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Comment by randomopining | Hacker News Reader

Good, let's perfect them before our enemies and prevent war over Taiwan and Ukr.

I get the arms-race angle and I know these developments are inevitable, but that doesn't make it any less of a dystopian nightmare. In the short-term it's very beneficial to be the first to develop this new paradigm-shifting arms tech so of course we will, if we don't someone else will. But in the long-term I think autonomous militaries are a one-way ticket to an autocratic surveillance state.

A soldier who is ordered to commit an atrocity or oppress their own citizens might disobey or rebel, an army of machines has no such problems. I'm less afraid of the 'self-aware AI' skynet takeover scenario than I am of putting so much military and technological might into the hands of so few real living people. When it becomes technically impossible for the military of an entire nation to disobey any order its given, no matter how terrible, I believe we will see man-made horrors beyond our comprehension. And it won't be because the machines became self-aware, they'll just be following orders.

Autocratic surveillance states are here in the form of countries like China, Russia, NK, etc. The US is clearly the leader against these types of dystopias (despite it's many past mistakes and current faults), so I think to lump them all together would be naive and dangerous.

I don't take the parent to be lumping them in with other countries. He is mearly musing that such tecnhology with incress the likelyhood of such form of goverment and will cement the positions of autocratic regimes.

Well I think a truly democratic country like the US (even though imperfect) getting these technologies first and isolating/defeating the autocratic countries would actually lead to some form of self-governance over the use of these technologies.

This would avoid the dystopian nightmare he worries about.

The US is only against them due to a perceived threat to global US hegemony. For instance, you forgot to list Saudi Arabia there, and they are one of our allies.

The US govt has been the largest exporter of misery and destruction the last 80 years. So yeah, you can lump them altogether. And yes, the US would happily use AI to exterminate 500k communists, 1 million Iraqis, or 1 million Vietnamese again.

"The US is only against them due to a perceived threat to global US hegemony. For instance, you forgot to list Saudi Arabia there, and they are one of our allies."

-- The US eventually wants democracy globally. Support of countries like SA etc are just stepping stones and temporary accepting.

"The US govt has been the largest exporter of misery and destruction the last 80 years. So yeah, you can lump them altogether. And yes, the US would happily use AI to exterminate 500k communists, 1 million Iraqis, or 1 million Vietnamese again."

-- This trite talking point is overused and mostly wrong. Since the US took partial hegemony in 1950s and complete hegemony in 1990s... things have improved greatly for the world as a whole. Despite many mistakes by the US, it is still pretty good. Do you think the alternatives of Nzi Germany (self-explanatory), USSR (millions killed by Stalin), or the CCP (millions dead, famines etc) would be better?

When has the US gov specifically targeted non-combatants for extermination? I do not believe that ever happened. Collateral damage due to military operations is terrible, but it's not willingly done.

So basically your answer is complete hyperbole, as well as mostly wrong.

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