
Omniviolence Is Coming and the World Isn’t Ready - Elof
http://nautil.us/blog/omniviolence-is-coming-and-the-world-isnt-ready
======
scottlocklin
"Will emerging technologies make the state system obsolete? It’s hard to see
why not."

Yeah, it's hard to see why not if your view of technology is something like
that of medieval demonology, which appears to be the thesis of this article.

Meanwhile, in reality land, you can make explosives and poison gas out of
stuff in your kitchen, automobiles put a ridiculous amount of kinetic energy
in the hands of individuals, this has been true for 100 years, and somehow
"the state system" has done just fine; strengthened even in that period of
time.

Also Bostrom is a nincompoop and no article that mentions him deserves to be
taken seriously.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _automobiles put a ridiculous amount of kinetic energy in the hands of
> individuals, this has been true for 100 years, and somehow "the state
> system" has done just fine; strengthened even in that period of time._

Yep.

States figured out how to turn automobiles into tanks, essentially
strengthening their power. Yet the article implicitly posits that somehow the
same won't happen with microprocessors and nanomachines? The entire article
seems a bit fanciful. States aren't going anywhere.

~~~
grawprog
>States figured out how to turn automobiles into tanks

So did this disgruntled citizen:

[https://youtu.be/PZbG9i1oGPA](https://youtu.be/PZbG9i1oGPA)

~~~
bilbo0s
And which tank is superior?

The "killdoser", designed and built by the non-state actor inside the US
nation state?

Or the M1 Abrams, designed and built by the US nation state itself?

Even if you build yourself a "killdozer", you are powerless against the US
state. Because the tanks that the US nation state built substantially
increased the strength and power of that nation state years ago.

------
mikeg8
The premise of this article: Because a super-villain like attack “could”
occur, we need to solve a technology threat, with more technology... that is
more likely to be hacked and misused (eventually). Don’t agree.

If the “state” can’t defend me from fanastical threats, it serves no purpose
and we should abolish it? Nope, don’t agree again. I accept that my state
can’t guarantee ultimate protections from a Vin Diesel-like movie threat
situation. However, my state provides other benefits like: funding for
education, business regulations and tax credits, lending regulation,
infrastructure build/repair, funding construction projects (my industry),
wildlife protection, park systems, etc.

Joke of an article.

~~~
bob1029
This is the basic feeling I left with as well. In terms of the hypothetical
threat presented here (millions of autonomous kill drones), there are actually
solid defensive measures that can be taken, even if they may not be absolute
(aka stopping evil superman). Some are direct - I.e. microwave/laser/kinetic
countermeasures which a nation state could quite easily deploy, whereas others
(the more important ones IMO) are indirect - I.e. Monitoring supply chains and
persons of interest., following up on anonymous tips (aka clerk at hardware
store concerned with customer purchase, or the guy complaining about the
secret drone factory noise next door).

The value of the nation state, even confined to this hypothetical scenario, is
still there for me. There is far more to this than the one perspective of
"techno-horror vs hapless government" presented in the article.

------
trentnix
_Bostrom is well-aware of the downsides—corrupt actors in a state could
exploit this surveillance for totalitarian ends, or hackers could blackmail
unsuspecting victims. Yet the fact is that it may still be a better option
than suffering one global catastrophe after another._

Aspiring fascists are always trying to save us from ourselves.

~~~
DSingularity
I don't like this "panopticon" but I don't think suggesting it as a solution
makes the author an "aspiring" fascist.

~~~
trentnix
On the contrary, that's _exactly_ what it makes him.

~~~
darkerside
What exactly do you think fascist means

~~~
trentnix
_Fascism ( /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism
characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and
strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in
early 20th-century Europe._

\- from Wikipedia.

Pretty sure his proposal nails the dictatorial power, forcible suppression of
opposition, and strong regimentation of society parts. After all, that's the
_whole point_ of all-encompassing surveillance.

~~~
jessaustin
Well, that's not why Google are doing it. Perhaps I'm mistaken about their
motivations?!?

~~~
trentnix
Motivations? Every fascist is convinced of the purity and necessity of their
motivations. And eventually maintaining power becomes the overriding
motivation...for the children, for the common good, for the poor, for the
planet, and all that.

~~~
jessaustin
(Google are doing it for the money.)

------
defen
> In this scenario, the K/K ratio could be perhaps 3/1,000,000, assuming a
> 10-percent accuracy and only a single one-gram shaped charge per drone.

So you "only" need 10 million drones and 10 million grams of plastic
explosive? An attack of that magnitude probably requires the resources of a
nation-state, so I doubt it will happen. Targeted assassinations seem more
plausible.

~~~
XorNot
I mean if you barred the doors to a theater and tossed a few gallons of bleach
and vinegar in you could also just gas hundreds of people, but it doesn't
happen.

We worry a lot about technology because the attacks sound novel, but not about
the conventional ones which still (mostly) don't happen because the reality is
that the actual logistical challenges of implementing them without security
services noticing still hasn't fundamentally changed all that much.

~~~
Felz
I think the real limiter is people willing and stable enough to murder
indiscriminately at scale in novel ways. Mowing down crowds of people with a
truck is bizarrely recent, and the peak of mass murder is still one guy
sniping at a concert from a nearby hotel. Everyone was relatively surprised
that passenger planes could be used as destructive weapons.

The really effective means of mass murder I think would be subtle, though, and
mass murderers don't seem to do subtle. E.g. leaving some radioactive material
in an innocuous public place, worsening visibility at crash prone
intersections, subtle and slow poisons mixed into food and drink…

~~~
ph0rque
Death by obesity! Oh wait...

~~~
tjr225
Really had to laugh out loud at this one. To point out the obvious and make my
comment more substantive- this article is concerned about the type of murder
that isn't happening, when corporations kill us off every day for money.
Hello, freedom.

------
glangdale
Amusing to picture our "3" terrorists carefully assembling 10m drones, each
with a 1g shaped charge on it - or does the author think this is something
that you can just order from some factory in China, along with the 10 tons of
plastic explosive.

It seems to be that anyone sophisticated enough to put 10 tons of plastic
explosive _in any form_ wherever they feel like is already quite capable of
causing massive casualties.

Somehow, to make this even remotely plausible, we need to intersect a lot of
unlikely combinations (a bunch of really bad guys who are hugely resourced,
very technical and intelligent, completely uninfiltrated, fighting for some
goal that isn't going to be radically harmed by the optics of killing
thousands of soft targets).

~~~
glangdale
The more I think about this, the funnier it gets. How long would it take to
unpack a drone, put a power source in it, and install a 1g shaped charge on a
drone and pack it away? 30 seconds? It seems like something you wouldn't
exactly want to _rush_.

So with 3 terrorists, assuming they worked 16 hour days, they'd have their
devices ready in 4.75 years, assuming they didn't take any holidays.

------
danShumway
It is at least somewhat novel to see a technological alarmist jump entirely
over the "encryption enables child porn" argument all the way to "robot drones
are going to murder your family in broad daylight."

Go big or go home, I guess.

------
Causality1
Every one of these "individual actor catastrophes" has just assloads of
barriers to it. Take the "swarm of exploding drones" or "slaughterbots" if
you're a douchebag. We do not have the technology for a swarm of a dozen one-
inch drones to avoid crashing into each other, let alone carry out the
intensely complicated task of tracking down human beings. Also, drones that
size have a flight time of about five minutes. Also you would need to
manufacture and attach millions of shaped charges, which, unless you're a
state actor, is likely to kill the person doing it considering the poor life
expectancy of people trying to make only handfuls of IEDs.

Let's take something that's entirely possible using current technology. A
small group of motivated individuals could purchase thousands of toasters and
turn them into bombs and mail them all to politicians or schools or _____ and
set them to all explode at the same time. But that doesn't happen. A group
could use agar and antibiotics to breed up a bunch of highly-resistant MRSA
and use syringes to infect half the grocery section at dozens of stores on the
same day and in doing so kill tens of thousands of people. But that won't
happen either.

Just because you can imagine something and not think of a reason it's
impossible doesn't mean it's a realistic threat.

------
noonespecial
_“A very, very small quadcopter, one inch in diameter can carry a one-or two-
gram shaped charge,” he says. “You can order them from a drone manufacturer in
China. You can program the code..._

Or you could start a meme about sneaking up on people and punching them in the
head to try to knock them out, styling it as some sort of game.

Guess which one I'm more worried about.

~~~
bilbo0s
Wow.

The one you're worried about is even more hare-brained than the article's
worry.

At this point people really are out here creating reasons to be fearful. Don't
walk the street, you'll be punched. Don't go to walmart/target, you'll be
gunned down by the terrorists. Take off your shoes before you get on this
plane, so we can search for the bomb you put in them. And of course this
article now adds, don't go outside, the nano swarm will annihilate you.

You guys should really go for a walk and smell some flowers or something.

------
chucksmash
The article drums up a hypothetical scenario ("a semi-trailer full of
autonomous drones carrying small shaped charges could kill a million New
Yorkers, just for instance!") and then suggests we could counteract the
Omniviolence that The World Is Not Ready for by submitting to a Panopticon
society or making an AI our Philosopher King.

This is not serious minded analysis, but it's not fun either. It's just bad
clickbait.

No system can stop every dedicated attacker to begin with. Technology gives
people leverage in all their activities, including doing violence to one
another. Writing an article in Nautilus that amounts to idle musing about a
comic book villain's murderbot scheme and then trying to burnish it as Very
Serious at the end with name dropping and the author's academic credentials is
so lame.

------
tedajax
Literally nothing in this article seems like something that will actually come
to pass.

It's like a bad Black Mirror fanfic.

~~~
mrandish
Agreed and the vaguely proposed solution for their hypothesized problem sounds
far worse than the problem.

~~~
Jupe
Came to say exactly this...

Not quite sure how the author went from "Technology is, in other words,
enabling criminals to target anyone anywhere and, due to democratization,
increasingly at scale" to "One strategy could be a superintelligent
machine—essentially, an extremely powerful algorithm—that’s specifically
designed to govern fairly".

~~~
ctoth
> Of course, this is a fantastical proposal. Even the real-world use of AI in
> the justice system is fraught with problems. But at this point, do we have a
> better idea for preventing the collapse of the state system under the weight
> of widespread technological empowerment?

I'm not sure what motivated this sort of soundbite-style quoting without
digging in further, but I hope if you first read the comments without the
article you realize this is supposed to pose a question, not offer a solution.

~~~
Jupe
I'm not judging the solution, just the logic that skipped from "Omniviolence"
to the absurd proposal for an AI-based government authority. The two are quite
unrelated in my mind.

For example, the article made no serious mention of counter-measures such as
string (which can down a drone), detection (RF directional antennae), or even
just "plant more trees" (as trees make drone navigation more complicated - I
know from personal experience).

Just broadcasting random RF/VHF/UHF noise (there are only so many channels
available) at drones can wreak havoc.

Quite seriously, do a web search for "can you spot the source of a drone
controller", and you will find a wealth of information from RF source
detection, to the GPS coordinates of the controller (so the drone can "return
home") - there a TON of alternatives that any "scholar" should research before
even hinting at a doom-and-gloom alternative such as AI-based government.

------
kryogen1c
Abstract of a different work by the same author:

>the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present
vantage point, is the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly
superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.”

I didnt read the paper, but that abstract sounds firmly rooted in sci-fi with
a toe in nonfiction, instead of the other way around as im sure the author
believes.

K/K has been very low for at least 50 years and probably longer. The idea that
a terrorist would smuggle millions of drones to cause... Car crashes... Is the
stuff of a high school writing class. i am 100% positive there are cheaper and
more effective tools available to cause more serious damage that currently
actually exist (and have for decades), and we dont have the society the author
claims.

~~~
CryptoPunk
The organizing of any neural network training program to create AI that can
identify targets would also be a very laborious process.

------
deft
Is this really just another advertisement for Bostrom's ridiculous
surveillance state saviour idea?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> One strategy could be a superintelligent machine—essentially, an extremely
> powerful algorithm—that’s specifically designed to govern fairly.

I volunteer to write that fair governing powerful algorithm. You can trust me
to make it fair and not make it favor my biases and interests.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I think we need to use machine learning, feeding it a corpus of all fair
government decisions across a selection of successful governments over the
last 1000 years.

~~~
CompanionCuuube
I would be fine with being able to select which "fair decisions" to train them
on.

------
michaelmrose
The described scenario involves billions of dollars which in most cases
represents the output of thousands or 10s of thousands. The attack described
is somewhat novel but the fact that the work of thousands can oppose the work
of millions isn't.

This makes the nation state more relevant not less. The state can best fund
countermeasures and preemptive investigations. They can work with nations who
will work to police themselves so they don't have to deal with the backlash
involved in locals killing a million people far from home and if needed punish
nation states who fail in such policing.

------
yellowapple
A more reasonable solution to a bunch of drones terrorizing humanity (at least
more reasonable than "hey let's make those drones' lives easier by setting up
a _giant artificially-intelligent surveillance monstrosity_! What could
possibly go wrong?") would be to stock up on shotguns, birdshot, butterfly
nets, and crowbars.

~~~
kevingadd
Hope you've got a bunch of nets and a bunch of ammo cause drones are pretty
cheap and there's nothing stopping someone from sending 5 or 10 your way.

~~~
yellowapple
As cheap as drones may be, a single drone costs more than a box of cartridges:
[https://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting/ammunition/shotgun-...](https://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting/ammunition/shotgun-
ammunition/pc/104792580/c/104691780/sc/104567580/winchester-xpert-game-target-
shotshells-box/2883463.uts?slotId=2)

------
_iyig
It’s far easier to build a zip gun than a killer drone, yet we don’t see too
many of the former in countries with strong gun regulation. Why should we
believe that hunter-killer drones carrying explosives will be any more of a
large-scale problem?

------
cwkoss
The silver lining of deepfakes is that now everyone has plausible deniability
for any 'leaked nudes': anyone with a gaming computer and a lot of free time
can put anyone else's head onto a pornographic actor's body.

Within a decade, 'nudes being leaked' will no longer be controversial or
damaging because they'll cost a couple hundred dollars or less to manufacture
and won't have credibility.

I'd argue that one of the best things a 'chaotic good' actor could do today to
fight revenge porn is to manufacture a huge quantity of deepfake porn of
random targets and release it, so speeding along this process.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
We already have photoshop and this isn't the case.

------
CryptoPunk
As the cost of offensive technology decreases, so does the cost of defensive
technology. The 10 million drones could be countered by a larger number or AI-
powered defensive drones.

The real threat of technology comes from the power it gives to governments.
Bad actors can do more damage through the political process than any other.

------
jeromebaek
> Nick Bostrom argues that the only way to defend against a global catastrophe
> is to employ a universal and invasive surveillance system, what he calls a
> “High-tech Panopticon.”

I suspected as much since the simulation argument but looks like Bostrom has
really lost his marbles.

------
reilly3000
Despite the article's weaknesses, I think its spot on to assert that political
nation-states may not survive technology. I think we are living in
nationalism's dying breath.

------
jacobsenscott
This is a huge step backward from gray goo alarm-ism. Disappointing.

~~~
anigbrowl
Nanotechnology at least had the possibility of being the singularity if only
you would learn to relax and enjoy it. Bostrom seems bent on realizing the
_Inferno_ and adding a 10th circle of people saying 'it's your fault from not
stopping me.'

------
KoenDG
When it comes to defending one's citizens, the attitude of "that'll probably
never happen, it'll be fine" doesn't exactly sound like a solid foundation.
And I doubt any government around the world, worth its salt, has that
attitude.

True, it all sounds like scaremongering, but the question is: what's stopping
people from actually doing this?

Crime and violence already exist. And if we look at history, it is clear that
it has changed with the times. What logical sense is there in thinking they
will not follow the changes in technology today?

The events described are but a possibility. Yet, I do feel we should not
dismiss it, simply because we don't like it.

------
slips
This is a lot of words to communicate a fairly shallow fantasy.

------
jcims
I’m way more worried about home gamers buying gene editing kits and tinkering
with pathogens.

Can you tag a gene with your twitter handle?

------
trileansoftware
The solution to potential threats is to surrender ourselves to actual
totalitarianism. What a novel idea.

------
starpilot
But I am. I was born ready, and I have been waiting. Preparing. Training.

------
njharman
This is why I wish HN had downvotes. This article/author deserves no
attention/spread. It is a waste of our time.

------
abbadadda
WTF am I reading?

------
subroutine
I would like to see a mini quad copter take the recoil of a 1 g "shaped
charge" (aka bullet).

EDIT: ok, i found a clip of (a fairly big) drone firing a gun and it looks...
not stable:

[https://youtu.be/FI--wFfipvA](https://youtu.be/FI--wFfipvA)

still, pretty worrisome.

~~~
kevingadd
They're disposable. They don't need to take anything.

~~~
chongli
And shaped charges are entirely besides the point. They could instead carry a
small auto-injector (like an EpiPen) containing a few mg of ricin [1]. It'd be
like getting stung by an insect. Within days the symptoms would start to
appear.

If this happened to even a few hundred people, let alone thousands, then
hospitals would be completely overwhelmed and people would be dying
everywhere. It would cause a mass panic.

Injection with ricin was how Georgi Markov was assassinated [2]. It was
shocking to say the least.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella)

~~~
subroutine
A few hundred is within the scope of what people are doing with conventional
explosives. The article is talking about the ability to target millions of
people.

I just don't believe we will see a day when tiny drones with epipens pose a
greater threat than guns.

~~~
chongli
What sets it apart from conventional explosives is that it's decentralized. A
single attacker can distribute these things all over a city. This makes it
much more difficult to mitigate the threat, let alone apprehend the attacker.

~~~
ineedasername
A single attacker can't distribute them in this way because it takes many more
for that scale of resources. Absent a self-funded evil genius comic book
villain, you're looking at terrorist organizations and nation states, not lone
individuals.

