‘SkyNet’ Automated Systems Could Save Lots of Lives

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/10/skynet-automated-systems-could-save-lots-of-lives/



‘SkyNet’ Automated Systems Could Save Lots of Lives
By Colin Clark
on October 30, 2013 at 4:56 PM

~snip~

But on the issue of automated weapons that can kill people, the issues of fear and ethics are clearly still being grappled with at the Pentagon and in society at large. For example, Friedman ointed to the Flash Crash of May 6, 2010 when the market fell almost 1,000 points in a matter of minutes. “We have absolutely no idea what happened,” he noted of the automated trading disaster. That, of course, leaves commanders and policymakers wary of automated actions.

David Slayton, fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, citing conversations with senior officials, said “there is a certain degree of discomfort with determining where you are going to achieve control over that kill chain.” That raises the question if we then “allow the next step to an automated system.”

Automated systems, of course, don’t get angry and are unlikely to order a retributive strike or to lose control and keep shooting after the target is killed. “Machines have the advantage over us in that they are a bit cooler and dispassionate, because they are machines,” Wingo said.

The issue is greatly complicated because there are clearly different types of attacks in the electronic world, which is what this panel was most closely focused on. Most attacks in the electronic world would be considered espionage or criminal activity. The financial world is most advanced in launching automated electronic actions, as everyone who has ever read about high-speed trading and hedge funds knows. Problems with those have wreaked havoc the cause of which is still not completely understood, said panelist Allan Friedman, an expert at the Brookings Institution.



unhappycamper comment: What could possibly go wrong?

[frylock]

1. ...don’t get angry and are unlikely to order a retributive strike or to lose control

Listen, and understand: That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.