New kamikaze, new VX
ZH supplies the usual AI disaster porn with the latest fighting robot from Boston Dynamics. One fact I hadn't heard before: Google sold the company to Softbank, Japan's equivalent of Google. So the robo-warrior is the new kamikaze.**

The commenters hit the usual subject hard, but one commenter gets relevant: Just break the lithium ion battery and the robo-warrior burns up.

In fact it's easier than that. A strong magnetic field, tuned properly, will incapacitate the robo-warrior without bothering human warriors. No bullets needed, no precision encrypted wifi hacks needed. Just tune for seizure.

A magnetic field is thus the AI equivalent of poison gas. RF is the new VX. So we can expect a prohibition on all devices that can possibly be reworked to generate a strong field. Any country that possesses radio transmitters or microwave ovens or transistors or tubes or copper wire is "authoritarian" and "malign behavior". All options on the table.

Self-defense is prohibited.

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**The kamikaze analogy doesn't work well because these robots are EXPENSIVE. Kamikazes, like all conscripted cannon fodder, are cheap. A draftee is designed and programmed by God at no cost to the government, and built by parents at no cost to the government. Cannon fodder requires a few weeks of basic training and feeding, and then it's off to the slaughter. No amortization, just mortization.

Later, I had a "bright" idea. What if we force governments to pay for the design and construction of soldiers? Pay God's contractors, churches, for the design, and pay parents for the manufacture. Terrible idea! Cancel immediately! Result would be an auction. Churches and parents would compete to program and build the most ferocious and obedient kamikazes.

Labels: malign misattribution, modest and stupid proposal

  ¶ 7:20 AM