[ExI] state of conflict technology

[John Clark]

On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 10:16 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> Recently we saw a fulfilment of a dream.  We saw persistent conflict
> between two nations.  The more advanced nation fired one missile and took
> out one military leader and his staff.  The enraged victim nation very
> carefully fired back 15 missiles but hit nothing.  Intense but very
> localized destruction, low loss of life, few of the traditional well-known
> horrors of war.*


Good point. That's why I don't understand those who say it's immoral to
work on killer robots that use AI like the recent Google employee who
resigned in protest:

Google worker fears 'killer robots' could cause mass atrocities
<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/15/ex-google-worker-fears-killer-robots-cause-mass-atrocities>

Does anyone seriously think it would be better to go back to carpet bombing
like we had during World War 2? Judging from the above article apparently
so, but the non-nuclear firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 1945 with non-AI
bombs killed at least 125,000 people and was almost certainly the bloodiest
6 hours in human history. I think a good case could be made that it's
immoral to work on dumb bombs not smart ones.

 John K Clark
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