AI could mean less body bags on the battlefield, but that's exactly what scares the godfather of AI.
Jeffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the “AI Godfather,” said the rise of killer robots would not make war safer. This makes conflict easier by starting by lowering the costs of human and political combat.
In an interview with Katie Couric, announced on her YouTube channel on Wednesday, the “fatal autonomous weapons: who kills, whom to kill, it's a huge advantage if you want to invade a poor country.”
“It's that their citizens will return to body bags that will stop the rich country that invade poor countries,” he said. “If there are fatal autonomous weapons, the dead robots will come back, rather than the dead.”
That shift, he said, could burn the government to start a war, and enrich defense contractors in the process.
“That's because it's expensive to replace for a military industrial complex,” he added.
Hinton also said the AI is already rebuilding the battlefield.
“It's pretty clear that it's a war that's already transformed,” he said. It refers to Ukraine as an example. “A $500 drone can now destroy millions of dollars of tanks.”
Traditional hardware is beginning to look outdated, he added. “Fighters with people are stupid now,” Hinton said. “If we can put AI in, AIS can withstand much greater acceleration, and we don't have to worry too much about losing our lives.”
Hinton did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
How AI has already changed the battlefield
Hinton's comments bring autonomous systems and AI to the central stage of real-world conflict.
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Ukraine is developing artificial intelligence-driven drones and other autonomous systems, with the West taking notes.
Swedish Minister of Defense Pol Johnson said one of the important lessons Sweden has learned from the war is the need for more autonomous capabilities.
“Scale and volume, and how quickly technology development is happening within Ukraine. It made me realize that this is an area where we need to invest heavily in,” he said.
“What we're doing in Ukraine will define war for the next decade,” one Ukrainian soldier who works in a system that has not been accused of drones told Business Insider in a February report.
Russia is also increasingly trying new types of ground drones as the Ukrainian robot war heats up.
Their designs include the undeniable ground vehicles that include “Dronobus” for fiber optic drones, buggy chairs and a box of wheels, Business Insider reported earlier this month.
In April, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belusov said that Russian companies and volunteer organizations had developed “hundreds of ground robotic systems.”
“This year we plan to offer a few more orders of magnitude more,” Belusov said.
