Results tagged “terminator” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

A BRITISH boffin today called for urgent action on a global scale to curb the development of military killer robots that think for themselves.

"Terminator"-style machines that decide how, when and who to kill are just around the corner, warns Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield.

"I do think there should be some international discussion and arms control on these weapons but there's absolutely none," said Prof Sharkey.

"The military have a strange view of artificial intelligence based on science fiction. The nub of it is that robots do not have the necessary discriminatory ability. They can't distinguish between combatants and civilians. It's hard enough for soldiers to do that."

Iraq and Afghanistan have both provided ideal "showcases" for robot weapons, said Prof Sharkey.

The "War on Terror" declared by President George Bush spurred on the development of pilotless drone aircraft deployed against insurgents.

Initially used for surveillance, drones such as the Predator and larger Reaper were now armed with bombs and missiles.

The US currently has 200 Predators and 30 Reapers and next year alone will be spending 5.5 billion dollars (£3.29 billion) on unmanned combat vehicles.

"The next thing that's coming, and this is what really scares me, are armed autonomous robots," said Prof Sharkey speaking to journalists in London. "The robot will do the killing itself. This will make decision making faster and allow one person to control many robots. A single soldier could initiate a large scale attack from the air and the ground.
"It could happen now; the technology's there."

Even with human controllers, drones were already stacking up large numbers of civilian casualties.

As a result of 60 known drone attacks in Pakistan between January 2006 and April 2009, 14 al Qaida leaders had been killed but also 607 civilians, said Prof Sharkey.

In the wake of Terminator: Salvation, the potential threat of appalling films about the threat of future killer robots might need addressing too.

A recent article predicted the rise of computing power so that by 2030 a 'significant' machine intelligence should emerge.

It's not just about pure processing - the real key is how the computer 'senses' the world and what is going on, in essence the basis for that decision making.

Rather disconcertingly Peter Cochrane, the former head of BT's research labs, said: "I reckon we're looking at the 2020 timeframe for a significant machine intelligence to emerge. By 2030 it really should be game over."

Game over indeed. At this point I feel obliged to quote the Terminator 2:

TERMINATOR: "Basically. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn, at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. eastern time, August 29. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

SARAH: "And Skynet fights back."

TERMINATOR: "Yes. It launches its ICBMs against their targets in Russia."

SARAH: "Why attack Russia?"

TERMINATOR: "Because Skynet knows the Russian counter-strike will remove its enemies here."