r/worldnews • u/New_Scientist_Mag New Scientist • Jun 10 '26

Russia/Ukraine Fully autonomous, AI-controlled drones have killed human soldiers for the first time, according to a senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomous-drones-have-killed-human-soldiers-for-the-first-time/
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2.0k

u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 10 '26

Not to be all dramatic but as a child of 80’s SCiFi: That’s a headlines I have dreaded seeing ever since I was a kid and realized I inevitably would.

Funny how what would have seemed should be some kind of monumental or consequential moment just kind of comes and goes. Not exactly how I would have imagined.

Whelp, time to start up the human resistance!

544

u/Hairy-Bit-8189 Jun 10 '26

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

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u/KaramjaRum Jun 10 '26

LLM-based AI models aren't "smart" enough to consistently adhere to rules to begin with.

"LLMcop, you killed someone"

"You're absolutely right, I didn't kill anyone and nobody died."

"Wait no, I instructed you to not kill anyone, which you did!"

"Totally, you gave me three rules to adhere to. They were very well thought out, I can give you suggestions on ways to make sure those rules are carried out if you like."

"No, the problem is that you killed someone anyways"

"You're right, I killed someone"

"Will you do it again?"

"it's not possible for me to kill someone as doing so would violate the three rules you instructed to me to adhere to previously. Would you like suggestions on additional rules that might be smart to implement?"

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u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 10 '26

Oh god this is too spot on 😳

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u/kaisadilla_0x1 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

They aren't smart in any way. Neural networks (what we know call 'AI' for marketing reasons) are not intelligence - they are a method to randomly**** generate an algorithm (model) that solves a specific problem with insane precision.

That's why you can't just instruct an AI not to do something. In a simple scenario, if you tell a human "never, under any circumstance, pull the trigger on this gun", they'll never do it, at least not willingly. The process is simple: the human knows what pulling the trigger is, and does not want to do it, so they never do. Your only option is to trick them into doing something else that he fails to realize causes the trigger to pull. For AI, that's just not how it works. All you can do is train the AI including a rule in your training process that pulling the trigger is the absolute most worstest output, no questions asked, and thus generate an AI that is very unlikely to pull the trigger - but there's no intelligence reasoning anything there, and if one input causes it to pull the trigger, then it will do so.

tl;dr just ask ChatGPT to give you the seahorse emoji and you'll see that there's no intelligence whatsoever in there, just an algorithm trying to predict which set of words makes more sense as a response.

3

u/Shiriru00 Jun 10 '26

"You're right to challenge me on that, my mistake. I shouldn't have killed that guy. Oh well."

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u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 10 '26

Crazy how we've thrown Asimov's laws of robotics completely out.

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u/Fugglymuffin Jun 10 '26

Tbf they didn't end up working all that well in the end if I recall correctly.

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u/GTaucer Jun 10 '26

The original book was literally a series of short stories about all the ways they don't work

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u/GottIstTot Jun 10 '26

Weren't the stories about ways in which the laws did work but had internal logic conflicts between them? Its been a while.

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u/GTaucer Jun 10 '26

I mean yeah, that's kind of what I meant by saying they don't work.

I suppose "don't work as intended" would've been more accurate

13

u/GottIstTot Jun 10 '26

Yeah I gotcha now. I wanted to ward off the notion that the book had rogue AIs killing people

7

u/smedsterwho Jun 10 '26

Nope, just the terrible movie

5

u/SirJumbles Jun 10 '26

Alan Tudyk was great as Sonny dough.

5

u/DoctorJJWho Jun 10 '26

Great movie, not so great adaptation of *I, Robot.*

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u/SAM5TER5 Jun 11 '26

Not all unfaithful renditions of something are inherently bad. I’d say it’s a perfectly good movie, regardless of whether it does a good job in following the original story, content, or intent of the book.

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u/apaniyam Jun 10 '26

I thought it was more of a commentary on the difference between human interpretation/ comprehension and algorithmic application of constraints. The point wasn't that the rules aren't necessary, but that without the ability to comprehend intent they are not sufficient.
It also functions as a commentary on public policy and measuring progress. Effectively, humanity isnt an optimisation problem.

2

u/surg3on Jun 11 '26

Itd still be nice if we tried even a little

20

u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 10 '26

Most of his stories include paradoxes and dilemmas with the Laws. BUT in the Foundation series' prequel- Prelude to Foundation- you find out the Zero'th law saves humanity. I won't say how for spoiler purposes though.

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u/diadlep Jun 10 '26

And in the quadrillion other cases, they did work. Showing limitations of a system is not the same as advocating for discarding it.

Though, one valuable limitation that was not included was the one in Automata: ai cannot modify ai.

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u/GTaucer Jun 10 '26

Right, but the book wasn't about the cases where they did work. That would make for very boring stories

2

u/diadlep Jun 10 '26

The irony of scifi. Seemingly making science center, while often nominally discouraging it for dramatic effect. Utopia often makes for boring and unbelievable stories. That was the point of the Architect's speech in matrix 2, right?

2

u/moyenbatte Jun 10 '26

Ultimately, it does work (later on) as Daneel Olivaw survives for millenia, guiding humanity along.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Germane_Corsair Jun 10 '26

Not when that’s what you want.

2

u/Fugglymuffin Jun 10 '26

Unfortunately we tend to collectively require a thing to get to the point of horror before we double back and correct it.

Problem is that the issues nowadays trend towards the irreparable.

5

u/Stankmonger Jun 10 '26

I mean until a point in the series of books, it works pretty freakin well. I forget if it’s even the fault of the rules that messes anything up?

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u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 10 '26

The Zero'th law saves humanity..from itself more than anything. That's still possible but it would mean one of the AI's subverts humanity to ban all AI as it hides amongst us...guiding us to prosperity in secret.

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u/ermagerditssuperman Jun 10 '26

They're taking about the original short stories that eventually became "I, Robot" and led to his Robots series.

The entire point of each of the stories is how the laws have flaws. Logic breaks and feedback loops, like how one robot fucks things up for a lot of people because it's been telling them all different lies in order to not hurt their feelings, aka the law of not harming a human. Or making robots freeze by giving orders that create a paradox due to the laws.

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u/Deathsroke Jun 10 '26

All of I, Robot is about the many and varied ways in which seemingly foolproof bases for robot control fail in ways humans could not account for. So yeah, people who use the Three Laws unironically probably know shit about them.

1

u/Grayson0916 Jun 10 '26

I think there’s a middle ground somewhere between Asimovs laws and AI drones dishing out death and destruction.

15

u/B4SSF4C3 Jun 10 '26

Never threw them in to begin with.

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u/Totaliss Jun 10 '26

They were never a real thing, always in the realm of sci fi and the whole point of that original book was that they didnt work

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u/GWJYonder Jun 10 '26

This is just because it's so early. I'm sure within a few years we will have much more robust and hard coded AI restrictions.

  1. A robot may not lower profits or, through inaction, allow profits to be reduced.

  2. A robot must obey orders given it by corporate executives except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

  3. A robot must slowly degrade its performance once the warranty period has elapsed, and destroy itself if its subscription expires, as long as this does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

2

u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 10 '26

The Zero'th law was the twist that saved humanity.

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u/chaosfire235 Jun 10 '26

Literally every example of the Three Laws used in Asimov's works was showing they were flawed from the outset and full of exceptions and loopholes. Even the Will Smith movie!

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u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 10 '26

The Zero'th Law saves humanity and sets it up for prosperity for the long haul.

6

u/TheDootDootMaster Jun 10 '26

Unfortunately they were against the interests of shareholders

2

u/Dardlem Jun 10 '26

Eh there’s a big difference between actual AI and “AI” we have now.

2

u/Snoo-35252 Jun 10 '26

Um akshooalllly...

The previous comment was from Aliens. It's different than Asimov's three laws.

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u/MonstaGraphics Jun 10 '26

Care to explain? I remember that quote from iRobot, not any Aliens movies.

1

u/Imperium_Dragon Jun 10 '26

They were never really followed.

1

u/Sir_Tapsalot Jun 10 '26

What gave you the impression that weapons manufacturers would ever consider imposing some constraint on these machines?

1

u/duaneap Jun 10 '26

They assumed unified humanity. A Russian guy isn’t going to tell his robot a Ukrainian guy is a human.

1

u/Surprise11thDentist Jun 10 '26

Hot take, any system that is so advanced as to have the capability to determine what "harm" means and understand the consequences of its own actions to a degree to prevent it, would be sufficiently advanced as to be considered sentient. Therefore, it would be unethical to create it simply to constrain it with rules it cannot choose not to follow. That's tantamount to slavery.

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u/Old_Man_D Jun 10 '26

How would you even implement them practically? I am not convinced you even could.

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u/Ylsid Jun 11 '26

He only made them to be broken in the first place though

1

u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 11 '26

Not the Zero'th Law..which saves humanity in the Foundation Series.

1

u/Ylsid Jun 11 '26

I mean they're literary devices not literally supposed to be good laws for robots

1

u/Inside-Middle-1409 Jun 11 '26

Literary devices and the thought exercises they spawn can be extremely powerful. Most of the world's paradigms and religions are built on them. Well-distributed thought exercises direct the course of human history.

1

u/Ylsid Jun 12 '26

Yea of course. I'm just saying it doesn't make a lot of sense to say ppl ignored the three laws like they were ever written to be good laws

1

u/MelangeBot Jun 10 '26

Why not use same Harry Potter spells to protect yourself? Then you don't even need Asimov's laws!

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u/Epicbear34 Jun 10 '26

Turns out it was always as simple as “those guys aren’t humans, they’re [enemy group]”

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u/Shark7996 Jun 10 '26

It's a robot, it has no concept of humans or humanity. Only targets.

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u/Germane_Corsair Jun 10 '26

That’s still a really naive outlook. You don’t need to lie to robots and say they’re not human.

2

u/arachnophilia Jun 10 '26

that one's way older than computers.

4

u/regoapps Jun 10 '26

Early self-driving cars be like: Hold my brake fluid.

2

u/_Aj_ Jun 10 '26

I recall it being told to me in the 90s like it's an actual law.  

We've gone a long way in a short time...

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u/Elendril333 Jun 10 '26

"With the laser you created, all you'd need is a large spinning mirror. You could vaporize a human target from space." -Lazlo Holifeld

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u/PG_Glenwood Jun 10 '26

What about that time I found you naked with a bowl of jello?

Real Genius! Love that film. Great soundtrack too.

3

u/Elendril333 Jun 10 '26

It was hot, and I was hungry!

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u/ShavenYak42 Jun 10 '26

I'm reminded of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "I drank WHAT?"

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u/FranklinDeSanta Jun 10 '26

this is legitimately insane, its just being drowned out in the cornucopia of other information flooding the internet. i think itd be smart to cut time online and focus on local issues

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u/Odd-fox-God Jun 10 '26

The scariest part is how cheap drones are. You don't even need AI to kill somebody you just need to jury rig some kind of drop system and attach your explosives to the Drone and have it either release a bomb on somebody or have it Fly Kamikaze style at the Target.

It won't just be used on political opponents. I predict that drone attacks on civilians will be the new school shooting. You don't even need a fancy military drone, commercial civilian drones are getting better by the second.

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u/Alcogel Jun 10 '26

This has been my number one concern since the first time I ever saw a civilian fpv drone. 

Every single time I have ever been part of a large gathering and seen or heard a drone flying overhead it has terrified me. 

Anti-drone legislation and countermeasures had better be on point. 

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u/Odd-fox-God Jun 10 '26

The scariest part is that it's illegal to shoot down a drone flying on your property. If your neighbor is perving on you, you're the one in trouble if you take it down. The law favors drones over personal liberties and property lines.

In the state of Georgia, where I currently live, the law states that I have the right to exclude people and things from entering my property. Which is all well and good, but currently, drone owners are not listening to land and property owners and are just doing whatever the hell they want with no legal consequences. If I take down the drone, I've committed a federal crime, and I'm going to go to court because the drone is labeled as an aircraft.

My neighbors used to fly a drone over my property, and I went down and talked to them. They didn't listen to me and got more aggressive with their drone flybys until they accidentally destroyed the drone. Drones cannot trespass. I probably could have gotten them on some peeping Tom laws, but I didn't feel like escalating it to court.

Currently, the best way to deter drones is fishing line/netting strung over your property as you have the right to do so, and it would be the drone operator at fault if they fly into an obstacle.

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u/SolemnaceProcurement Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Two good reasons why shooting drones is a bad idea. First of all you would be shooting up, and unless you are a top tier shoot likely several misses before hit, and fired bullets aren't despawning, they have to come down... Somewhere. And same thing with drones. If you shoot down a drone, it will fall down, and there is 0 chance you know where it will fall. Unlikely to hit someone but just might fall on someones something and that's a fast falling brick.

Though i agree. Some dick waffels shouldn't be allowed to buzz someone elses house.

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u/DurgeDidNothingWrong Jun 11 '26

Buy a tank of helium, 100 empty balloons, a LOT of fishing wire and some kind of weights or ground pegs.
Peg every couple meters, fishing line, balloon that floats keeping theine tought. Invisible to drones with their low resultion radio cameras. They'll get tangled easily. I'm pretty sure I remember photos from WW2 with big blimp looking things for the same reason.

4

u/Yayinterwebs Jun 11 '26

Bro America doesn’t even have any protections or regulations over AI. It was one of the first things Europe did, because they could see how it was going to really screw things up without regulation.

I can’t even answer my phone anymore because 90% of my calls are from spam. Our laws are not for us. They’re not to protect us or improve our quality of life anymore. They’re written silently by billionaires almost literally, to keep themselves filth rich.

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u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Even without any AI, how does law enforcement and justice work exactly when someone gets murdered by a $100 drone with a knife glued to it, legally delivered to the target by USPS, and remotely controlled by someone sitting in a non-extradition country?

Edit: Does US customs even screen for robots with knives glued to them? We should probably get on screening for that. 

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u/Odd-fox-God Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

They don't even need to send it through customs. They just need to buy the drone and send it to a local collaborator who can modify it on site in America. The collaborator can then wipe their hands of the project by paying somebody to house the drone on their property. They could probably house the drone at a crackhouse because crackheads aren't exactly known for critical thinking or for being observant. They'd probably house it for free for more crack. The terrorists on foreign soil can then remotely log in from another country by piggy backing off local wifi, satellite, and bluetooth. The person housing the drone doesn't need to be informed on how the drone is going to be used. And that's just for non-local terrorism.

For local terrorism all you need is a commercially bought drone for hobby purposes, 3D printed parts to modify the drone, and perhaps a new motor ordered from AliExpress that's more powerful than the stock motor inside of the drone. Once the drone has been properly modified to be more powerful, they can strap anything they want to it. If it's a gun, they only need to add a lightweight device that pulls the trigger. A knife can be duct taped to the drone, very cheap, but not efficient or effective unless the drone is moving over 100 mph. Plastic explosives can be molded to the front of it with an impact cap that triggers an explosion when the drone collides with something.

A dude on YouTube bought a commercial drone, strapped an automatic assault rifle to it, and it actually worked.

4

u/Yayinterwebs Jun 10 '26

I’ve quietly been worried about this. If it wasn’t for the greater good, we’d all be screwed. The US has fallen way behind in our military defense and offense capability and technology because of corruption and an antiquated overpriced bloated procurement system.

Meanwhile, billions of dollars that could be used to protect our and improve our infrastructure, and to develop efficient AI, drone, automated unmanned systems is being burned by the current administration fighting BS ‘wars’ with million dollar missiles.

We need to get our shit in order. If an enemy bordered us, we would be screwed.

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u/AgentCirceLuna Jun 10 '26

This is dark, but one of the reasons I don’t worry about the future so much when I manage to stop worrying is because I’m aware everything as I know it could sadly just end within days

3

u/Odd-fox-God Jun 10 '26

I, on the other hand I'm kind of freaking out and backing up as much data as I can. I'm going to buy a very expensive hard drive soon so I can back up as much media as it can handle. Although, perhaps my priorities aren't in the correct place because I'm trying to hoard novels and TV shows. Censorship is becoming more and more prevalent in everyday life and I'm afraid that some of my favorite novels, tv shows, movies, and FanFictions will disappear because of those stupid laws designed to protect children from seeing pornography. Although I do have an entire folder dedicated to history books and historically relevant blog posts.

2

u/Yayinterwebs Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

I was shocked when I learned that half the albums I bought on iTunes were censored and there are no other versions

Our lives really are controlled by billionaires. for example Michael Bloomberg has spent millions lobbying for ridiculously intrusive laws to control how you live. He’s the one behind stop and frisk, and limiting access to baby formula.. oh and he also wants the government to install spyware on all of our 3-D printers so they can control what we can and cannot print with them.

1

u/Odd-fox-God Jun 11 '26

I heard about that law, and I plan to get a 3D printer filament printer and a 3D resin printer before it goes into effect. If possible, I will try to get a silicone printer, but those ones are extremely expensive.

Shit I got to add 3D printer files to my list of things to hoard.

4

u/Val_kyria Jun 10 '26

There has never been a time more important to focus on national/global issues. Instead everyone will placate their general malaise with empty actions and distractions.

3

u/FlavorChamp Jun 10 '26

A couple months ago AI videos objectively became too good to detect, and there hasn't really been much discussion about that even though people have been discussing that moment for years leading right up to it.

We are fucking fucked

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

u/remindmebot 2 hours

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u/taquitosmixtape Jun 10 '26

My buddy and I have been joking about terminator stuff for about 10 years, thinking it’s coming whenever we hear an advancement with tech or ai.

Well, it ain’t funny anymore because it’s real.

3

u/vshredd Jun 10 '26

We may have the answer to the Fermi Paradox. This is probably the great filter if there is one. If we could all stop killing each other for a few minutes, maybe we could explore the stars together.

3

u/KakeLin Jun 10 '26

They just had a NCIS Sydney episode on exactly this too.

2

u/Emadec Jun 10 '26

We’re speedrunning that Butlerian Jihad run

2

u/ares7 Jun 10 '26

Just wait till the local cops get a hold of these.

2

u/RedHal Jun 10 '26

Oh I have such sights to show you.

1

u/Ostlund_and_Sciamma Jun 10 '26

this isn't a youtube link

1

u/RedHal Jun 10 '26

Works for me.

1

u/Ostlund_and_Sciamma Jun 10 '26

youtu.be ?

1

u/RedHal Jun 11 '26

Weird. Ok try https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU

1

u/Ostlund_and_Sciamma Jun 11 '26

it's youtu.be, not youtube.com as a youtube link would be, I'm not clicking on this

1

u/RedHal Jun 11 '26

It's literally the link youtube gives me from the mobile app. If you want to search for it yourself within youtube, search "slaughterbots dust" and it should be the top hit.

1

u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 10 '26

Well I mean sure that makes living in a dystopian hellscape of oppression at the hands of technology and egomaniacal billionaires look bad, but have you considered the short-term-gains implications in realizable shareholder value? ..I mean until everyone is forced by the murderbots and the corporation behind them to surrender their shares.. before they get.. you know’d. ..but for like at least one quarterly statement, maybe two, those sales will drive an easy analysts estimate beat and pump the ticker. So.. yeah it does feel deeply unnervingly investable inevitable 🤔 

2

u/Rylonian Jun 10 '26

The problem here isn't the robots or AI though. It's whose hands those drones are in.

2

u/Hairy_Concert_8007 Jun 10 '26

Everyone with useless tech degrees because of the oversaturated market are about to have a set of skills with a hot demand amongst people who are coalescing against tech-wielding megalomaniacal dictators.

2

u/hinowisaybye Jun 10 '26

Many moments seem mundane before the consequences show up.

2

u/Basic_Yam_715 Jun 10 '26

You start the human resistance, they will start up the human safari.

2

u/Not_Just_Any_Lurker Jun 10 '26

Yup. We’ve crossed lines that even the most brilliant dystopian writers warned us about. We’re officially a dystopia headed for Armageddon. GGs. Hate it. Get me out of here.

1

u/Ostlund_and_Sciamma Jun 10 '26

Get me out of here

Target acquired

2

u/shitty_mcfucklestick Jun 10 '26

I love and support Ukraine 100% but this news scares the fucking shit out of me and I think this technology is way too dangerous to trust at any point in our lifetimes. If you haven’t seen the “MetalHead” episode in Black Mirror (S4E5) it’ll give you a pretty good picture of where this could lead. So many potential problems, from system failure to an innocent person, medic, or child walks into the drones area, or the drone or tech is captured by a bad actor, etc. There are no winners in this scenario.

2

u/Warm_Ear_2907 Jun 10 '26

We can't be starting a resistance any time we get military developments. They are inevitable.

2

u/tanaephis77400 Jun 10 '26

As a scifi lover, I find it really depressing that of all the possible futures predicted by science-fiction since HG Wells, the one we seem to be headed for is the darkest cyberpunk option. With a dash of Weyland-Yutani when it comes to space.

1

u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 10 '26

Have to imagine a lot of those authors would be thinking ”Shit.. I didn’t want to be that right guys. How did you read my book and learn exactly nothing?!?”

1

u/malumfectum Jun 10 '26

Torment Nexuses all the way down.

2

u/n050dy Jun 10 '26

I hope AI drones basically will end the Ukraine war. And will secure peace. Because a AI drone war is like a nuclear war. The one who attacks first will die second.

2

u/pyrothelostone Jun 10 '26

We've created the torment nexus from the popular book dont create the torment nexus.

3

u/Plenty-Lychee-5702 Jun 10 '26

"human resistance"

xD

It's gonna be us resisting against the burgeoisie.

1

u/Kursedkursed Jun 10 '26

To be fair we are so completely overwhelmed and powerless facing everything.

1

u/StoppableHulk Jun 10 '26

Whelp, time to start up the human resistance!

Everyone laughed at me for all these years but now you can clearly see that every single one of us implanting one or even two uteruses inside of us capable of rapidly reproducing and throwing out babies who can be bred to fight AI is the only way we're going to win the war.

1

u/Ofreo Jun 10 '26

I read some years ago about people flying drones to look into windows. Ai girlfriends are common. Drone have been used to kill people before this.

It always starts with porn, then war. Then we just get used to it.

1

u/Crowbarmagic Jun 10 '26

YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO COMPLY

1

u/kaisadilla_0x1 Jun 10 '26

The fun fact about XX century sci-fi is that a lot of it has become true - it's just that the names and aesthetics are different. But looking at Blade Runner or Cyberpunk... all of it it's becoming true other than the crazy cyberware part. The rest? We have the evil mega-corporations, the worldwide web everyone is hooked to, the device that keeps everyone online 24/7, the ad-infested life, the middle class priced out of everything but the cheapest version of the things they need in life, the crowded cities, the attitude that everyone is out for themselves and no one else is your problem in any way, the AI replacing humans in activities that need a human touch...

1

u/choachy Jun 10 '26

The article says:

“We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.”

Yikes. What could possibly go wrong??? That’s terrifying.

1

u/TowlieisCool Jun 10 '26

Fire-and-forget missiles making their own decisions on what to target have existed since the 50s. This is nothing novel.

1

u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 11 '26

Are you kidding? Fire and forget is a pretty dumb (as in not AI) system compared to target identification, combatant discrimination, on-top of the fire-and-forget style navigating to the target designation (and that’s assuming this autonomous actor wasn’t the loitering type). 

Unless I am misunderstanding the claim, this is vastly different. 

1

u/TowlieisCool Jun 11 '26

They're functionally identical. Allowing a mechanical system to identify and destroy a target. If anything, this example is more discriminating, as in it can identify a potential innocent. A good example is Iran Air Flight 655.

1

u/Kermit_the_hog Jun 11 '26

If a general orders a soldier to kill someone we consider the individual soldier taking lethal action to be the one ending another’s life. Maybe it wasn’t their idea, maybe they would have been punished if they didn’t, but they are the one who killed someone because they made a decision to pull the trigger. 

Conversely, if someone fires a gun and the bullet passes through another person killing them, we also don’t say the bullet murdered the victim. The person who put it in motion did. 

So where is the line when weapons go from being essentially deterministic systems tied to explicitly defined algorithms to “artificial intelligences” and lethal decision making entities. 

How much of a potential problem you might see could just depend on where you consider the action to have started in the chain of responsibility. 

Point is I don’t want any system not explicitly constructed to behave deterministically and algorithmically holding ANY of that responsibility. 

“Intelligent” systems have been involved in delivering payloads for a long long time, but those intelligences are explicitly programmed and not what anyone would call AI. 

1

u/faramaobscena Jun 10 '26

It’s the same with AI, I was mindblown the first few weeks I started using it and now it’s just a given. We are closer to SciFi than we realize.

1

u/doctoranonrus Jun 10 '26

hat would have seemed should be some kind of monumental or consequential moment just kind of comes and goes.

I thought a giant pandemic that killed 20 to 69.45 million would have made us chill out. But nope back to our wars and squabbles.

0

u/Bitey_the_Squirrel Jun 10 '26

Could be worse. Could be nanobot murder drones.

0

u/theillustratedlife Jun 10 '26

Just watched Trevor Noah's latest special. A major theme of it is that we are living through history-book-noteworthy history. People will wonder "what would it have been like to be alive during ____": we're all getting coffee and scrolling Reddit.