Breathless headlines about “the Air Force AI drone killed its human operator so it could score more kills” do not illuminate anything.
The simulated Air Force drone simulated killing its human operator in a simulation so it could score more simulated kills.
The distinction between a "thought experiment" and a "simulation" is fuzzy, and we can argue about how important the differences between the second and third versions of the story are.
But the first version of the story, where an actual drone supposedly turned around and deliberately killed a US warfighter, goes well beyond credulity. If something like that happened, it would be HUGE, with congressional-level investigations over many months, not something casually mentioned at some conference.
So I'm much more curious about how the original headline got published than I am about any simulated drone. This is not some small technical detail, this is the difference between a cute story and "holy shit".
If an editor/headline writer/content manager (or whatever they're called these days) sees a headline that says "Martians Attack New Jersey Town", maybe find out if you should add "... In Fictional Radio Program" before hitting "publish".
@mattblaze an important thing that people seem determined to avoid thinking about:
No AI will ever have the ability to interact with the world in a way not provided by humans
Physics applies to the "super intelligent" just as much as to anyone else
““I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Hal. An American drone with artificial intelligence "killed" its operator during virtual tests - The Guardian During the virtual mission of the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie drone, the AI was ordered to search for and destroy enemy…”
I've been seeing more and more cases of this sort of problem in traditional media articles, over the last two or three years -- headlines not matching up with the content of the article, with more than trivial differences in the fundamental essence of the story.
It seems to be a broad trend, not just limited to one or a few media outlets. I suspect it might be influenced by time pressure - writers are pushed to write 3 articles/day, editors have to review & headline that many...
@mattblaze @lauren I didn't see claims that it happened IRL, but the idea that it was happening in a "real simulation" was bad enough, and that's what they've walked back, to my understanding.
Original: "He notes that one simulated test saw an AI-enabled drone tasked with a SEAD mission to identify and destroy SAM sites, with the final go/no go given by the human."
Update: "in communication with AEROSPACE - Col Hamilton admits he "mis-spoke" in his presentation at the Royal Aeronautical Society FCAS Summit and the 'rogue AI drone simulation' was a hypothetical "thought experiment" from outside the military, based on plausible scenarios and likely outcomes rather than an actual USAF real-world simulation saying: "We've never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realise that this is a plausible outcome". "
What is the future of combat air and space capabilities? TIM ROBINSON FRAeS and STEPHEN BRIDGEWATER report from two days of high-level debate and discussion at the RAeS FCAS23 Summit.
What is the future of combat air and space capabilities? TIM ROBINSON FRAeS and STEPHEN BRIDGEWATER report from two days of high-level debate and discussion at the RAeS FCAS23 Summit.
@mattblaze this reminds me of tarpit arguments with people like Ph*l K*rn who insist that headlines don't matter and are completely distinct from the content of the article. It's common sense, you see, to ignore headlines because "everyone knows" they aren't really part of the article and are often written by editors.
Problem: They do matter, very much.
Other people are right here - provocative headlines drive up the clicks regardless of the accuracy of the details of the event.
"the first version of the story, where an actual drone supposedly turned around and deliberately killed a US warfighter, goes well beyond credulity. If something like that happened, it would be HUGE,"
I agree, but then again it wouldn't be the first U.S. military drone to kill a U.S. citizen in cold blood. What does it matter to the victim if a robot or human pressed the fire button?
The military industrial complex behind the violence is the same either way.
The "rogue unmanned military drone" trope really only scares people who aren't already targets of the manned military drones...
A hellfire missile is a hellfire missile all the same no matter who or what fires it.
Is there much difference between a human operator huddled in a shipping crate in Nevada, mistaking a wedding in Afghanistan (in a vastly different culture) for a military gathering and killing 40 people.... and an autonomous killer robot drone?
Fear of autonomous killer robots is at best a metaphor and at worst a distraction from the already existing autonomous and unaccountable mass murder device that is the U.S. military industrial complex itself.
@Alonealastalovedalongthe I'm not sure what your point is. All military weapons are designed to harm their targets. That's what they *do*. We can argue about whether that's ever moral, but it's not a surprising thing about weapons.
But a weapon that goes off on its own and kills its own side is fundamentally different. No one wants that, even people who like weapons.
"But a weapon that goes off on its own and kills..."
You mean like the Iraq war?
Or the Vietnam war and all the bombs dropped on Laos that we weren't even at war with?
Or all the unaccountable predator drone attacks all across the world in shadow wars U.S. voters never authorized since 9/11?
You only think there is a difference between these two things because you assume implicitly that the autonomous murder device I am describing won't target you.
@Alonealastalovedalongthe It sounds like you're looking for any excuse to go off an lecture random people.
Find someone else, please.
Now that's what I call journalism
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