Unmanned aerial vehicle

The Rise of Robotic Artificial Intelligence

by Socrates

Here is a fascinating video interview with Prof. Noel Sharkey Sheffield University professor of robotics and AI. Prof. Sharkey discusses the rise of robots and Artificial Intelligence and the implications thereof. One particularly important area is the ethical issues of arming robots and using them in armed conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan. (This interview raises questions that were previously discussed in the Dawn of the Kill-Bots series.) Artificial intelligence: Noel Sharkey on the inexorable rise of robots | silicon.com Related articles by Zemanta Call for debate on killer robots (news.bbc.co.uk) Call for debate on killer robots (innovationtoronto.com) Military killer robots ‘could endanger civilians’ (telegraph.co.uk) Expert Warns Of ‘Terminator’ Robot Threat (news.sky.com)

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Best of Singularity Blog

by Socrates

Even though it has been only a bit more than a month since the beginning of this blog I am happy to note that there is already a tight group of people who have subscribed to my feed and continue to come back and read my posts on a regular basis. I want to take this opportunity to do 2 things: First and foremost I want to thank you all for the generous gift of your interest, your time and your moral support. I cherish those dearly and promise to do my best to provide you with more interesting, more relevant and better written singularity content during the new 2010. In the end, without you — my readers, both the Singularity Weblog and the Singularity Symposium website will be not only pointless but will cease to exist. It is your [...]

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Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 4)

by Socrates
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Part 4: Military Turing Test — Can robots commit war-crimes? Now that we have identified the trend of moving military robots to the forefront of military action from their current largely secondary and supportive role to becoming a primary direct participant or (as Foster-Miller proudly calls its MAARS bots) “war fighters” we have to also recognize the profound implications that such a process will have not only on the future of warfare but also potentially on the future of mankind. In order to do so we will have to briefly consider what for now are assumed to be broad philosophical but, as robot technology advances and becomes more prevalent, will eventually become highly political, legal and ethical issues: Can robots be intelligent? Can robots have conscience? Can Robots commit war crimes? In 1950 Alan Turing introduced what he believed was [...]

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Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 3)

by Socrates
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Part 3: The Present — close infantry support and force multiplier Not surprisingly, once robots began migrating from the production lines to the military, death became not an accidental but deliberate and heavily invested in outcome. In 2002 the Air Force officially changed the Predator’s designation from RQ-1 (R for reconnaissance) to MQ-1 (M for multi-use). Not just for intelligence gathering anymore, Predators were then officially capable of carrying hell-fire missiles. Even before the official change in its military designation, it was well known that the CIA had already possessed several Predators capable of carrying weapons and conducting bombing raids. So, whatever the official beginning, the Predator was probably the first modern actively armed robotic or unmanned war machine. The first officially reported person to have been deliberately killed by robot was Mohammed Atef. In November 2001 missiles fired from [...]

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