Lifeboat Foundation

I see articles and reports like the following about military actually considering fully autonomous missals, drones with missals, etc. I have to ask myself what happened to the logical thinking.

A former Pentagon official is warning that autonomous weapons would likely be uncontrollable in real-world situations thanks to design failures, hacking, and external manipulation. The answer, he says, is to always keep humans “in the loop.”

The new report, titled “ Autonomous Weapons and Operational Risk,” was written by Paul Scharre, a director at the Center for a New American Security. Scharre used to work at the office of the Secretary of Defense where he helped the US military craft its policy on the use of unmanned and autonomous weapons. Once deployed, these future weapons would be capable of choosing and engaging targets of their own choosing, raising a host of legal, ethical, and moral questions. But as Scharre points out in the new report, “They also raise critically important considerations regarding safety and risk.”

Continue reading “Autonomous Killing Machines Are More Dangerous Than We Think” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LvHlW1h_0XQ

Artificial intelligence helps the LRASM evade defenses, home on its prey.

The US military recently decided that Google’s Alpha Dog and Spot robots weren’t ready for active duty, leaving the four legged robots with nothing to do. In the meantime, Google is doing with its battery-powered Spot robot what we probably would — using it as a dog toy. The company recently unleashed it on Alex, the terrier that reportedly belongs to Android co-founder and Playground Global boss Andy Rubin. The adorable result is that Alex, clearly the boss of this arrangement, sees the hapless robot as an existential threat that must be barked at and harangued (no butt-sniffing, luckily).

The model is reportedly the only one that’s not in military hands, and there’s no word on what Google’s Boston Dynamics plans to do with it now. The military thought Spot could be a potential ground reconnaissance asset, but “the problem is, Spot in its current configuration doesn’t have the autonomy to do that,” says James Peneiro, the Ground Combat head of the Warfighting Lab. It would be shortsighted, of course, to think the robots need to be put to work right away. A lot of the self-balancing tech in Spot (and its ability to take a kick) can already be found in the next-generation humanoid Atlas Robot.

Continue reading “Watch Google’s robot ‘Spot’ play with Andy Rubin’s real dog” »

I agree 100% with this report by former pentagon official on AI systems involving missiles.

A new report written by a former Pentagon official who helped establish United States policy on autonomous weapons argues that such weapons could be uncontrollable in real-world environments where they are subject to design failure as well as hacking, spoofing and manipulation by adversaries.

In recent years, low-cost sensors and new artificial intelligence technologies have made it increasingly practical to design weapons systems that make killing decisions without human intervention. The specter of so-called killer robots has touched off an international protest movement and a debate within the United Nations about limiting the development and deployment of such systems.

Continue reading “Report Cites Dangers of Autonomous Weapons” »

BMI’s (according to DARPA and David Axe) could begin as early as 2017 on humans. The plan is to use stentrodes. Testing has already proven success on sheep. I personally have concerns in both a health (as the article highlighted prone to blood clots) as well as anything connecting via Wi-Fi or the net with hackers trying to challenge themselves to prove anything is hackable; that before this goes live on a person we make sure that we have a more secure hack-resistant net before someone is injured or in case could injure someone else.

Soldiers could control drones with a thought.

The tiny injectable machine could turn your noodle into a remote control.

The Pentagon is attempting what was, until recently, an impossible technological feat—developing a high-bandwidth neural interface that would allow people to beam data from their minds to external devices and back.

That’s right—a brain modem. One that could allow a soldier to, for example, control a drone with his mind.

Continue reading “Pentagon Research Could Make ‘Brain Modem’ a Reality” »

There’s increasing buzz about the clandestine weapon.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9xlw5jAu4kc

Rather than risk the lives of their astronauts, Russian government scientists are now working to develop humanoid robots that can perform complex tasks on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) while astronauts control them safely from within the station.

The Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, Russia’s military research arm unveiled two prototype robot astronauts on February 13th to the media ahead of a public robotics exhibition in Moscow.

Continue reading “Russian Robonauts Working on the ISS Will Soon be Reality (Video)” »

US Military’s new toys to show off in front of China and Russia.

Little noticed amid the daily news bulletins about the Islamic State and Syria, the Pentagon has begun a push for exotic new weapons that can deter Russia and China.

Pentagon officials have started talking openly about using the latest tools of artificial intelligence and machine learning to create robot weapons, “human-machine teams” and enhanced, super-powered soldiers.

Continue reading “The exotic new weapons the Pentagon wants to deter Russia and China” »