d+d: back to bosstown
after a long summer off (well, with one session in august) we finally got back into the dnd yesterday. the players got to travel back home, and watch the fruits of their previous efforts ripen. the world is falling apart, the elves are all going off to join a cult, and osfyr’s dad wants him to join the masons.
it feels good. because, like… i wasn’t sure how it would all start and that was keeping me from getting a sense of how it would get shaped and fit together. but now i’ve got some ideas. it’s pretty silly and fun.
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Rise of machines
Rise Of The Machines
It’s been over 35 years since The Terminator was released, and rather than a global moratorium on weaponized robots, we’re instead seeing an explosion of research into autonomous tanks, aircraft, humanoid robots, and AI software systems to pull the trigger.
There’s a grim irony in the fact that a cautionary tale about autonomous killing machines has turned into an arms race to see who can develop them first —and it’s even more ironic that the organizations developing these technologies reference the movie when describing their projects: F.E.D.O.R. — with a gun, but “not a Terminator”.
FEDOR
In arecent tweet, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin described the “Robot platform F.E.D.O.R. showing shooting skills with two hands,” and quickly added, “we are not creating a Terminator, but artificial intelligence that will be of great practical significance in various fields.”
Ostensibly,F.E.D.O.R.has been developed for rescue missions, and the prototype was even sent to the International Space Station to conduct repairs, but as The Independent has written, “military uses have also been suggested by engineers.”
Atlas
Despite internet confusion from a viral hoax video by “BossTown Dynamics”, the realAtlasrobot developed by Boston Dynamics has never fired a gun — but it can run, do backflips, andparkour. Developed under grants byDARPA, this robot is also designed for disaster response, but that didn’t stop ExtremeTech for describing it as a “Real World Terminator”, saying:
At 6’2″ and 330lbs, Atlas is incredibly imposing…while Atlas is initially conceived as a disaster response robot, such as cleaning up and looking for survivors after a Fukushima-like disaster, it’s easy to imagine Atlas being the basis of a robotic army.
TheMIS
Futurism.com described this robotic tank as being “straight out of the Terminator”, and cited aC4ISRNET article indicating that it was equipped with a 12.7mm machine gun & 40mm automatic grenade launcher in a recent demonstration.
Likened to theT-1 robot tankin Terminator 3, theMilrem TheMISis one of many robotic tanks currently under development, including theRipsaw M5 Robo-Tank,Miloš UGV,Gladiator TUGV,Foster-Miller TALON, and many more — all heavily armed, and currently all requiring a human operator to pilot them remotely.
The Predator Drone
The General AtomicsMQ-1 Predatordrone was designed in the ‘90s for reconnaissance, but within a decade the Air Force hadarmed itfor drone strikes, and created theMQ-9 Reaperas a successor — which the USAF Chief of Staff called “a true hunter-killer.”
The Guardian reports thatBritain is funding research into drones that decide who they kill, and of the36 countriescurrently using armed drones, analystPaul Scharresays it’s “very likely that nations will invest in autonomous technology, if nothing else out of fear that their adversaries are doing so.”
Googlebacked out of drone research because of the ethical implications, but it hasn’t stoppedmilitary organizationsfrom pursuing autonomous killing machines, which have the advantage of “freeing current pilots from the moral responsibility of casualties”.
SkyNet
The Terminator franchise wouldn’t be complete without the series arch-villain. As it turns out,SkyNet is already here, and according toArs Technica, it’s already killed “thousands of people”:
“SkyNet engages in mass surveillance of Pakistan’s mobile phone network, and then uses a machine learning algorithm on the cellular network metadata of 55 million people to try and rate each person’s likelihood of being a terrorist.”
Today’s SkyNet is an NSA surveillance program that isn’t self-aware, and it doesn’t directly control weapons systems — unlike the ambitious Strategic Computing project, back whenDARPA Tried to Build Skynet in the 1980s:
“The system was supposed to create a world where autonomous vehicles not only provide intelligence on any enemy worldwide, but could strike with deadly precision from land, sea, and air. It was to be a global network that connected every aspect of the U.S. military’s technological capabilities — capabilities that depended on new, impossibly fast computers.”
Thoseimpossibly fast computersexist today, and DARPA hasn’t given up on the idea, they’ve simply rebranded it “Assured Autonomy”. The goal remains the same: creating systems able to “accomplish goals independently, or with minimal supervision from human operators in environments that are complex and unpredictable.”
Conclusion
As I said in the beginning, all the pieces for Judgement Day are in place. The nukes, the robots, the AI systems —it’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, and the only thing missing is a few more years of R&D and the malevolent spark of machine intelligence willing to end the world.
Stephen Hawkingsaid, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” andElon Muskconcurred — calling it humanity’s “biggest existential threat”. Both of them may be mistaken, but it begs the larger question:
If AI is dangerously unpredictable, why are we arming it?
Earlier I mentioned “freeing current pilots from the moral responsibility of casualties”, but the truth is they shouldn’t be freed from it. The decision to take a human life has gravity to it — and knowing that you’ll have to live with that choice is part of the decision-making process. It’s called having a conscience, and it’s something machines lack.
Conscience — not calculation — is what kept us from launching the nukes during the 20th century. The ICBMs are ready, but despite 70 years of saber-rattling, the decision to use them is simply too big, ugly & final for us to push the button. So we’re teaching the machines how to do it instead.
To be fair, The Terminator and its sequels were as much a commentary on the time they were produced as they were a warning to the future —but at the root of all these films remains a constant reminder:beware the consequences of giving machines the power to decide life & death.
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@vibe927miami - Today in #HipHopHistory: #Aquemini is the third studio album by #hiphop duo #Outkast. It was released on September 29, #1998, by #LaFaceRecords. The title is a portmanteau of the two performers' Zodiac signs: #Aquarius (#BigBoi) and #Gemini (#Andre3000), which is indicative of the album's recurring theme of the differing personalities of the two members. The group recorded the majority of the album in #BobbyBrown's #Bosstown Recording Studios and Doppler Studios, both in #Atlanta, #Georgia. Released as the follow-up to the duo's #1996 album ATLiens, Aquemini expands on the previous record's #outerspace-inspired compositions by incorporating live instrumentation. The commercial success of #ATLiens allowed for more creative freedom for the group, which led to the members self-producing the majority of the tracks. The band employed a large number of musicians for the album, who frequently entered and exited the studio throughout the recording process and had a major influence on the writing development of the album's songs. Lyrically, Aquemini explores various themes including #humannature, #addiction, and #interpersonalrelationships. The album was certified #Platinum in November 1998, only two months after its release, and was certified Double Platinum on July 2, #1999 by the Recording Industry Association of America. Aquemini peaked at number two on both the #Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop charts. Four of the album's tracks had already or would later become singles, although some were limited (promotional) releases and not available commercially. The record also received rave reviews from music critics, who praised the album's musicality and unique lyrical themes. It was ranked at number 500 in the book version of #RollingStone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. #classichiphop #dirtysouth @dungeon_family https://www.instagram.com/p/BxTB6XNnZ_t/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=g2eyf0rbkb1r
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