Killer Machines And Artificial Intelligence

Windows 10 is just not about putting an operating system on a computer. It would be prudent to make a backup of the operating system at the point of installation since none of us have a copy on a disk of Windows 10 unless we went out and bought it. I have found I have one HP laptop computer which just doesn’t install Windows 10, it is using the latest generation I7 chip, but I don’t know if this has anything to do with it. My Acer Predator desktop uses the same chip, yet Windows 10 installed with all of its components. The laptop installation keeps telling me that watchdog.exe and acclerometerST.exe are missing after taking time to do the entire install. Frustrating doesn’t cover it all. One has to wonder how two files are not installing on just one particular computer. A few days after writing this article I found the solution. It had to do with installing the latest update of Windows Visual C++. After I went to the Windows site and installed it, I was able to update to Windows 10.

Am I becoming paranoid, yeah a little? I can’t help but think this is the type of thing the military wants to use and have it decide whether to kill people or not without human intervention. I am talking about artificial intelligence. Can you imagine a flying bomb which was updated with the latest instructions, but the instruction to not kill somehow got garbled and the modifier “NOT” was left out which completely changed the instructions to kill. I can hear the military now. They are saying not to worry, because they are releasing a patch in a few weeks.  There certainly can be a case made against weapons being controlled by artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a machine deciding what to do based on a program written by people. Not genius people in most cases, just normal to smart people. The same type of people who wrote the Microsoft Windows and Apple OS.

We have been studying artificial intelligence for a long time. Longer than most people have been alive. Since this is the case, why haven’t we been able to perfect it by now? Some say it is because we don’t understand our brains fully and this would be necessary to develop a true artificial intelligence. There is no doubt this is true, but there could be other reasons also. One which comes to mind is the fact computers used to fill entire rooms not just our pockets. There was no way years ago to create artificial intelligence at any meaningful level since you would have had to move tons of computer components if it was even possible, which it wasn’t. Another reason we don’t have computer intelligence or artificial intelligence at a meaningful level yet is scientists and engineers can’t agree at times on how it should work. One of the best things to come out of research for artificial intelligence came from a science fiction author. It was the three laws of robotics and they are listed below:
1. A robot many not injure a human being or, through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the   first law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

It is interesting to note we are violating these laws when we ask robots to become killing machines. These laws are incredibly insightful and we are just tossing them into the garbage can. If robots truly conformed to these laws there would be no problems as long as there was no corrupted code going into their programs. Yet we are doing what we always do, creating machines to kill each other. As a race we are incredibly stupid. Those in control want us to be in a constant state of war so they can make megabucks. They pollute our water, our air, drive many into poverty and in a lot of cases don’t even pay taxes or at least their fair share.

They see dollar signs when they think of large robots taking the place of soldiers and one can see why. If a country has an army of a few hundred thousand soldiers and half or more could be replaced with robots, it would be a cash tsunami for the military industrial complex. They tell us it would save lives, but it would probably be much worse for civilians when the robots reach them and start to kill everyone indiscriminately.
There have been a lot of movies which have come out about this type of thing, but none have rang home as well as Terminator. The possibility of its message coming true should make us think twice about what we are doing. Some will say it was only a movie and that is true, but it was a movie about something which is a very real possibility. There are those who believe aliens will invade us someday and take over the earth. There is probably more of a chance intelligent machines will do that and will have absolutely no use for us as they sharpen their skills at building intelligent machines themselves. Machines don’t have to become sentient to become dangerous. One robot was being demonstrated by the US Army. It had a small body with treads and was more like a stand which held a machine gun. As the robot was being demonstrated it swing its gun barrel around and pointed it right at one of the generals observing the test. Someone from the contractor quickly grabbed the barrel and swung it out of the way.

Things happen unexpectedly at times with any machine, but when they happen to a killer machine these things could be deadly. It is not the same as our cars breaking down or our electronics behaving strangely. These machines are armed and their malfunctions could involve shots fired. If something like this does go wrong and a machine miscalculates and thinks those around it are the enemy, it could kill many people in the blink of an eye, before anyone could stop it. Not only that, it might be very hard to stop especially if it has some kind of protective armor.

I don’t think intelligent killing machines should be built and deployed, do you?