Killer Robots

Rubecula wrote: »

we can only hope AI systems of the future will be as moral.

"If one uses morality in its descriptive sense, and therefore uses it to refer to codes of conduct actually put forward by distinct groups or societies, one will almost certainly deny that there is a universal morality that applies to all human beings." Does this suggest that what may be "moral" for one group or society may not be for another? This reminds me of the cliche, "One group's asset is another group's liability." Or yet another paraphrase: one group's terrorist is another group's freedom fighter. Will AI killer robots evidence group-specific morality accordingly?

Source:
The Definition of Morality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Revised 8 February 2016.

Rubecula wrote: »

It is always possible that the competitive streak is an aberration too.

My housemate and I have been rereading The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant, wherein they conclude that war is the ultimate form of human competition, and that war historically is normal, and peace is not. "War is a constant in history, there being only 268 years of no war in 3421 years of history."

To what extent do these conclusions suggest that "killer robots" may be a normal extension of human behaviour, that may evidence group-specific morality?

Rubecula wrote: »

most certainly

Raises hand.

Mechagodzilla

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

93% of People Would Trust Orders from a Robot at Work :eek:

This research report only discussed percentages, and percentages are descriptive and not inferential. Further, they did not provide specific details on how their sample was derived, only generalities, which leaves us guessing if the sample data was representative of a clearly identified population, or populations (e.g. HR personnel, employees, etc.), and could be generalised to them accordingly; e.g., was it a convenience non-probability sample, or what? I would also like to know both the significance levels and confidence intervals. And I wonder to what extent the funding sources of this research may have been self-interested in the results, and what precautions were taken to reduce the chance of experimenter effects, self-fulfilling prophecy, etc.?

I could go on and on with such questions, but fortunately I have not had my coffee yet this Pacific Saturday afternoon; and besides, I am doubtful that most readers want to engage in a long, windy discussion on research methods. :pac:

A little background music for our discussion of Killer Robots provided by Rubecula.

Watched an apocalyptic movie last night on the web where a group of powerful American rich guys got together and turned loose thousands of killer robots on the world to reduce the population substantially. Cannot remember the name of the film, but it had a Thomas Malthus plot and solution to population control with a high tech spin.

Fathom wrote: »

Slaughterbots

Whoa, that's a link indeed!