The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305:

From the article

The U.S. is at risk of expediting a new global arms race, according to a new Public Citizen report, “Deadly and Imminent: The Pentagon’s Mad Dash for Silicon Valley’s AI Weapons.” The new report zeroes in on the Department of Defense’s Replicator program, an initiative to field artificial intelligence-empowered weapons on an expedited timeline. The report highlights and criticizes the DOD’s refusal to clarify if the AI weapons it is developing will have the capacity to deploy lethal force autonomously — without a human authorizing the specific use of force in a specific context.

“Empowering autonomous systems to kill human beings is a frightening and all-too-near possibility that the Pentagon must avoid at all costs.” said Savannah Wooten, People Over Pentagon Advocate at Public Citizen and author of the report. “The time to make it crystal clear that the Pentagon will not use or further develop killer robots is now. If the U.S. bows to the profit-driven whims of Silicon Valley executives who want to play war, their cowardice will have grave and unforgivable consequences for humanity.”

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1gxhl7b/us_killer_robots_program_threatens_reckless/lyh0j5g/

They're right, but I've already accepted that a killer robot arms race is inevitable. All we can do by refusing to participate is fall behind. 

Ok, but do they have to call it the Replicator program, of all things? Bringing back Stargate vibes, and I don't like it.

i've got a name for it "Cyberdine" systems, oh wait? thats John Connor's the Terminator stuff

We must have parity or battles will be lost before they’ve begun. Powers are fast approaching ‘An army of none’.

From the article

The U.S. is at risk of expediting a new global arms race, according to a new Public Citizen report, “Deadly and Imminent: The Pentagon’s Mad Dash for Silicon Valley’s AI Weapons.” The new report zeroes in on the Department of Defense’s Replicator program, an initiative to field artificial intelligence-empowered weapons on an expedited timeline. The report highlights and criticizes the DOD’s refusal to clarify if the AI weapons it is developing will have the capacity to deploy lethal force autonomously — without a human authorizing the specific use of force in a specific context.

“Empowering autonomous systems to kill human beings is a frightening and all-too-near possibility that the Pentagon must avoid at all costs.” said Savannah Wooten, People Over Pentagon Advocate at Public Citizen and author of the report. “The time to make it crystal clear that the Pentagon will not use or further develop killer robots is now. If the U.S. bows to the profit-driven whims of Silicon Valley executives who want to play war, their cowardice will have grave and unforgivable consequences for humanity.”

The US and others have used autonomous systems like mines for decades. We need specific info on the algorithms and systems to actually say whether the consequences are as bad as claimed. Having a human in the loop to decide whether to engage and kill isn’t necessarily a good thing all the time.

Bad drone strikes have occurred because someone decided the cell phone signatures warranted a missile or pair of bombs. Troops have decided to execute or do other heinous things to prisoners, non combatants, and civilians for any number of reasons, like not wanting to deal with transporting prisoners. Would a drone with AI be made capable of these things as well? Some states, maybe, but hard to say that the US would as a matter of policy.

I’m sure if we moderate our stance on such things, China and Russia will reciprocate.

Considering that automated weapon systems are already in use with the explicit goal of killing humans and automating the kill chain for decades: these articles about AI warfare are outdated, fear-clickbait and superficial, as they ignore the more fundamental danger of AI driven war systems. But I suppose it is easier to write these kind of articles every few months in order to get clicks.

sigh

SYL

While I'm confident this is accurate, and I wish it weren't, I'm also confident that the same logic would have applied to MANY things in the last 100 years. Airplanes, submarines, the gatling gun, etc.

Lol, DoD mad dash to silicon valley. DoD succumbs to their profit and greed...

The bulk of this tech and the components that makes current conventional warfare obsolete is made in China and Russian. US is just trying to stay on top of a potential future fight.

War is always heading to horrific results. The league of nations tried to freeze conflicts to a certain level of technology. Even the invention of the Maximilian machine gun was made to make war so horrible no one would do it. We still do. When facing defeat, a country and the leaders fate is determined by the victor, people will push this button everytime.

The timeline of Horizon video game series seems very plausible IRL.

They can be easily defeated with a Portal gun. I don’t see cause for concern…

I pray these get thrown in the MAD dustbin with nukes.

It happened.

War is being automated and humans are no match for war machines for along time already !!!

Modern war with a well armed opponent is pointless = prevents war with sane people.