
Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot - sohkamyung
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50387954
======
dilippkumar
I don't buy this.

Given a sufficiently desperate situation, I can't imagine any military with
autonomous tanks taking a call to keep the autonomous shooting "disabled" when
it would risk actually loosing a war.

If anyone had real ethical concerns, they would've not put a gun on a robot to
begin with. Once you arm a robot, a software disable is just lipstick on a
pig.

~~~
michaelt
I've heard it argued that cruise missiles are robots - at least as much as a
Roomba is - and hence that 'killer robots' have been with us for decades.

~~~
toyg
And already we have all sorts of problems with cruise missiles (fired by
mistake, locking on the wrong target, misbehaving in flight...). Increasing
the window of risk to ground combat is very, very risky. As the British ex-
soldier quoted in TFA, even humans struggle to discern friend from foe in
situations like Afghanistan or Iraq, a machine could potentially create
clusterfucks of unimaginable proportions.

Not that I think someone won’t do it - if it gives even a resemblance of
tactical superiority, someone _will_ deploy it, then watch in horror as things
go terribly wrong.

~~~
wiz21c
out of scope, but this made me laugh :

>>> clusterfucks of unimaginable proportions

------
chrismmay
That demo where the unmanned tank pointed its gun at the platform full of
generals...... talk about your nightmare demo. I’ve done a few and even
getting my network connection working at a client site can make me sweat a
little when a room full of executives are waiting. I can’t imagine how the
engineers felt when their baby went off the reservation like that.

~~~
C1sc0cat
There is the famous ww2 rocket powered mine that looked like a pair of giant
Catharine wheels that was designed to breach defences on d day.

When tested it ran amuck and turned back towards the observers

------
vincnetas
Mandatory "You have 20 seconds to comply."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M)

*That demo with generals probably looked like this :)

~~~
StavrosK
Even now, 33 years later, that robot is goddamn terrifying. Props to the
designers for creating the most disconcerting creature I've seen in all
cinema.

------
kirillzubovsky
No government or regulation can strop entropy, and given the tools and the
knowledge, a Robocop is inevitable. The best we can do is prepare the rest of
the world to deal with these things, and the time when without a doubt they
get hacked, or become self-aware. The question is, what are we going to do?

------
AYBABTME
If you're being attacked, troops on the ground aren't necessarily better than
autonomous robots. Robots don't rape and pillage. An advancing robotic army
doesn't incentivize the retreating force in adopting a scorched earth tactic,
since the robots don't need buildings to house them, groceries or farms.

Maybe I read too much about the Nanking massacre recently, but having it fresh
in my mind makes me question whether the often repeated assumption that humans
need to be involved, is to be taken at face value. Maybe it's a good idea to
keep humans at a safe distance, even if they're actively part of the conflict.

~~~
SandunGunn
But we should have 'skin in the game'. Removing the risk, by using robots,
lowers the barriers to engage in conflicts and may lead us to behave more
aggressively than we would have done otherwise.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_94xdbisu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_94xdbisu8)

------
simon_000666
These articles always focus on man vs. machine but war is a great leveler.
What happens for example when there is a proxy war and these devices get used?
Lets say the US deploys them somewhere for one side but then surely Russia or
China or whoever is supporting the other side will deploy their own versions
to counter. Will we then end up with a machine vs. machine scenario?

~~~
dave_sullivan
This is basically the plot of Horizon Zero Dawn. [Spoilers] Machine swarm vs
machine swarm in human proxy war, but then the humans lose the password and
can’t access the swarms and they destroy everything.

------
tjchear
On one hand, I'm pretty excited that something from the universe of Ghost in
the Shell would become reality; on the other hand, it's a slippery slope to
some dystopian reality where ethical considerations are completely removed
from battle.

~~~
krisoft
> “where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle”

I’m surprised you say that. Having tired, squishy humans in a hot, cramped box
fearing for their life is not exactly a guarantee of “ethical considerations”.

Remotely controlled weaponry removes said humans from the immediate danger.
It’s a lot easier to apply ethical considerations, when you can be certain a
moment of hesitation won’t cause your death.

Fully autonomous weaponry moves the ethical decision making even further up
the chain. Where cold heads can do all the thinking beforehand.

Now, don’t get me wrong: There is a lot of ills with remotely
controlled/autonomous weaponry. Chiefly among them that it removes certain
costs from the political calculus. Politicians fear the spectacle of their
troops dying. This fear moderates their decision making. Removing this cost
will make the world a worse place. But i would hardly call this an “ethical
consideration”.

~~~
hvidgaard
That is assuming that both sides have them. That is not likely unless we see
the major superpowers going to war with each other, and I don't see that
happening.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
ED-209: Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.

Jones: I think you'd better do what he says, Mr. Kinney.

...

