Comment by el_benhameen
7 hours ago
I’m not sure that “killer robot” is the actual concern outside of media hyperbole. I’m imagining a loitering munition-type drone that has some kind of targeting package loaded into it with different parameters describing what it should seek and destroy. Instead of waiting for intelligence and using human command to put the munition on target, it hangs out and then engages when it’s certain enough that it’s found something valid.
In a world where LLMs produce very convincing but subtly wrong output, this makes me uncomfortable. I get that warfare without AI is in the past now, but war and rules of engagement and AI output etc etc etc all seem fuzzy enough that this is not yet a good call even if you agree with the end goals.
> I’m imagining a loitering munition-type drone that has some kind of targeting package loaded into it with different parameters describing what it should seek and destroy. Instead of waiting for intelligence and using human command to put the munition on target, it hangs out and then engages when it’s certain enough that it’s found something valid.
I'm sorry, you've just literally described a "killer robot" in more words.
Yeah, I guess my point is that “killer robot” evokes a terminator-like image for a lot of people. Something that marches around and kills of its own accord. I don’t like either one, but I don’t think they’re the same thing.
The only saving grace is that the killbots had a pre-set kill limit which I exceeded by throwing wave after wave of my own men at them until they simply shut down.
Dario himself said that he was against using Claude to build a fully automated weapon because the technology was far from perfect, so he didn't want to hurt our soldiers or innocent people. I think his description matched a killer robot, and I don't agree with his reasoning because it's not like the military researchers didn't have the agency to find out what works and what doesn't.
On the other hand military researchers once considered training pigeons to act as torpedo guidance systems by pecking on levers.