Increasingly human-like automated weapons demand an honest accounting of our emotional responses to them.
The audience of venture capitalists, engineers and other tech-sector denizens chuckled as they watched a video clip of an engineer using a hockey stick to shove a box away from the Atlas robot that was trying to pick it up. Each time the humanoid robot lumbered forward, its objective moved out of reach. From my vantage point at the back of the room, the audience’s reaction to the situation began to sound uneasy, as if the engineer’s actions and their invention’s response had crossed some imaginary line.
If these tech mavens aren’t sure how to respond to increasingly life-like robots and artificial intelligence systems, I wondered, what are we in the defense community missing?
It was simply an input/output test of a machine — a demo — one that was technically amusing. As long as the technology is in the hands of those who understand the technology it is a lot safer, and we are a lot safer, than it being in the hands of those who do not — or will not, understand it. In general the technological community are positive, well-disposed people.