[drone-list] Joshua Foust on LARs

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Ali-Reza Anghaie <ali@packetknife.com> -----

Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2013 22:38:41 -0400
From: Ali-Reza Anghaie <ali@packetknife.com>
To: drone-list <drone-list@lists.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: [drone-list] Joshua Foust on LARs
Message-ID: <CAPKVt5+brytR4KqXYTywFQpCECHv347Y9msdywBv+r8_M1AD=Q@mail.gmail.com>
Reply-To: drone-list <drone-list@lists.stanford.edu>

On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 10:34 PM, Gregory Foster
<gfoster@entersection.org> wrote:
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> National Journal (Oct 8) - "Soon, Drones May Be Able to Make Lethal
> Decisions on Their Own" by @JoshuaFoust:
> http://www.nationaljournal.com/national-security/soon-drones-may-be-able-to-make-lethal-decisions-on-their-own-20131008
>
> This unusual article is belied by its title, as it seems to marshal
> evidence against the likelihood of military usage of lethal autonomous
> robots (LARs) citing the very real fear of political consequences.
> But freelance journalist Joshua Foust is a hawk and military realist,
> so here's his hidden suggestion offered after illustrating how command
> and control is a weak link in the global drone war machine:
>
>> It may be that the only way to make a drone truly secure is to
>> allow it to make its own decisions without a human controller: if
>> it receives no outside commands, then it cannot be hacked (at least
>> as easily). And that's where LARs, might be the most attractive.
>
> gf

I find his tone here curious since he is also quite insistent that NSA
abuse is fairly mundane and - while agreeing with calls for more
technical controls - seems perfectly happy to consider the existing
ones good enough to agree with the NSA's assertions "no harm, no
foul"..

I also think that assertion of human control is glib-ludicrous,
especially after calling out (rightfully) Greenwald's sudden
"expertise" on all matters technical.

I like Foust generally but he keeps getting the idea of controls
balanced against human activity wrong IMO. -Ali
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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