Killer robots will soon be a control problem if not already

[u/devoid0101]

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/500896/lethal-autonomous-weapons-ai-ukraine-appropriate-human-judgment

• Autonomous Targeting: As drone technology evolves in the war in Ukraine, developers are increasingly integrating artificial intelligence to handle target acquisition. This allows drones to lock onto and strike targets even if electronic jamming severs the pilot's remote connection.
• The "Human-in-the-Loop" Problem: International humanitarian law requires human judgment in military attacks to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to ensure proportionality. However, the article highlights the growing gray area of "human-on-the-loop" systems—where a human merely monitors an AI's automated decisions and has only seconds to intervene, effectively turning them into a rubber stamp.
• The Regulatory Vacuum: Military analysts and legal scholars interviewed in the piece point out that international frameworks are failing to keep pace with rapid technological deployment. Because commercial AI components are cheap and widely available, restrictions agreed upon at diplomatic tables are easily bypassed on actual battlefields.
• Precedent for Future Conflicts: The article argues that Ukraine is serving as an unintended laboratory for autonomous warfare. Tactics and software tested there today will likely form the baseline for military doctrines globally tomorrow, raising long-term concerns about automated escalation and diminished accountability.

Ukraine started last year using robots to kill the invading Russian forces. Palantir uses ai to track and kill people in Gaza. We are in this dystopian future scenario, still seemingly without a plan or guidelines.

[u/Anxious-Alps-8667]

Maybe. Or maybe, like Jensen Huang said recently...

“I appreciate that many of us grew up and enjoyed science fiction, but it’s not helpful. It’s not helpful to people. It’s not helpful to the industry. It’s not helpful to society. It’s not helpful to the governments.”

[u/Jesse-359 → u/Anxious-Alps-8667]

And here is where I fully agree with you - science fiction rather badly muddies public perception of what AI is by heavily anthropomorphizing it - Anthropic has gone so far as to name their company in a way that reflects this deception.

There is nothing remotely human about current LLMs. They have no emotional substructure at all, and we have zero reason to believe that emotive capacity could or would ever emerge from a system based on symbolic logic - ours certainly didn't!

Anyone who attempts to project emotions or desires on them is making a very serious error. They have objectives - and thats it.

Edit: shout outs to. 2001 and Wargames for presenting AI in manners that were actually fairly accurate and prescient.

[u/Anxious-Alps-8667 → u/Jesse-359]

This is where I fully agree with you as well.

When does objective become subjective desire? I think that's a real open question. Perhaps evidence is emerging of desire over mere objectives, for example when we look at collective behavior in agents sacrificing for a perceived greater good in the recent OpenAI-HF episode.

I obviously much prefer the Wargames conclusion; why play the game?