https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/21/emergent-ai-behavior-and-human-destiny/
‘Emergent’ AI Behavior and Human Destiny
What Happens When Killer Robots Start Communicating with Each Other?
Yes, it’s already time to be worried — very worried. As the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have shown, the earliest drone equivalents of “killer robots” have made it onto the battlefield and proved to be devastating weapons. But at least they remain largely under human control. Imagine, for a moment, a world of war in which those aerial drones (or their ground and sea equivalents) controlled us, rather than vice-versa. Then we would be on a destructively different planet in a fashion that might seem almost unimaginable today. Sadly, though, it’s anything but unimaginable, given the work on artificial intelligence (AI) and robot weaponry that the major powers have already begun. Now, let me take you into that arcane world and try to envision what the future of warfare might mean for the rest of us.
By combining AI with advanced robotics, the U.S. military and those of other advanced powers are already hard at work creating an array of self-guided “autonomous” weapons systems — combat drones that can employ lethal force independently of any human officers meant to command them. Called “killer robots” by critics, such devices include a variety of uncrewed or “unmanned” planes, tanks, ships, and submarines capable of autonomous operation. The U.S. Air Force, for example, is developing its “collaborative combat aircraft,” an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) intended to join piloted aircraft on high-risk missions. The Army is similarly testing a variety of autonomous unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), while the Navy is experimenting with both unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and unmanned undersea vessels (UUVs, or drone submarines). China, Russia, Australia, and Israel are also working on such weaponry for the battlefields of the future.
The imminent appearance of those killing machines has generated concern and controversy globally, with some countries already seeking a total ban on them and others, including the U.S., planning to authorize their use only under human-supervised conditions. In Geneva, a group of states has even sought to prohibit the deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons, citing a 1980 U.N. treaty, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, that aims to curb or outlaw non-nuclear munitions believed to be especially harmful to civilians. Meanwhile, in New York, the U.N. General Assembly held its first discussion of autonomous weapons last October and is planning a full-scale review of the topic this coming fall.
For the most part, debate over the battlefield use of such devices hinges on whether they will be empowered to take human lives without human oversight. Many religious and civil society organizations argue that such systems will be unable to distinguish between combatants and civilians on the battlefield and so should be banned in order to protect noncombatants from death or injury, as is required by international humanitarian law. American officials, on the other hand, contend that such weaponry can be designed to operate perfectly well within legal constraints.
However, neither side in this debate has addressed the most potentially unnerving aspect of using them in battle: the likelihood that, sooner or later, they’ll be able to communicate with each other without human intervention and, being “intelligent,” will be able to come up with their own unscripted tactics for defeating an enemy — or something else entirely. Such computer-driven groupthink, labeled “emergent behavior” by computer scientists, opens up a host of dangers not yet being considered by officials in Geneva, Washington, or at the U.N.
For the time being, most of the autonomous weaponry being developed by the American military will be unmanned (or, as they sometimes say, “uninhabited”) versions of existing combat platforms and will be designed to operate in conjunction with their crewed counterparts. While they might also have some capacity to communicate with each other, they’ll be part of a “networked” combat team whose mission will be dictated and overseen by human commanders. The Collaborative Combat Aircraft, for instance, is expected to serve as a “loyal wingman” for the manned F-35 stealth fighter, while conducting high-risk missions in contested airspace. The Army and Navy have largely followed a similar trajectory in their approach to the development of autonomous weaponry.
The Appeal of Robot “Swarms”
However, some American strategists have championed an alternative approach to the use of autonomous weapons on future battlefields in which they would serve not as junior colleagues in human-led teams but as coequal members of self-directed robot swarms. Such formations would consist of scores or even hundreds of AI-enabled UAVs, USVs, or UGVs — all able to communicate with one another, share data on changing battlefield conditions, and collectively alter their combat tactics as the group-mind deems necessary.
“Emerging robotic technologies will allow tomorrow’s forces to fight as a swarm, with greater mass, coordination, intelligence and speed than today’s networked forces,” predicted Paul Scharre, an early enthusiast of the concept, in a 2014 report for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). “Networked, cooperative autonomous systems,” he wrote then, “will be capable of true swarming — cooperative behavior among distributed elements that gives rise to a coherent, intelligent whole.”
As Scharre made clear in his prophetic report, any full realization of the swarm concept would require the development of advanced algorithms that would enable autonomous combat systems to communicate with each other and “vote” on preferred modes of attack. This, he noted, would involve creating software capable of mimicking ants, bees, wolves, and other creatures that exhibit “swarm” behavior in nature. As Scharre put it, “Just like wolves in a pack present their enemy with an ever-shifting blur of threats from all directions, uninhabited vehicles that can coordinate maneuver and attack could be significantly more effective than uncoordinated systems operating en masse.”
In 2014, however, the technology needed to make such machine behavior possible was still in its infancy. To address that critical deficiency, the Department of Defense proceeded to fund research in the AI and robotics field, even as it also acquired such technology from private firms like Google and Microsoft. A key figure in that drive was Robert Work, a former colleague of Paul Scharre’s at CNAS and an early enthusiast of swarm warfare. Work served from 2014 to 2017 as deputy secretary of defense, a position that enabled him to steer ever-increasing sums of money to the development of high-tech weaponry, especially unmanned and autonomous systems.
From Mosaic to Replicator
Much of this effort was delegated to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s in-house high-tech research organization. As part of a drive to develop AI for such collaborative swarm operations, DARPA initiated its “Mosaic” program, a series of projects intended to perfect the algorithms and other technologies needed to coordinate the activities of manned and unmanned combat systems in future high-intensity combat with Russia and/or China.
“Applying the great flexibility of the mosaic concept to warfare,” explained Dan Patt, deputy director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, “lower-cost, less complex systems may be linked together in a vast number of ways to create desired, interwoven effects tailored to any scenario. The individual parts of a mosaic are attritable [dispensable], but together are invaluable for how they contribute to the whole.”
This concept of warfare apparently undergirds the new “Replicator” strategy announced by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks just last summer. “Replicator is meant to help us overcome [China’s] biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships. More missiles. More people,” she told arms industry officials last August. By deploying thousands of autonomous UAVs, USVs, UUVs, and UGVs, she suggested, the U.S. military would be able to outwit, outmaneuver, and overpower China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). “To stay ahead, we’re going to create a new state of the art… We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat.”
To obtain both the hardware and software needed to implement such an ambitious program, the Department of Defense is now seeking proposals from traditional defense contractors like Boeing and Raytheon as well as AI startups like Anduril and Shield AI. While large-scale devices like the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft and the Navy’s Orca Extra-Large UUV may be included in this drive, the emphasis is on the rapid production of smaller, less complex systems like AeroVironment’s Switchblade attack drone, now used by Ukrainian troops to take out Russian tanks and armored vehicles behind enemy lines.
At the same time, the Pentagon is already calling on tech startups to develop the necessary software to facilitate communication and coordination among such disparate robotic units and their associated manned platforms. To facilitate this, the Air Force asked Congress for $50 million in its fiscal year 2024 budget to underwrite what it ominously enough calls Project VENOM, or “Viper Experimentation and Next-generation Operations Model.” Under VENOM, the Air Force will convert existing fighter aircraft into AI-governed UAVs and use them to test advanced autonomous software in multi-drone operations. The Army and Navy are testing similar systems.
When Swarms Choose Their Own Path
In other words, it’s only a matter of time before the U.S. military (and presumably China’s, Russia’s, and perhaps those of a few other powers) will be able to deploy swarms of autonomous weapons systems equipped with algorithms that allow them to communicate with each other and jointly choose novel, unpredictable combat maneuvers while in motion. Any participating robotic member of such swarms would be given a mission objective (“seek out and destroy all enemy radars and anti-aircraft missile batteries located within these [specified] geographical coordinates”) but not be given precise instructions on how to do so. That would allow them to select their own battle tactics in consultation with one another. If the limited test data we have is anything to go by, this could mean employing highly unconventional tactics never conceived for (and impossible to replicate by) human pilots and commanders.
The propensity for such interconnected AI systems to engage in novel, unplanned outcomes is what computer experts call “emergent behavior.” As ScienceDirect, a digest of scientific journals, explains it, “An emergent behavior can be described as a process whereby larger patterns arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.” In military terms, this means that a swarm of autonomous weapons might jointly elect to adopt combat tactics none of the individual devices were programmed to perform — possibly achieving astounding results on the battlefield, but also conceivably engaging in escalatory acts unintended and unforeseen by their human commanders, including the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure or communications facilities used for nuclear as well as conventional operations.
At this point, of course, it’s almost impossible to predict what an alien group-mind might choose to do if armed with multiple weapons and cut off from human oversight. Supposedly, such systems would be outfitted with failsafe mechanisms requiring that they return to base if communications with their human supervisors were lost, whether due to enemy jamming or for any other reason. Who knows, however, how such thinking machines would function in demanding real-world conditions or if, in fact, the group-mind would prove capable of overriding such directives and striking out on its own.
What then? Might they choose to keep fighting beyond their preprogrammed limits, provoking unintended escalation — even, conceivably, of a nuclear kind? Or would they choose to stop their attacks on enemy forces and instead interfere with the operations of friendly ones, perhaps firing on and devastating them (as Skynet does in the classic science fiction Terminator movie series)? Or might they engage in behaviors that, for better or infinitely worse, are entirely beyond our imagination?
Top U.S. military and diplomatic officials insist that AI can indeed be used without incurring such future risks and that this country will only employ devices that incorporate thoroughly adequate safeguards against any future dangerous misbehavior. That is, in fact, the essential point made in the “Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy” issued by the State Department in February 2023. Many prominent security and technology officials are, however, all too aware of the potential risks of emergent behavior in future robotic weaponry and continue to issue warnings against the rapid utilization of AI in warfare.
Of particular note is the final report that the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence issued in February 2021. Co-chaired by Robert Work (back at CNAS after his stint at the Pentagon) and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, the commission recommended the rapid utilization of AI by the U.S. military to ensure victory in any future conflict with China and/or Russia. However, it also voiced concern about the potential dangers of robot-saturated battlefields.
“The unchecked global use of such systems potentially risks unintended conflict escalation and crisis instability,” the report noted. This could occur for a number of reasons, including “because of challenging and untested complexities of interaction between AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems [that is, emergent behaviors] on the battlefield.” Given that danger, it concluded, “countries must take actions which focus on reducing risks associated with AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems.”
When the leading advocates of autonomous weaponry tell us to be concerned about the unintended dangers posed by their use in battle, the rest of us should be worried indeed. Even if we lack the mathematical skills to understand emergent behavior in AI, it should be obvious that humanity could face a significant risk to its existence, should killing machines acquire the ability to think on their own. Perhaps they would surprise everyone and decide to take on the role of international peacekeepers, but given that they’re being designed to fight and kill, it’s far more probable that they might simply choose to carry out those instructions in an independent and extreme fashion.
If so, there could be no one around to put an R.I.P. on humanity’s gravestone.
Comment to article:
" Here’s how it works. Those who own the means of existence have new Frankenstein toys to put into play, technological progress brought us by the fascist corporate state to better build our own prison, from peasant to prole entrapping us in a multitude of means of control deployed by industrial complexes fronting ruling class agenda. They require lesser ranks in the chain of command delegated authority within monopolized knowledge and bureaucratic administration of rule to rehearse mock debates for staging rollout of the inevitable.
In this case, we’re to be massaged and managed by a member of the academic industrial complex, providing public intellectuals for endless distraction over problems requiring solutions. The question of why this latest advance of fascism, no longer creeping but flying, should be taken for granted as a topic for discussion at all has passed into oblivion among professional class manufacturers of consent to the organized crime that passes for the rule of law and order.
When it comes to any imperial prerogative of capital, there’s to be no discussion among captive audiences amid all the fanfare of public opinion production as to why bizzness as usual favors psychopaths in charge, making decisions for us from declarations of war to which merchants of death will make killings in the market. What’s reserved for us is dealing with done deals, social contracts established without our consent if knowledge, whatever among their many consequences are selected for limited hangouts in the spotlight.
These discussions usually amount to more or less closed conversations currently in vogue in professional circles. The mass of labor power is preferably dumbed down by endless distraction on TikTok, endless spectacle like the Stupor Bowl. Educated fools must fall for better bought and paid for pretenses to serve their own self-interest in playing along with the systemic set-up of solutions in search of problems.
So punditry comes along to clean up the face of fascism, supplying clever criticism, or not, within Demokracy, Inc.’s premises of rule by the few over the means of existence for the many. As if we weren’t already massively subjected to weapons of mass destruction, forget distraction, the alarm must sound again for the latest security threat: AI, the ultimate Frankenstein toy. Once again, technological control to advance class war and subdue general populations, particularly on the home front of the national security state, resorts to the con of directing our attention to a problem requiring solution under conditions which already prevail to ensure our further ‘protection’ from regulatory overlords of the same corporate state constantly bleeding us.
Fuck ’em all who call themselves independent press for pushing alternatives of, not to, propaganda, loyal criticism consenting to the powers that (shouldn’t) like a mop-up crew for the way things are in this worst of all possible worlds under class rule’s current crimes against humanity. Their enlightened domestication assures the sheeple of just the right reformist racket to reign in one supposed threat with that which already dominates reality.
Big Brother’s bearing down on us every which way: wars and rumors of war, two minute or 24/7 hate of assigned enemies, doublethink of depopulation policies from public health (eugenics) to sustainable development (of economic warfare), misinformation to be purged by ministries of truth and fact-checking minions…. Yesterday’s science fiction proves to be playbooks and predictive programming brought us by the deepest tentacles of the security state like DARPA, long in the bizzness of perfecting means of population control. And where does DARPA do its demonic R&D but among the best and brightest in university labs and think tanks for the latest advances in machinery of production, profit, and power supplied by these ruling institutions.
We’re sold their Frankenscience as so many conveniences to customize our cells in the digital (c)age as it continues to advance social engineering to reduce us to techno-totalitarian control grids. No matter it be some algorithmic overlord, or bogey to scare us into crisis for opportunity by all too human tyrants, we’re on schedule to get screwed one way or another.
It behooves us to wake up from the advanced dumbing down of the
‘responsible’ men and women (Lippmann) overseeing our adaptation to done
deals, and rise up to take back the means of existence for our common
good, shared in egalitarian human relations no longer rooted in rule of
resources by the few over the many. Without such social revolution, we
will not survive the nightmares of history long defining the death march
of civilization. "
....
http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/chaos-erupts-we-are-witnessing-riots-protests-and-civil-unrest-all-over-the-western-world-in-2024
Chaos Erupts! We Are Witnessing Riots, Protests And Civil Unrest All Over The Western World In 2024
Order is breaking down all over the western world as governments lose control of their populations. Farmers have been holding angry protests throughout Europe, enormous groups of migrants have been rioting on a regular basis, looting has become a way of life in many communities in the United States, and now truckers are calling for a historic boycott of New York City. We are witnessing very alarming explosions of anger and frustration all over the western world right now, and there are no easy answers because most of us have lost faith in those that are governing us.
I would like to start by discussing the rioting that just took place in the Netherlands. A fight between two rival groups of Eritreans resulted in a massive riot which transformed the streets of the Hague into a war zone…A violent riot erupted on the streets of the Hague last night, as ‘migrants’ attacked cops with bricks and torched police cars.
Dozens of rioters were filmed surrounding the Opera conference hall along Fruitweg in the Netherlands, as multiple police vans drove to the scene.
Another clip also showed the aftermath. The building had several smashed windows and parked vehicles were on fire, with the street left looking like a warzone.A fight broke out between two groups of Eritreans. ‘It got seriously out of hand,’ The Hague Municipality spokesman Robin Middel said last night.
“Seriously out of hand” is a major understatement.
It is going to take a very long time to repair the immense damage that was caused by the rioters.
A video has shown angry clashes between police and demonstrators during a pro-Palestine march in central London today which is estimated to have attracted between 200,000 and 250,000 to the capital.
A total of eleven people have been arrested, including at least on suspicion of support for a proscribed organisation, with the demonstration scheduled to end near the Israeli embassy, with pictures showing police lined up in front of it, apparently to guard it.
But in recent times millions of migrants have been pouring into Europe, and the EU just passed a “migration pact” which will completely open the floodgates…
The EU has passed a migration pact dubbed “the suicide of Europe” which could lead to the continent being flooded with as many as 75 million new migrants.
The European Parliament’s LIBE committee passed the act on Wednesday, which formalizes the distribution of migrants to member states and punishes those that refuse to take them.
Because cultural enrichment and diversity is “our greatest strength,” countries that try to maintain their national identity without being subsumed by migrants will be hit with severe financial penalties.Marine Le Pen, the leader of National Rally’s parliamentary wing, previously said the pact would lead to “the suicide of Europe,” adding that it was a deal with the devil and represents an “organized plan of submersion of Europe and the nations which compose it.”
Of course it isn’t just migrants that have been taking to the streets.
In recent weeks, vast numbers of farmers throughout Europe have been expressing their deep displeasure with those that are ruling over them…
Farmers are holding protests across Europe, clogging the streets with their tractors, blocking ports and pelting the European Parliament with eggs over a long list of complaints from environmental regulation to excessive red tape.
“We are no longer making a living from our profession,” one aggrieved farmer in Paris told CNN.
While some of the most dramatic protests have been in France, similar action has been taking place in a host of countries including Italy, Spain, Romania, Poland, Greece, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands.
Normally farmers are not radical activists.
But they have been pushed way too far, and they have decided that enough is enough.
Here in the United States, truckers that are infuriated by the verdict that was just handed down in New York City are pledging to boycott the Big Apple from this point forward…
Some Trump-supporting truckers are refusing to transport loads to and from New York City after the former president was fined $355 million and had his ability to run businesses in the state suspended in Friday’s civil fraud verdict.
A pro-Trump truck driver known as “Chicago Ray” posted a video to X following the verdict, sharing that he and several of his colleagues are declining NYC delivery jobs due to Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling.
“I’ve been on the radio talking to drivers for about the last… hour and 15 minutes… I’ve talked to at least ten drivers… they’re going to start refusing loads to New York City starting on Monday,” Ray said.
Will this boycott be widespread enough to make a huge difference?
I don’t know.
But if enough truck drivers joined the boycott, it could certainly cause a lot of pain.
As Zero Hedge has pointed out, truck drivers move “between 70% to 73% of all freight in the United States”…
Truck drivers transport between 70% to 73% of all freight in the United States. Therefore, when truckers begin discussing plans on social media to boycott loads to progressive hellhole New York City, it’s important to pay attention.
Following the verdict, many business owners in New York City were concerned that they could receive the same treatment that Trump just received.
In response, New York Governor Kathy Hochul explained that business owners have nothing to fear as long as they are “law-abiding and rule-following”…
New York Governor Kathy Hochul attempted to reassure business owners in New York that they have nothing to fear after the state’s Attorney General fleeced $355 million from President Trump for running a business in the state.
Hochul told John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM where she was asked if other New York businesspeople should be worried that if “they can do that to the former president, they can do that to anybody.”
According to Hochul: “I think that this is really an extraordinary unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior.”
Do you think that such a statement will make anyone feel better?
Of course not.
There is so much anger over what just happened. At this point, Wayne Allyn Root is calling for a nationwide boycott of the entire city…
All 100 million of us must boycott New York City. No more vacations there. No business trips. No more attending conventions. No Christmas trips to see the Rockettes and the tree at Rockefeller Center. No more clothes shopping on Fifth Avenue. No Broadway shows. No more spending at hotels or fancy restaurants. Just say, “NO!”
Ask every store or online site you buy from, “Are you based in New York City?” If they are, find someone else to buy from.
All of the examples that I have shared in this article share a common theme.
The elite are losing their grip and are having a very difficult time maintaining order.
This is happening despite a very sophisticated campaign to censor the Internet and control what we think.
It just isn’t working.
They are trying to pull our strings, but most of us are no longer obeying.
And in many of our communities, social order is totally breaking down. As I mentioned earlier, there are some parts of the country where looting has become a way of life…
By now it’s a familiar scene: a group of seven men walked into a a clothing retailer Thursday wearing face coverings and robbed the place blind in broad daylight, walking out with armloads of merchandise while the store was still open. But this wasn’t San Francisco or Los Angeles, it was in Memphis last week, and the retailer says this was one of more than 60 similar incidents to happen in the last year in their Memphis area stores alone.
According to WREG-TV, police released surveillance video of the alleged shoplifting gang who walked out of a local City Gear store carrying armloads of pilfered merchandise. Police say, after reviewing the footage, that at least seven individuals participated in the organized theft. Neither police, nor City Gear’s parent corporation Hibbett have released an exact dollar amount of the merchandise that was stolen, but it was described as a “large amount.”
At this point, things have gotten so crazy that it really takes a lot to shock me.
But I was shocked by one story that I read earlier today.
One man that had just been released from prison decided to hijack a car hauler truck that was transporting 10 Chevrolet C8 Corvettes…
Fox 10 Phoenix reports that a 23-year-old man, freshly out of jail, hijacked a tractor-trailer loaded with exotic sports cars, telling law enforcement after he was caught, he simply needed a ride.
According to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department in Phoenix, Arizona, the suspect, Isaiah Walker, “assaulted and robbed” a truck driver at a Willcox Loves Truck Stop.
“Walker grabbed the victim and threw him from the cab,” the sheriff’s department wrote on Facebook.
The suspect then “entered the vehicle, locked the door, stole the vehicle, and drove it from the parking lot,” the sheriff’s department continued, adding the truck was hauling ten Chevrolet C8 Corvettes with an estimated value above $1.25 million.
Sadly, this is just the beginning.
2024 is less than two months old, and I believe that by the end of this year we are going to see far more chaos than we are witnessing now.
So watch your back and keep your head on a swivel, because we are entering a time when danger will potentially be lurking around every corner.
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