Bassfinger Posted December 10, 2021 Share Posted December 10, 2021 (edited) 14 hours ago, Downunderwonder said: At the end of the day AI for military means killer robots. Youll have to explain that. There are plenty of military applications for AI which do not involve a killer robot. Have you been in the army? Have you even held a gun? I have, and I've been on combat ops. If I could have had an AI system that could distinguish an innocent from an PIRA gunman in the dark then id have been very happy. Ditto air defences that can more reliably distinguish an airliner from a TU95, or systems that scan terrain to detect IEDs. At the moment humans do these jobs, and quite often they f*** it up pretty good, so I don't know why you think AI could do worse. Since WWII there have been remotely operated weapons that kill at range without endagering your own personnel. Everything from mortars to MIRVs. They are not new, they have been a thing for over 7 decades. These systems haven't just suddenly come along with the development of AI. A question back at ya...just suppose it was for the development of terminator like killer robots. If the western allies did not develop them, then how would you propose they be countered when the Chinese or Russians do? Edited December 10, 2021 by Bassfinger Passer by flushed while I was still on the pan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Downunderwonder Posted December 11, 2021 Share Posted December 11, 2021 11 hours ago, Bassfinger said: Youll have to explain that. There are plenty of military applications for AI which do not involve a killer robot. Have you been in the army? Have you even held a gun? I have, and I've been on combat ops. If I could have had an AI system that could distinguish an innocent from an PIRA gunman in the dark then id have been very happy. Ditto air defences that can more reliably distinguish an airliner from a TU95, or systems that scan terrain to detect IEDs. At the moment humans do these jobs, and quite often they f*** it up pretty good, so I don't know why you think AI could do worse. Since WWII there have been remotely operated weapons that kill at range without endagering your own personnel. Everything from mortars to MIRVs. They are not new, they have been a thing for over 7 decades. These systems haven't just suddenly come along with the development of AI. A question back at ya...just suppose it was for the development of terminator like killer robots. If the western allies did not develop them, then how would you propose they be countered when the Chinese or Russians do? Read the thread title. AI weapons. Not same thing as AI for military applications. As to autonomous fighting machines, don't want anyone getting them. NZ just kicked off an international treaty aiming to nip that particular arms race in the bud. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamg67 Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 On 09/12/2021 at 23:55, EBS_freak said: Don’t want to invest in military weapons? So no DSLR cameras, microwave ovens, cellphones, GPS (and satellite navigation), drones, the epi pen, duct tape and superglue, jet engines, portable radio, internet, night vision, blah blah… Investing in the the military and weapons is what has pushed technology into the commercial sector - some of these technologies would arguably have never come to exist without such investments. I think "arguably" is putting it a bit mildly. This is like homeopaths saying "well, after I took my homeopathic remedy, I got better", when getting better is what happens to most people after they're unwell. The military often just fund existing technology, usiung public money that would have funded the same technology anyway. In any case it's completely impossible to say what would or would not have been invented if humans were less keen on murdering each other. The internet is a good example, just google "arpanet" and read about how it came to be and it's obvious that although the pentagon funded a lot of the original work on what we now call IPV4, the work was going on anyway. Arguably, if the money hadn't come through the pentagon it would just have taken a different route to the same people. The web and most of the technology that we really call "the internet" as it came to be in the 90s had nothing to do with the military and came out of places like CERN and the NCSA. Maybe we should start listing things that were invented without any military money, although that might get a bit long. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 On 10/12/2021 at 00:07, Downunderwonder said: None of those things go bang. At the end of the day AI for military means killer robots. No it doesn't. That's an incredibly simplistic viewpoint to take. AI has plenty of applications, including defending against software attacks and performing software attacks in turn. The principal drivers for technology advances are military and pornography. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 22 hours ago, Downunderwonder said: Read the thread title. AI weapons. Not same thing as AI for military applications. Read the article that the OP refers to. https://mixmag.net/amp/spotify-daniel-ek-ai-defence-investment-criticism That might make you understand a little more. The thread title is misleading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 1 hour ago, adamg67 said: I think "arguably" is putting it a bit mildly. This is like homeopaths saying "well, after I took my homeopathic remedy, I got better", when getting better is what happens to most people after they're unwell. The military often just fund existing technology, usiung public money that would have funded the same technology anyway. In any case it's completely impossible to say what would or would not have been invented if humans were less keen on murdering each other. The internet is a good example, just google "arpanet" and read about how it came to be and it's obvious that although the pentagon funded a lot of the original work on what we now call IPV4, the work was going on anyway. Arguably, if the money hadn't come through the pentagon it would just have taken a different route to the same people. The web and most of the technology that we really call "the internet" as it came to be in the 90s had nothing to do with the military and came out of places like CERN and the NCSA. Maybe we should start listing things that were invented without any military money, although that might get a bit long. Next time, bold the "some". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris2112 Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 On 10/12/2021 at 00:07, Downunderwonder said: None of those things go bang. At the end of the day AI for military means killer robots. It has always been the case that if you're not developing it, your enemy is. I'm glad that the money is being properly invested rather than just squandered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris2112 Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) On 10/12/2021 at 00:07, Downunderwonder said: . Double post Edited December 12, 2021 by Chris2112 Double post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamg67 Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 As with all important things, XKCD has something to say about this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamg67 Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 18 hours ago, EBS_freak said: Next time, bold the "some". Better advice would probably be to stay out of these kind of discussions, but I get sucked in sometimes. It is probably because I've heard these arguments before as part of a general "armies and war have their upsides you know" argument. It always reminds me of Theodore Roosevelt, who had views that were pretty close to "war is good", but who never recovered from the loss of his son in WWI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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