Thread: Future of drone strikes could see execution by algorithm

Drone strikes and targeted killings have become the weapon of choice for the Obama administration in their ongoing war against terrorists. But what impact is this technology having, not only on those who are the targets (both intended and unintended), but on the way we are likely to wage war in the future?



John Sifton is the advocacy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, and says that while drones are currently controlled remotely by trained military personnel, there are already fears that the roving killing machines could be automated in the future.

‘One of the biggest concerns human rights groups have right now is the notion of a signature strike,’ he says. ‘[This is] the notion that you could make a decision about a target based on its appearance. Say—this man has a Kalashnikov, he's walking on the side of the road, he is near a military base. He's a combatant, let's kill him. That decision is made by a human right now, but the notion that you could write an algorithm for that and then program it into a drone... sounds science fiction but is in fact what the Pentagon is already thinking about. There are already discussions about this, autonomous weapons systems.’

‘That is to human rights groups the most terrifying spectre that is currently presented by the drones.’

Sarah Knuckey is the director of the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at New York University Law School and an advisor to the UN. She says the way that drones are used to conduct warfare is stretching the limits of previous international conventions and is likely to require new rules of engagement to be drawn up.

‘There is an enormous amount of concern about the practices the US is conducting right now and the policies that underlie those practices,’ she says. ‘But from a much longer-term perspective and certainly from lawyers outside the US there is real concerns about not just what's happening now but what it might mean 10, 15, 20 years down the track.'

The rules of warfare built up after World War II to protect civilians are already hopelessly outdated, she says. The notion of border sovereignty has already been trashed by years of drone strikes, which she estimates have targeted upwards of 3,000 individuals, with reports of between 400 and 800 civilian casualties.

Future of drone strikes could see execution by algorithm - Rear Vision - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Kerry is mumbling on that drone strikes are only used on 'confirmed terrorist targets'. I don't know. Maybe it is just me. But I am yet to understand the reasoning why people are accepting this? Intelligence decides someone needs to die, finds them, launches an unmanned plane against them and drop a big bomb on the area where they are sat regardless of if they are with their family etc. Kill their kids? Who cares. Some pencil pusher had decided they needed to die.

What ever happened to investigation? Fair trial? presumed innocent? These are roaming death squads arbitrarily murdering people and we're supposed to applaud it? What if the person is innocent, after all, not uncommon for US intelligence to get things wrong s it?

All sounds like a movie about a communist future of the world, and yet it is here today and very real. How long until people thought to be murderers, who would get the death penalty, are taken out in the US by drones then? They do it once saying they had no choice - surprised they didn't use one for the cop they set up before burning alive to stop him talking.

Originally Posted by Looper

Future of drone strikes could see execution by algorithm

It seems only yesterday it was calculations by Texas Instruments. How times have changed.

Originally Posted by Albert Shagnastier

Originally Posted by Looper

Future of drone strikes could see execution by algorithm

It seems only yesterday it was calculations by Texas Instruments. How times have changed.

If they use reverse polish notation the administration could blame the Poles

^It would only make sense

How nice to sit here ,drink my coffee, and read a bit of good news for a change!Pakistan: senior Taliban militants killed by US drone strike | World news | guardian.co.uk

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Do the Taliban Suicide bombers give any one a fair trial? and BTW 75% of the Afghan Civilian deaths are at the hands of these murdering scum !, Get real FFS!http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/wo...stan.html?_r=0

Ahhh OK - so because a white bloke murdered his kids in the UK last year, the UK should start murdering any white bloke who shout at their kids just in case they do the same? Or How about it some other bloke tells the cops the white bloke is thinking about it - can he be bombed then? Or perhaps he had been to hospital and the doctor there thought there was a chance he might hurt someone, surely then you are OK for him to be blown up with his kids?

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Do the Taliban Suicide bombers give any one a fair trial? and BTW 75% of the Afghan Civilian deaths are at the hands of these murdering scum !, Get real FFS!http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/wo...stan.html?_r=0

Ahhh OK - so because a white bloke murdered his kids in the UK last year, the UK should start murdering any white bloke who shout at their kids just in case they do the same? Or How about it some other bloke tells the cops the white bloke is thinking about it - can he be bombed then? Or perhaps he had been to hospital and the doctor there thought there was a chance he might hurt someone, surely then you are OK for him to be blown up with his kids?

Stop blathering , this is a "dirty war" do you really believe that the Murdering scum called the Taliban ,who BTW groom young 10 year old kids to be Suicide bombers deserve a fair trial? ,in my book they should be "taken out" at every opportunity before they take some one else out ,its that simple !.

Originally Posted by piwanoi

BTW groom young 10 year

Catholic priests groom them to take their penis in their arse. Shall we bomb them as well?

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by piwanoi

BTW groom young 10 year

Catholic priests groom them to take their penis in their arse. Shall we bomb them as well?

There is no need to, because they can be arrested and put before Courts and punished that way

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by piwanoi

BTW groom young 10 year

Catholic priests groom them to take their penis in their arse. Shall we bomb them as well?

Blathering again!, this case made world wide news , I ask you again do these inhuman murderers deserve a fair trial? , there is no "Geneva Convention" in Afghanistan according to the Taliban , what you are implying is that we have to play the "game" by the "rules" but they can do what ever they want and YOU will defend them for it ,this sort of thing in the link is going on all the time in Afghanistan were Women and Young Girls are treated little better than their goats ,Taliban Vows To Kill Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Peace Activist, If She Survives Attack

Originally Posted by Fluke

There is no need to, because they can be arrested and put before Courts and punished that way

So that is the proper way to do things then is it? Not dropping a bomb on another country without a care in the world for who might be underneath it?

Ya think there is a difference between these actions and radicalised islamists?

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Do the Taliban Suicide bombers give any one a fair trial? and BTW 75% of the Afghan Civilian deaths are at the hands of these murdering scum !, Get real FFS!http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/wo...stan.html?_r=0

Ahhh OK - so because a white bloke murdered his kids in the UK last year, the UK should start murdering any white bloke who shout at their kids just in case they do the same?

No



Or How about it some other bloke tells the cops the white bloke is thinking about it - can he be bombed then?

No

Or perhaps he had been to hospital and the doctor there thought there was a chance he might hurt someone, surely then you are OK for him to be blown up with his kids?

No

no no and no

Originally Posted by Fluke

no no and no

Oh. but you said it was OK to do it to someone else in another country just because some "intelligence" said he was a bad guy. The same "intelligence" that pretended Osama was alive for years after he had been killed?

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by Fluke

There is no need to, because they can be arrested and put before Courts and punished that way

So that is the proper way to do things then is it? Not dropping a bomb on another country without a care in the world for who might be underneath it?

Ya think there is a difference between these actions and radicalised islamists?

The best way to deal with people who break the law is to arrest them, but this is only possible in your own Country , if you cannot arrest people who are engaging in terrorism, then its best to drop a well aimed bomb on them .

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by Fluke

no no and no

Oh. but you said it was OK to do it to someone else in another country just because some "intelligence" said he was a bad guy. The same "intelligence" that pretended Osama was alive for years after he had been killed?

You asked me whether it was acceptable to kill someone who shouted at his kids and I replied that it wasnt

Originally Posted by Jesus Jones

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Do the Taliban Suicide bombers give any one a fair trial? and BTW 75% of the Afghan Civilian deaths are at the hands of these murdering scum !, Get real FFS!http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/wo...stan.html?_r=0

Ahhh OK - so because a white bloke murdered his kids in the UK last year, the UK should start murdering any white bloke who shout at their kids just in case they do the same? Or How about it some other bloke tells the cops the white bloke is thinking about it - can he be bombed then? Or perhaps he had been to hospital and the doctor there thought there was a chance he might hurt someone, surely then you are OK for him to be blown up with his kids?

Stop blathering , this is a "dirty war" do you really believe that the Murdering scum called the Taliban ,who BTW groom young 10 year old kids to be Suicide bombers deserve a fair trial? ,in my book they should be "taken out" at every opportunity before they take some one else out ,its that simple !.

555555, the Taliban? I don't really think you know who the feck they really are. Or the Muslim brotherhood for that matter and how they became such things in the first place!

Yet another useful idiot regurgitating the mainstream crap!

Hey Brain dead ,do you really believe that the case of the Young Girl in my post #12 which made world wide news is a figment of my fertile Imagination and main stream crap?

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by Fluke

no no and no

Oh. but you said it was OK to do it to someone else in another country just because some "intelligence" said he was a bad guy. The same "intelligence" that pretended Osama was alive for years after he had been killed?

Any Firm evidence on that Crock of shit that Bin liner had been dead for years , before the yanks said they had "took him out" .

I wonder who collected the "blood money"? I just cannot believe it could be a fellow Muslim who sold him down the river ,Allah Akbar!BBC News - Pakistan Taliban: Senior leader 'killed in US drone strike'

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

If they use reverse polish notation the administration could blame the Poles

Good call.

Originally Posted by Albert Shagnastier

It seems only yesterday it was calculations by Texas Instruments. How times have changed.

Indeed.

For an entirely self sufficient and self-learning solution with no manual guidance they could use a genetic algorithm which makes multiple random guesses for round 1 and then analyses how good the outcomes were and then creates a second generation of decision parameters by re-combining sections of the most successful candidates from round 1 and introducing some small percentage random mutation to the input values to allow for some form of evolution of the optimum solution candidates and avoid sub-optimal inbred solution limitation.

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Any Firm evidence on that Crock of shit that Bin liner had been dead for years , before the yanks said they had "took him out" .

Piwi - Any firm evidence that the Yanks did take him out? Where's the body for a start? Dumped in the sea as per Islamic wishes my arse. Half the "hit squad team" are dead now as well. Did ya know that? Also that more of them keep dying in "strange" accidents? All very curious. I wonder if Seal 6 survivors are shitting themselves now?

I'm a little uncomfortable that some posters think that, because the Taliban are an immoral gang of murdering thugs, it's ok for us to start acting like them.

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Any Firm evidence on that Crock of shit that Bin liner had been dead for years , before the yanks said they had "took him out" .

Piwi - Any firm evidence that the Yanks did take him out? Where's the body for a start? Dumped in the sea as per Islamic wishes my arse. Half the "hit squad team" are dead now as well. Did ya know that? Also that more of them keep dying in "strange" accidents? All very curious. I wonder if Seal 6 survivors are shitting themselves now?

You Appear quite coy at revealing your source that Bin liner died years before the Yanks claimed to taking him out , who I strongly suspect to be the late highly corrupt Benazir Bhutto , how ever just to throw a spanner in the works ,why have the Paki;s sentenced this guy to 33 years for blowing the whistle to the yanks of Bin Liners were about's so they could deal with the rabid instigator of mass murder ,some thing just does not add up ,why throw him in the slammer if Bin liner died donkeys ago? maybe you can do the sums Doctor who helped US in search for Osama Bin Laden jailed for 33 years | World news | guardian.co.uk