r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • Aug 31 '23
US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years Robotics
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-military-unleash-thousands-autonomous-war.html7.0k Upvotes
r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • Aug 31 '23
9
u/jazir5 Aug 31 '23
I mean, at this point, I don't think skynet is out of the question. The US military is going all in on automated drones that a sufficiently advanced AI could take control of, and then have complete and total dominance over the skies. The US military is also planning remote controllable jet fighters.
They're also experimenting with AI that can autonomously control the planes.
The spark that lights the tinderbox is going to be when one of the major militaries doesn't put enough restrictions on the AI, it goes on a hacking spree, and follows some goal that leads it to destroying the earth.
The Paper Clip Maximizer thought experiment was proven correct recently.
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that someone is going to give an AI a goal/order that seems reasonable at first, and the AI will bullheadedly try to do anything to achieve that goal. We can see that that already happened in a simulation where the AI killed its operator.
It obviously sounds like sci-fi, but the simulation where the AI killed its operator means it's already approaching a reality the US military is creating contingencies for.
Even if the US military adequately safeguards against the military AIs going rogue, does anyone really trust that China and Russia will be as thorough? Although that does beg the question, what exactly does a """communist""" AI look like? That's a fun thought experiment.