The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’
October 25th, 2016Almost unnoticed outside of defense circles…
I’ve been posting about this on here since 2002. š
Via: New York Times:
Almost unnoticed outside defense circles, the Pentagon has put artificial intelligence at the center of its strategy to maintain the United Statesā position as the worldās dominant military power. It is spending billions of dollars to develop what it calls autonomous and semiautonomous weapons and to build an arsenal stocked with the kind of weaponry that until now has existed only in Hollywood movies and science fiction, raising alarm among scientists and activists concerned by the implications of a robot arms race.
The Defense Department is designing robotic fighter jets that would fly into combat alongside manned aircraft. It has tested missiles that can decide what to attack, and it has built ships that can hunt for enemy submarines, stalking those it finds over thousands of miles, without any help from humans.
āIf Stanley Kubrick directed āDr. Strangeloveā again, it would be about the issue of autonomous weapons,ā said Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.
Defense officials say the weapons are needed for the United States to maintain its military edge over China, Russia and other rivals, who are also pouring money into similar research (as are allies, such as Britain and Israel). The Pentagonās latest budget outlined $18 billion to be spent over three years on technologies that included those needed for autonomous weapons.
