Category: AI, Computation, and Technology

KILLER ROBOTS – YUP. GONNA HAPPEN.

I”m not sure where this killer robot chatter is coming from – drones maybe. But the military already disallows autonomous killing machines. Now, I worked on this stuff a bit a long time ago. And you really don’t want these things just killing all observable life forms. Which is pretty easy really. It’s discriminating between those things you DO want to kill and those you DON”T want to kill that’s computationally hard. Not much in the world looks and acts like human form. They’re easy to find. Now, If you’re a government that has some sort of moral legitimacy claim that is a material constraint. But you know, doomsday robots – things that kill every living thing are not very different from nuclear weapons. They’re politically intolerable in use but politically beneficial in possession. Personally, I think they’re not only going to happen but will happen. The moral constraint is that you can’t enable them to reproduce. It’s not that they kill all life forms. It’s that they become a life form when they engage in reproduction. So I kind of think we’re going to see autonomous killing machines. Because like nuclear weapons, there just too good NOT to have them. Bats are perfect for example. You can’t cognitively process what they’re doing, They don’t have to be fast in a straight line, you just can’t mentally compete with their tactics. (We used to hunt them with tennis rackets).

The problem with something like bats is energy density. We don’t have an answer for that yet. So we’re going to see more vulnerable and slower technology first. (go karts or large arachnids with grenades and machine guns.)