My patron saint

I attended a federal contracting conference a few months ago, and they had one of these things (or a variant) walking around the lobby.

From talking to the guy who was babysitting it, they can operate autonomously in units or be controlled in a general way (think higher level unit deployment and firing policies rather than individual remote control) given a satellite connection. In a panel at the same conference, they were discussing AI safety, and I asked:

Given that AI seems to be developing from less complex tasks like chess (which is still complicated, obviously, but a constrained problem) to more complex and ill-defined tasks like image generation, it seems that it’s inevitable that we will develop AI capable of providing strategic or tactical plans, if we haven’t already. If two otherwise-equally-matched military units are fighting, it seems reasonable to believe that the one using an AI to make decisions within seconds would win over the one with human leadership, simply because they would react more quickly to changing battlefield conditions. This would place an enormous incentive on the US military to adopt AI assisted strategic control, which would likely lead to units of autonomous weapons which are also controlled by an autonomous system. Do any of you have any concerns about this, and if so, do you have any ideas about how we can mitigate the problem.

(Paraphrasing, obviously, but this is close)

The panel members looked at each other, looked at me, smiled, shrugged, and didn’t say anything. The moderator asked them explicitly if they would like to respond, and they all declined.

I think we’re at the point where an AI could be used to create strategies, and I would be very surprised if no one were trying to do this. We already have autonomous weapons, and it’s only a matter of time before someone starts putting them together. Yeah, they will generally act reasonably, because they’ll be trained on human tactics in a variety of scenarios, but that will be cold comfort to dead civilians who happened to get in the way of a hallucinating strategic model.

EDIT: I know I’m not actually addressing anything you said, but you seem to have thought about this a bit, and I was curious about what you thought of this scenario.

I was home schooled from childhood through highschool. I got a GED before I joined the military, then used the GI bill to go to university and took placement tests for everything, which put me at the same level as everyone else except for trigonometry, which I had to take a remedial class in.

Yeah, the US grade system up to highschool. I haven’t done those grades at all.

Never have I ever gone to school in grades K-12.

Bonus fucked

No one I fought with was helping kill brown kids either. You could argue that we were indirectly helping, since we were fighting for a country that was also sometimes bombing areas with civilians. If that’s how you would like to approach this, then everyone helped.

If you’ve worked in retail then you’ve sold goods to soldiers, if you work in agriculture then you’ve fed them, and if you’re a teacher then you educated them. Some small fraction of those soldiers went on to bomb kids somewhere.

If you want to criticize the US policy of invading other countries on a pretext and then propping up governments that do what we want, go ahead. I’m right there with you. If you want to live in a fantasy where all soldiers are merciless baby-killers, I guess you can do that, but that’s where we part ways.

Soldiers are individuals, and they sign up for all sorts of reasons. A very common reason is an education that gives them a better shot at a high paying job so that they can care for their family or start one. Is it fucked that people feel the need to do that? Sure. Would it be great if there was a straight forward way for a person with no resources to get an education and a better job? Yes.

But currently, we’re in an environment where risking your life to fight for your country in an unjust war is the best option some people have. And pretending that the reason they do it is because they’re Bad People doesn’t help solve the problem.

None of the veterans I know killed any brown kids. The people we shot were generally either shooting at us, or had just set off an IED with a car battery. Most of our interactions with kids involved someone getting in trouble for giving away MREs to the kids that would walk up to the vehicle.

Going meta is always allowed. Just say you’re dumbing it down, that you don’t mean to be condescending, and invite them to interrupt if they already understand.

I’m imagining the mob standing around the guy scratching their heads, with the noose pulled all the way up to the branch.

Women are you doing the same thing for me

It’s also 60", which is absurdly large to me lol. Glad I could help, though.

I hope someone shook her hand and thanked her for her service before they put her away.

Ah, my bad. Sorry.

I have one. It’s 4k, which gave me some trouble from an Ubuntu media server, and the refresh rate is ~144, I believe. It cost me something like 300-400 USD.

Try a Spectre t.v. they’re made for digital signage. I got one and hooked it up to a media server.

I wonder if you could make a donation platform for artists that also provides torrents. You would have to tie up the money pending proof of identification from an artist who participated in creating the work, then release a portion to them. I’m just speculating here but it seems like something that could be made.

Absolutely my favorite characters. I really like the lonely mountain comic where they make a dragon dildo.

1. Escape temporarily with a group
2. Find scrolls of modify memory
3. Remove memories from all but one escapee
4. Rest of the group returns home with no memory of escape or the person left behind
5. Escapee on the outside learns the spell modify memory and/or finds more scrolls
6. Returns to orchestrate resistance
7. The resistance operates in cells which have no memory of being part of the resistance
8. “Handlers” are rotated frequently and are responsible for providing memories and stockpiled weapons
9. Cell members are given memories, perform missions, and then return home with no memory
10. Cells that are compromised are abandoned immediately and their members are never activated again.
11. Handlers are personally recruited and serve for short periods of time before being wiped by the next handler.

Seems like a pain, but possible. It would make a good story.