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From: RISKS List Owner <risko@csl.sri.com> Subject: [RISKS] Risks Digest 30.69 Date: 17 May 2018 at 02:33:23 CEST To: risks-resend@csl.sri.com

RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Wednesday 16 May 2018 Volume 30 : Issue 69

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, moderator, chmn ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30.69> The current issue can also be found at <http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents:

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The risk from robot weapons (via The Statesman/Asia News Network, published in The Straits Times)

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Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 16:34:51 -0700 From: Richard M Stein <rmstein@ieee.org> Subject: The risk from robot weapons (via The Statesman/Asia News Network, published in The Straits Times)

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/the-risk-from-robot-weapons-the-...

'A letter warning against the coming race of these weapons was signed in 2015 by over 1,000 AI experts.'

'Peter Singer, an expert on future warfare at 'New America", a think tank, has said that very powerful forces propel the AI arms race - geopolitical compulsions, scientific advances and profit-seeking high technology companies.

'Scharre has also raised the possibility that perhaps because of badly written codes or perhaps because of cyber attack by an adversary, military use autonomous systems can malfunction, raising possibilities of attack on people or soldiers on the same side, or escalating conflicts or killing to unintended, highly exaggerated levels.'

Numerous public proclamations admonishing on AV weapon risks are insufficient to deter investment and capability pursuit. There's apparently too much momentum among businesses and governments to deflect this juggernaut.

With the Manhattan Project, scientific leadership recognized the risks nuclear weapons raised. Some scientists argued for a demonstration, rather than deployment, to compel quick Japanese surrender. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed to temporarily establish and project US nuclear hegemony as a deterrent.

Aggressive international diplomacy among progressive governments might negotiate an non-proliferation of autonomous weaponry treaty (NPAWT), like the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). However, an enforceable and verifiable treaty is unlikely to timely emerge given historical human proclivity and myopia, despite empirical evidence that argues for deliberate restraint and negotiation.

[A timely reminder on the importance of negotiation to cut the risk of war can be found here (http://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/opinion/nuclear-doomsday-denial.html).]

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Date: Tue, 5 May 2018 11:11:11 -0800 From: RISKS-request@csl.sri.com Subject: Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 30.69 ************************

Dott. Diego Latella - Senior Researcher CNR-ISTI, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy (http:www.isti.cnr.it) FM&&T Lab. (http://fmt.isti.cnr.it) http://www.isti.cnr.it/People/D.Latella - ph: +390506212982, mob: +39 348 8283101, fax: +390506212040 =================== The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than compulsion; if in the process we learn how to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember your humanity. -- Sir Joseph Rotblat