<story><title>Israel&apos;s autonomous &apos;robo-snipers&apos; and suicide drones raise ethical dilemma</title><url>https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-autonomous-robo-snipers-and-suicide-drones-raise-ethical-dilemma-44557</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bsaul</author><text>It always amazes me how some people are unable to accept the fact that there are extremists ideologies in this world. The fact that you think that it’s possible to solve a conflict with diplomatic talks, no matter if the ideology in front of you is capable of sacrificing its own children in suicide bombings to kill other civilians ( which not even the nazis or the japanese kamikaze did), in a pure act of hate, should let you think twice about the best tactic.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it is really impossible to talk some sense to some people. It’s just very hard to accept for us, but it just is, and history has proved that sometimes force &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; , unfortunately, the wisest choice.</text></item><item><author>BobbyJo</author><text>It wasn&amp;#x27;t an argument that one side should allow people to die, it was an argument that high mutual cost deters conflict and encourages diplomatic engagement. Which is true, see: nukes.</text></item><item><author>siculars</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been here a long time. This may actually win the award for most ridiculous comment ever written on HN. To argue that a main should willingly sacrifice their people for... what exactly? Why do you think these systems were built? To keep their people from &amp;quot;actually dying.&amp;quot; Another route could be to indiscriminately return 10x fire for every indiscriminately fired inbound rocket. Would that be an appropriate response? I mean, it could &amp;quot;push for a peaceful resolution faster.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jbob2000</author><text>You could argue that the Iron Dome has allowed the Israelis to perpetuate the conflict. If Israel citizens were faced with actually dying, they might push for a peaceful resolution faster.</text></item><item><author>fossuser</author><text>Reminds me in a weird way of this episode: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imdb.com&amp;#x2F;title&amp;#x2F;tt0708414&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imdb.com&amp;#x2F;title&amp;#x2F;tt0708414&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A culture has computer simulated war and “casualties” must report to euthanasia chambers.&lt;p&gt;This was the end result agreed to to stop actual bombings.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the officers disrupt it in the end. But it’d be interesting if they returned and nothing was left but craters.&lt;p&gt;More on topic, iron dome is an automated missile interception system and works well to protect Israelis from missile attacks. Just because a system is automated doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea, but obviously there’s high risk.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Iron_Dome&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Iron_Dome&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>rossdavidh</author><text>So, I realize that lots of apocalyptic projections get made about AI that have a habit of not coming true, but this seems like an awful idea.  Also, an awfully hard one to resist.  If your opponent has fast-as-a-computer-can-pull-the-trigger firepower, it&amp;#x27;s going to be pretty hard to resist the urge to get your own.&lt;p&gt;Once you have two sides with automated offensive capability, we are one bug away from the kind of mistakes that, during the Cold War, were intercepted by humans in the loop.  I&amp;#x27;m not sure how this can NOT end badly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vimacs2</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s easy to dismantle this argument by realising that you&amp;#x27;re making a fake comparison. Nobody (not even ISIS) is going to be stupid enough to give access to nukes to the kinds of people that they value little enough to send on suicide bomb attacks. This was also true for the Axis forces. Nobody was entrusting low level SS and Kamikaze grunts with nuclear codes and the same would be true for even a &amp;quot;rogue&amp;quot; state like North Korea or Iran.&lt;p&gt;You also clearly don&amp;#x27;t understand what path would lead someone to resort to suicide bombing if you think you can reduce it to &amp;quot;a pure act of hate&amp;quot;. These are desperate people who have been brainwashed to the point that they think they would bring more net worth to the world by blowing themselves and their surroundings up than living on. What would help &amp;quot;talk sense&amp;quot; to people is to stop  engaging in illegal invasive wars that (intentionally or unintentionally) destabilise their region.</text></comment>
<story><title>Israel&apos;s autonomous &apos;robo-snipers&apos; and suicide drones raise ethical dilemma</title><url>https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-autonomous-robo-snipers-and-suicide-drones-raise-ethical-dilemma-44557</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bsaul</author><text>It always amazes me how some people are unable to accept the fact that there are extremists ideologies in this world. The fact that you think that it’s possible to solve a conflict with diplomatic talks, no matter if the ideology in front of you is capable of sacrificing its own children in suicide bombings to kill other civilians ( which not even the nazis or the japanese kamikaze did), in a pure act of hate, should let you think twice about the best tactic.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it is really impossible to talk some sense to some people. It’s just very hard to accept for us, but it just is, and history has proved that sometimes force &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; , unfortunately, the wisest choice.</text></item><item><author>BobbyJo</author><text>It wasn&amp;#x27;t an argument that one side should allow people to die, it was an argument that high mutual cost deters conflict and encourages diplomatic engagement. Which is true, see: nukes.</text></item><item><author>siculars</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been here a long time. This may actually win the award for most ridiculous comment ever written on HN. To argue that a main should willingly sacrifice their people for... what exactly? Why do you think these systems were built? To keep their people from &amp;quot;actually dying.&amp;quot; Another route could be to indiscriminately return 10x fire for every indiscriminately fired inbound rocket. Would that be an appropriate response? I mean, it could &amp;quot;push for a peaceful resolution faster.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jbob2000</author><text>You could argue that the Iron Dome has allowed the Israelis to perpetuate the conflict. If Israel citizens were faced with actually dying, they might push for a peaceful resolution faster.</text></item><item><author>fossuser</author><text>Reminds me in a weird way of this episode: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imdb.com&amp;#x2F;title&amp;#x2F;tt0708414&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imdb.com&amp;#x2F;title&amp;#x2F;tt0708414&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A culture has computer simulated war and “casualties” must report to euthanasia chambers.&lt;p&gt;This was the end result agreed to to stop actual bombings.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the officers disrupt it in the end. But it’d be interesting if they returned and nothing was left but craters.&lt;p&gt;More on topic, iron dome is an automated missile interception system and works well to protect Israelis from missile attacks. Just because a system is automated doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea, but obviously there’s high risk.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Iron_Dome&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Iron_Dome&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>rossdavidh</author><text>So, I realize that lots of apocalyptic projections get made about AI that have a habit of not coming true, but this seems like an awful idea.  Also, an awfully hard one to resist.  If your opponent has fast-as-a-computer-can-pull-the-trigger firepower, it&amp;#x27;s going to be pretty hard to resist the urge to get your own.&lt;p&gt;Once you have two sides with automated offensive capability, we are one bug away from the kind of mistakes that, during the Cold War, were intercepted by humans in the loop.  I&amp;#x27;m not sure how this can NOT end badly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BobbyJo</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a bit of an unrelated tangent no? I don&amp;#x27;t think anyone in this thread was suggesting that force is never warranted.</text></comment>