If we were able to give the Ukrainians fully automated kill bots, and those kill bots enabled Ukraine to swiftly expel the Russians from their territories, would that not be a good thing? Or would you rather the meat grinder continue to destroy Ukraine's young men to satisfy some moral purity threshold?

If we could give Taiwan killbots that would ensure China could never invade, or at least could never occupy Taiwan, would that be good or bad? I have a feeling I know what the Taiwanese would say.

While we're at it, should we also strip out all the machine learning/AI driven targeting systems from weapons? We might feel good about it, but I would bet my life savings that our future adversaries will not do the same.

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eckelhesten 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You seem to see everything from a binary perspective. China bad, Taiwan good. Russia bad, Ukraine good.

The world is more nuanced than that.

But to answer your question. No we should not give anyone automatic kill bots. Automatic kill bots shouldn’t even be a thing.

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next_xibalba 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, I think Russia's invasion of Ukraine is quite clearly a binary Russia=bad, Ukraine=good. Same for the impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Perhaps you could explain the nuances under which Russia was the good guy? Better yet, maybe you could explain it to the Ukrainians who have been displaced, or the family members of those who have been killed, or the soldiers who have been permanently maimed?

Whether you or I like it or not, automatic kill bots will be a thing. It will only be a question of which countries have them and which do not.

	▲	trollbridge 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And there is evidence automated killbots were already used in Gaza (not that that's a good thing). Generally, in war, there are no rules, and someone is going to make automated killbots, and I expect one place to see them quite soon is in the Russia-Ukraine war. And yes, I'm hoping the good guys use them and win over the bad guys. And yes, there are good guys and bad guys in that conflict.

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dryarzeg 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ukrainian young (24 y.o.) man here. Living and working in police 30 kilometres away from the actual frontline.

No, thanks, we don't need those "fully automated kill bots". There's absolutely no guarantee that they wouldn't kill the operator (I mean, the one who directs them) or human ally.

We're pretty much fine with drone technology we have.

But for me personally, that's not the most important point. What is more important - and what almost no one in the Western countries seems to realise (no offence, but many of westerners seem to be kind of binary-minded: it's either 0xFFFFFF or 0x000000, no middle ground at all) - is that on the Russian side, soldiers are not "fully automated kill bots" either. Sure, there's a lot of... let's say - war criminals. Yes, for sure. But en masse they are the same young men that you can see on the Ukrainian side. Moreover, many people in Ukraine have relatives in Russia, and there already were the cases where two siblings were in different armies, literally fighting with each other. So in my opinion, "fully automated kill bots" are not an option here. At least unless you deploy them in Moscow and St. Peterburg to neutralize all of the Russian elites, military commandment and other decision-making persons of the current regime.

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kevinh 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The thing about building fulling automated kill bots is then you've built fully automated kill bots.

	▲	next_xibalba 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Fully automated kill bots are coming, whether any of us like it or not. The question is, which militaries will have them, and which militaries will be sitting ducks? China is pursuing autonomous weapons at full speed. Personally, I think it'd be great to have the Anthropic people at the table in the creation of such horrors, if only to help curb the excesses and incompetencies of other potential offerings.