from missile attacks.
| Just because a system is automated doesn't necessarily mean
| it's a bad idea, but obviously there's high risk.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome
| jbob2000 wrote:
| You could argue that the Iron Dome has allowed the Israelis
| to perpetuate the conflict. If Israel citizens were faced
| with actually dying, they might push for a peaceful
| resolution faster.
| fossuser wrote:
| On the subject of ethics - proportionate response, narrow
| targeting, and trying not to kill civilians are good
| things.
|
| This topic is too political to have a nuanced internet
| discussion and quickly dissolved into weird anti-semitism
| most of the time.
|
| https://samharris.org/podcasts/why-dont-i-criticize-israel/
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >proportionate response, narrow targeting, and trying not
| to kill civilians are good things.
|
| How is it better to only respond with proportionate
| responses? If you were known as generally a good country,
| but could go mad at the drop of a hat, other countries
| would take even more steps to avoid harming you, wouldn't
| they?
|
| At the same time, if you were known of flattening
| neighborhods or even entire cities, your enemies wouldn't
| be able to hide among civilians.
|
| In either case you trade of more deaths now, for fewer
| dead in the future.
| hpcjoe wrote:
| Unfortunately, 70+ years ago, one side was prevented from
| winning their war of independence. Then 50ish years ago,
| when they were attacked, same thing. Then 40ish years
| ago.
|
| As horrible as it sounds, either the losing side needs to
| accept reality and concede (disbanding UNRWA would be a
| giant step in the right direction to force that issue),
| or the war should resume, and the gloves and restraints
| need to come off, until one or the other side sues for
| peace.
|
| This is the only way to end this conflict. Otherwise it
| is going to simmer forever. Without the cost for
| continuing the conflict being made very high, it will
| continue. The cost for Israel to protect its citizens is
| very high. The cost for launching attacks against
| Israelis needs to be disproportionately high for a change
| in political approach to be considered.
| gpderetta wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Mistakes happen. Escalating a misfire at the border into
| a levelled capital city block pretty much guarantees the
| aggressor won't survive long.
| philwelch wrote:
| A faster resolution, yes, but not a peaceful one.
| siculars wrote:
| I've been here a long time. This may actually win the award
| for most ridiculous comment ever written on HN. To argue
| that a main should willingly sacrifice their people for...
| what exactly? Why do you think these systems were built? To
| keep their people from "actually dying." Another route
| could be to indiscriminately return 10x fire for every
| indiscriminately fired inbound rocket. Would that be an
| appropriate response? I mean, it could "push for a peaceful
| resolution faster."
| mcguire wrote:
| This came up way back in the 1980s with the "Star Wars"
| project. What is the purpose of an anti-ballistic missile
| defense system? Is it intended to protect our citizens
| from enemy aggression, or to protect our citizens from
| the results of our aggression?
|
| Why would the Israeli government want to do anything to
| resolve the Palestinian situation when they gain so much
| from allowing it to continue at a low level?
| BobbyJo wrote:
| It wasn't an argument that one side should allow people
| to die, it was an argument that high mutual cost deters
| conflict and encourages diplomatic engagement. Which is
| true, see: nukes.
| bsaul wrote:
| It always amazes me how some people are unable to accept
| the fact that there are extremists ideologies in this
| world. The fact that you think that it's possible to
| solve a conflict with diplomatic talks, no matter if the
| ideology in front of you is capable of sacrificing its
| own children in suicide bombings to kill other civilians
| ( which not even the nazis or the japanese kamikaze did),
| in a pure act of hate, should let you think twice about
| the best tactic.
|
| Sometimes, it is really impossible to talk some sense to
| some people. It's just very hard to accept for us, but it
| just is, and history has proved that sometimes force _is_
| , unfortunately, the wisest choice.
| mcguire wrote:
| Why not exterminate the Palestinians, then?
| hpcjoe wrote:
| Deterrence _presumes_ rational actors. One side in this
| conflict is rational. The other side, decidedly
| irrational, acting not in their best interests, harming
| themselves and many others specifically to attack the
| rational actor.
|
| Aside from that, the real issue is that the irrational
| side has not yet conceded that they lost their war, 70+
| years ago, against the rational actor, who had
| established a state. They instigated that war, as they
| did not wish the rational actor to have that state. They
| are aided in their irrationality by various NGOs, and
| have managed to perpetuate and sustain their presumed
| victimhood, by attacking, with literal impunity, the
| rational actor.
|
| Now, here, you are suggesting that maybe, the rational
| actor should be restricted in their response to the
| irrational actor as it may bring the rational actor to
| the negotiating table. Which of course, completely
| neglects all the times the rational actor sat at the
| negotiating table with the irrational actor, hammered
| things most of the way out, and watched the irrational
| actor breach every single agreement.
|
| So ...
|
| What we have here has nothing to do with rational actor
| deciding enough is enough, and developing tech to
| reasonably neutralize the threat the irrational actor
| poses. Arguing against this de minimus effort, as it
| might bring the rational actor back to the table (in your
| mind) if they had to rely on sticks and stones ... is
| pretty much the definition of ludicrous.
|
| The rational actor has tried, for 70+ years, to get the
| irrational actor to work with it. And has been met with
| bloodshed, the irrational actor targeting civilians,
| which, is a real war crime, as compared to the BS alleged
| by the irrational actor, in their attempt to get the
| world to ostracize the rational actor.
|
| Exactly how, would this time be different? What would the
| irrational actor offer to jump start discussions? Because
| it is obvious from the last 70+ years that the underlying
| thesis of "land for peace" has not worked.
|
| A different approach was, and is needed. As much as I
| hate giving Trump credit, what he did was to change the
| parameters, which allowed other nations to get off the
| ledge with the irrational actor. This is, in turn,
| putting pressure on the irrational actor to begin acting
| rationally. Those actions need to continue.
|
| This all said, implying you wish to disarm a people who
| have armed themselves specifically to prevent mass
| slaughter at the hands of a losing side irrational non-
| nation state actor ... yeah ... not really a sound
| argument in any context.
| venomsnake wrote:
| Or they could just exile all people into the occupied
| territories in Syria and Jordan.
|
| If you don't have defense you go on offense.
| phkahler wrote:
| Reminded me directly of that episode. First drones kill
| people. Then drones kill drones. Then they destroy things.
| Then it goes completely virtual to save real-world costs.
| QuesnayJr wrote:
| When I watch the Star Wars movies, I mostly think of them as
| pure fantasy. Except for the killer drone in "Attack of the
| Clones" -- that was the one time I thought "That's definitely
| going to happen. They're going to make that."
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Once you have two sides with automated offensive capability,
| we are one bug away from the kind of mistakes that, during the
| Cold War, were intercepted by humans in the loop_
|
| There is a massive difference between guns on automated fire
| control and an AI aiming missiles.
|
| One could argue that, by making the fire control guaranteed,
| the border might stop being challenged and deaths thus go down.
| (Nobody to taunt, either.)
| ruined wrote:
| The incentive to challenge the border is not going away, it's
| simply more suicidal and ineffective to do it at the border.
| Perfect automated defense will encourage "challenges" _away_
| from the unassailable border, against easier targets such as
| police stations, shopping centers, and schools...
| m463 wrote:
| > One could argue that, by making the fire control
| guaranteed,
|
| Landmines work by the same principle. Many killed by
| landmines are children.
|
| > 87% of the casualties were civilians and 47% were children
| (less than 18 years old).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mine#Casualties
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Landmines work by the same principle_
|
| Not really. Mine fields are not certain death. They don't
| always have the opportunity to announce themselves. Guns on
| automated fire control have the option of announcing
| themselves prior to engaging. They can also be turned off,
| something not easy to do with mines.
|
| It's painful but necessary to note that Hamas have a track
| record of weaponising children [1]. A child approaching the
| border is thus not guaranteed safe, and could reasonably be
| fired upon by a human or a gun on automated fire control.
| (Not arguing for killing kids. Just that "kids could get
| killed" isn't an effective argument against this weapons
| platform.)
|
| War is terrible. I don't think automatic guns make it
| significantly more terrible. (Landmines do.)
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_child_suicide_bo
| mbers...
| imtringued wrote:
| >Landmines work by the same principle. Many killed by
| landmines are children.
|
| That makes no sense to me. Children being killed by
| landmines is an example of a lack of fire control. If the
| land mine had fire control it could detect enemy soldiers
| then children wouldn't have to die.
| samatman wrote:
| This would seem to be a strict improvement over
| antipersonnel landmines along every dimension, while
| providing the same necessary function of area denial.
|
| In particular, you don't set up a few thousand roboguns and
| then leave them there when the conflict is over, which is
| responsible for most of the civilian deaths you're
| referring to, including those of children.
| Huwyt_Nashi031 wrote:
| Open borders for thee, robo-snipers defending the border for me.
|
| If Southern European countries set these up on the shores to
| defend against vessels arriving from North Africa, the Jewish
| media in the West would go mental.
|
| The only consolation here is that, from the videos I've seen, an
| automated gun that indiscriminately kills Palestinian children
| anywhere near the border is only different from Israeli snipers
| in that it won't laugh and upload the footage afterwards.
| ufoolme wrote:
| I would have thought that the main reason people 'shoot to kill'
| is in self protection, if more autonomy is introduced then surely
| lethal force would be required in less situations.
| realistan wrote:
| Most of the persons crossing the border between Gaza and Israel
| do so for nefarious purposes, ie attacking civilians in nearby
| Israeli villages and cities. So yeah, it's self protection.
|
| It wasn't always like this, Gaza had an airport, free travel to
| Israel and Egypt, etc. But the majority in Gaza has voted for
| Hamas, an extremist party which calls for the annihilation of
| Israel, so for now all Israel can do is watch the border
| closely and thwart attacks.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Agree.
|
| It is also telling that Egypt allows no traffic over the
| border while Israel typically allow tens of semi trailers a
| day of food an humanitarian aid as long as they can ensure
| weapons aren't smuggled in.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's on Israel's insistence, so they can control the flow
| of goods.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing
|
| > The Palestinians agreed that all imports of goods are
| diverted to the Kerem Shalom border crossing, because
| Israel threatened to exclude Gaza from the customs union
| out of concern about the implementation of the Paris
| Protocol.
| realistan wrote:
| Israel restricts flow of dual-use goods [1]. There's
| nothing wrong with that.
|
| If you had a bad neighbor, which has intentions to build
| bombs in his basement, you'd damn sure try to restrict
| what goes into his basement.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology
| tomcooks wrote:
| Water access too? Tsk.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Israel's definition of dual-use is _extremely_ broad.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-gaza-
| homes/a...
|
| > Israel tightly limits the flow of concrete, cement,
| iron bars and other materials into Gaza, as "dual use"
| items that could have a military purpose if they were
| seized by Hamas to rebuild tunnels used to launch
| attacks.
|
| > That means few homes have been rebuilt despite
| international pledges of billions for reconstruction.
| Rather than wait to rebuild permanent homes, some relief
| agencies have decided to build temporary structures with
| materials they can get.
|
| https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-
| release/2019/04/17/w...
|
| > The adverse effect of dual-use restrictions is mostly
| felt in manufacturing, ICT and agriculture. The
| agriculture sector contributes significantly to
| Palestinian food security; however, the dual use
| restrictions have lowered the concentration of active
| chemicals in fertilizers making them less effective and
| lowering land productivity to half of that in Jordan and
| only 43 percent of the yield in Israel.
|
| > For example, the restriction on 'communications
| equipment, communications supporting equipment, equipment
| containing communication functions', limits access to
| modern manufacturing production lines, spare parts,
| medical equipment and home appliances. It has also stood
| in the way of developing the Palestinian ICT sector and
| created a large technological gap with neighboring
| countries.
|
| It looks a lot like collective punishment.
| realistan wrote:
| Israel definition of dual-use is adaptive. Very adaptive.
|
| > Concrete used to build attack tunnels - restrict
| concrete.
|
| > Burning old tires used as smoke mask to attack border -
| restrict import of used tires.
|
| > Helium balloons used as incendiary devices - restrict
| Helium supply.
|
| Those are all real examples from the last few years, btw.
|
| Edit: Basic necessities to sustain life - food, water,
| medicines are allowed. No need for hyperbole.
|
| If you had a bad neighbor, you would do the same.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Everything's dual-use, then, including basic necessities.
|
| Food - could be used to feed combatants!
|
| Medicine - could be used to treat combatants!
|
| Consider the possibility that "you're not allowed to
| build houses for your families because we won't let the
| materials in" potentially inflames more terrorism than it
| stops.
|
| _edit:_ Regarding your edit, "Edit: Basic necessities
| to sustain life - food, water, medicines are allowed."
|
| Shelter is considered one of the basic necessities.
|
| > If you had a bad neighbor, you would do the same.
|
| If I had a bad neighbor, and I walled them in and forbade
| them from buying concrete and fertilizer, the police
| would likely intervene in their favor.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Now you are just arguing against yourself as Israel does
| not use deny those types of goods, proving that they try
| to allow as much as possible.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Correct, but sadly for very good reasons: concrete and
| rebar isn't used for homes but for attack tunnels etc.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Looking at any photo of Gaza reveals at least _some_ of
| the concrete and rebar is used for homes.
| skinkestek wrote:
| You are of course right.
|
| Have my upvote.
|
| I think my point still stands.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Easy to justify it as such with robots.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| The main reason militaries "shoot to kill" is to exert power
| over territory and resources
| [deleted]
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Kind of amazed at all the suprised pikachu faces here when
| videogames have been giving us experience dealing with
| autonomously-operated turrets for decades
|
| Also the joystick control is kind of LOL. Give her a mouse and
| keyboard!
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Not to mention the sentry gun from _Aliens_.
|
| https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/UA_571-C_Automated_Sentry_Gun
| christkv wrote:
| Really feels like we are moving quickly towards ghost in the
| shell as a future. I guess cyberpunk was much more of future
| vision than anyone ever would have imagined.
| oyebenny wrote:
| It's really only a matter of time where we will see the mods that
| we put into War Zone controllers actually exist in real life.
| amitport wrote:
| a) Those weapons are _not_ autonomous, they are remote
| controlled. Just fancy more accurate guided missiles. They are
| alternative for blind bombing. Like any weapon, it depends what
| you do with them and what your enemy is doing.
|
| b) This type of weapons exists in many military industries and is
| bought by many countries (any country that can afford them).
| Making this specifically "ethical" in connection to Israel is
| appallingly biased.
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