It has been said that mankind keeps find new and more inventive way to kill each other. As technology advances so does mankind's ability to destroy enemies. Hive Learners posted a prompt postulating that maybe having AI and Robots fight would make warfare more humane with fewer actual people being killed. While I read the prompt and got to this point...
...Robots and Artificial Intelligence to fight wars, thereby eradicating the need for human soldiers on battlefield, it could lead to fewer loss of lives of gallant soldiers...
and I just had to think for a moment about how optimistic that statement is. Any world war will be brutal and I would like to refer to a quote from Albert Einstein which is...
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
A war which uses AI and robots will not reduce human casualties. However, rather than just saying that I really doubt it would be a benign war which would be robot VS robot and people would be spared, I'll look at it from a few angles I think are justified.
If I had to hazard a guess I'd say that any future major world conflict would have three parts: Logistics, Manpower, and Infrastructure. Let's look at each one in turn given an AI with Robots leading the charge.
Now the Chinese actually have some very good robots and they have them on guard on their border. Sure robots like these could be used on the battlefield but I would guess that drones would be the preferred robot. Reason: Drones are cheap, humanoid or even dog type robots are not. Right now in Ukraine and other conflicts you have drones being manned by people with joysticks making sure the drones hit their target. Hundreds or thousands of cheap drones wreaking havoc on manned positions or strategic infrastructure
But lets make it scarier. Let's say that AI controls the drones AND the AI controls the manufacture of those drones. Assume that each side has their own AI involved a deathmatch with the other. Each AI just takes more and more resources local resources to fight the other AI. End result: A gigantic waste of material and energy that could have been more productive doing almost anything else.
But when I think of an AI fighting a battle in a drone it makes me remember something from the Bible which made absolutely no sense when I first read it 40 years ago.
Looking at it now makes me shudder as it makes a lot more sense. No. I'm not trying to interpret this as prophecy saying "Watch out for AI attack drones" but rather as that it is chilling to think that something I once thought impossible is now plausible.
Book of Revelation 9:7–10 (KJV)7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
To me that sounds chillingly like how a person from ancient times might describe a modern AI attack drone, powered by a humanlike intelligence (AI) that uses poisoned darts or stinger to incapacitate enemy combatants or civilians.
That brings up part number 2If AI and Robots join in the warfare it isn't going to be to kill other AI and Robots. It will be to go after the population at large.
With current guns some shells are designed to injure a victim instead of killing. The rationale being a wounded soldier requires two soldiers to take the injured one back to base for medical care and recuperation. If you kill the soldier his comrades just fight harder, if you wound one you remove 3 enemy soldiers from the battlefield. If you kill a soldier you reduce the draw on an enemies supply line but if you wound a soldier you increase it.
Drones that incapacitate many without killing them could bring a country to a standstill
If a drone kills the population dwindles but if it incapacitates the strain on resources increases exponentially. If a drone incapacitates? The population is too busy looking after its wounded to mount a counterattack. It will be spending its precious resources on aid rather than fighting.
Which brings up the third way a battle could be fought.
*** Infrastructure
Have you heard of cyber terrorism? One group decides to hit a weak spot in a foreign power plant and the entire grid goes down. One group locks out doctors from medical records and a hospital goes down. Look at Iran currently having an Internet blackout. Imagine a life without cellphones, streaming media, texts and so on. Life as we know it goes down. Or perhaps we just keep VISA and MASTERCARD from working. In a day and age where people don't carry cash? Commerce goes down. Want to get really evil? Delete stock market records on who owns what. The wealthy are no longer wealthy.
If an AI (with robots helping as operatives) were to shut down the grid, the credit card system, or any number of other necessary everyday tools? Society as we know it would collapse in no time.
Now imagine the effects if all of that happened at the same time?
Picture a scenario where enemy drones are being driven by AI to hunt down the population. Not to kill but to injure. Imagine a family member being struck and in need of aid. Imagine that when you are desperately trying to help them the lights go out, the water shuts down, and you can't buy medicine to help them because of an AI cyber attack. Your country is doing a counter attack of course but it is taking huge amounts of resources to fight. You don't have electricity, water, or supplies because when the power goes back on the AI uses it to create a counterattack.
....and the AI can do this until its objective is met. It doesn't necessarily care about the consequences to the population at large.
Society as we know it would shut down. People would be defenseless or at least greatly diminished. When all was said and done fighting with sticks and stones as Einstein said doesn't sound so far fetched.
....and that isn't even the worse part.
What if the AI and Robots aren't under human control? What if we get a situation like the one shown in Terminator movies. That would be truly ugly and the weird thing is: we are getting closer and closer to it daily.
But to be fair I also enjoy using AI and it helps me work out ideas I commonly think of. Drones are awesome to help me map my rural territory and get a birds eye view on things I normally couldn't see.
Technology is a double edged sword. Used for the benefit of people it has awesome potential. Used to hurt, well, I really hope humanity doesn't go there because I believe that Einstein may be very right about going back to sticks and stones. Then again, maybe you have a different opinion and I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
Thanks for reading.
