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+--- Thread: Why banning autonomous killer robots wouldn’t solve anything (/thread-4668.html)
Why banning autonomous killer robots wouldn’t solve anything - C C - Dec 20, 2017
https://aeon.co/ideas/why-banning-autonomous-killer-robots-wouldnt-solve-anything
EXCERPT: . . . For one thing, it sometimes takes dangerous tools to achieve worthy ends. Think of the Rwandan genocide, where the world simply stood by and did nothing. Had autonomous weapons been available in 1994, maybe we would not have looked away. It seems plausible that if the costs of humanitarian interventions were purely monetary, then it would be easier to gain widespread support for such interventions.
For another thing, it is naive to assume that we can enjoy the benefits of the recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) without being exposed to at least some downsides as well. Suppose the UN were to implement a preventive ban on the further development of all autonomous weapons technology. [...] we would still have to worry about autonomous weapons. A self-driving car can be easily re-programmed into an autonomous weapons system: instead of instructing it to swerve when it sees a pedestrian, just teach it to run over the pedestrian.
To put the point more generally, AI technology is tremendously useful, and it already permeates our lives in ways we don’t always notice and aren’t always able to comprehend fully. Given its pervasive presence, it is shortsighted to think that the technology’s abuse can be prevented if only the further development of autonomous weapons is halted....
MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/why-banning-autonomous-killer-robots-wouldnt-solve-anything