ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (09/20/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, September 20, 1986 12:38AM
Volume 7, Issue 14
Today's Topics:
TV aboard weapon, fiber communication with soldier who shot it
Autonomous Weapons
A million lines of code works the first time?
failsafe software
Announcement of Berkeley Conference on the SDI
Dangerous jokes at LLL et al
Autonomous Weapons (Forwarded from Risks)
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Date: 17 Sep 1986 1300-PDT
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: TV aboard weapon, fiber communication with soldier who shot it
I haven't seen any mention yet on this forum of the TV program a week
or so about a cheap anti-tank weapon whereby a commercially-available
video camera is actually on the weapon, which spools out a very long
light-fiber by which the video image is sent back to the soldier and
the soldier sends servo commands back to the weapon. The soldier lobs it
upward from a safe place, then steers it generally back down until he
can see the terrain, then sights a target and aims the weapon generally
toward the target, and is it gets closer the aim is refined until at
the last moment the size of the target blows up to fill the screen and
the soldier can't maintain tracking but it's moot because now the
ballistic trajectory is sufficient to hit the target from a few feet away.
It's much cheaper than the "favored" anti-tank weapon (Sgt. York or
whatever), and allows firing from behind a hill or in a bunker etc.
where the shooter can't get shot back at by more conventional weapons.
Apparently NIH (Not Invented Here) caused ten years of supression of
this wonderful weapon (according to program). ANybody know the truth
of this matter? Is this a 60-minutes-style Search-for-ET-style media
hype, or is it a true case of NIH that needs fixing? Assuming weapon
really does work, what are pros and cons of such a weapon?
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Date: Thu, 18 Sep 86 20:56:09 EDT
From: oswald!jim@ll-xn.ARPA
Subject: Autonomous Weapons
Reply-To: oswald!jim@ll-xn.ARPA (Jim Olsen)
From: eugene at AMES-NAS.ARPA (Eugene Miya)
... another poster brought up the issue of autonmous weapons.
We had a discussion of of this at the last Palo Alto CPSR meeting.
Are autonmous weapons moral? If an enemy has a white flag or hands-up,
is the weapon "smart enough" to know the Geneva Convention (or is too
moral for programmers of such systems)?
There is, unfortunately, ample precedent for the use of such weapons. Land
mines and booby traps not only don't recognize white flags, they don't even
distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. An area in which autonomous
weapons had been deployed would be the up-to-date (and deadlier) version of a
minefield.
--
Jim Olsen ...!{decvax,lll-crg,seismo}!ll-xn!oswald!jim
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Date: Tue, 16 Sep 86 16:56:39 pdt
From: Dave Benson <benson%wsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: A million lines of code works the first time?
|Heard on NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday evening:
|An Air Force Lt. Col., speaking about a kinetic energy weapons
|test earlier this week, which apparently went better than expected
|in several respects. If this isn't an exact quote (I heard it
|twice, but didn't write it down at the time), it's real close:
|"We wrote about a million lines of new computer code, and tested
|them all for the first time, and they all worked perfectly."
Hoo boy! I would appreciate any and all leads by which I might track
this to some reliable source. Thank you, David B. Benson, Computer
Science Department, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-1210.
csnet: benson@wsu
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Date: Thu, 18 Sep 86 09:57:27 PDT
From: mse%Phobos.Caltech.Edu@DEImos.Caltech.Edu (Martin Ewing)
Subject: failsafe software
How can we even dream of SDI or fly-by-wire aircraft when I just received
12 nearly identical copies of the last ARMS-D mailing, at 33 KB a crack?
Seriously, this is an example of failsafe: if some transmission error
occurs before a message transmission is complete, send it again, and again,
and again... And no one is even shooting at the net, as far as I know.
Martin Ewing
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Date: Thu, 18 Sep 86 13:25:05 pdt
From: roberts@src.DEC.COM (Eric Roberts)
Subject: Announcement of Berkeley Conference on the SDI
I think that the readers of both your groups (RISKS and ARMS-D)
might be interested in the upcoming conference on "Star Wars and
National Security" to be held at Berkeley on October 9-11, 1986. Most
of the schedule seems relevant to ARMS-D, and the Dave Redell/Hugh
DeWitt panel (Saturday morning) should be of special interest to RISKS
readers. I have enclosed a copy of the advance program. Use this as
you think best.
-- Eric Roberts
CPSR/Palo Alto representative to the
SDI Conference planning committee
_____________________________________________________________________________
STAR WARS AND NATIONAL SECURITY
A Conference on the Strategic Defense Initiative
October 9-11, 1986, University of California, Berkeley
-------------------- PART ONE: Exploring the Issues --------------------
Thursday Evening, 8:00-10:30, Wheeler Auditorium
Opening Debate: "Technical Feasibility and Strategic Policy Implications
of the SDI"
Andrew Sessler (moderator), Former Director of Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory; Member of American Physical Society Panel on Directed
Energy Weapons.
Lowell Wood, leader of "O Division," Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories.
Richard Garwin, IBM Research Fellow; Adjunct Professor of Physics,
Columbia University; Adjunct Research Fellow, Center for Science and
International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University.
Colin Gray, President, National Institute for Public Policy; Member of
the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and
Disarmament.
John Holdren, Professor of Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley; Chairman,
U.S. Pugwash Committee; Former Chairman, Federation of American
Scientists.
Friday Morning, 9:00-11:00, Sibley Auditorium
Legislative Hearing: "Keeping California Competitive in R&D: The Impacts of
Increased Military Spending, the SDI, and Federal Tax Reform" (This event
will be co-sponsored by the California Assembly Committee on Economic
Development and New Technologies.)
Glenn Pascall, Senior Research Fellow, Graduate School of Public
Affairs, University of Washington; President, Columbia Group Inc.
Jay Stowsky, Research Economist, Berkeley Roundtable on the
International Economy, UC Berkeley.
Ted Williams, Chief Executive Officer, Bell Laboratories [invited].
Robert Noyce, Vice-Chairman of the Board, Intel [invited].
Ralph Thompson, Senior Vice-President for Public Affairs, American
Electronics Association.
John Holdren, Professor of Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley; Chairman,
U.S. Pugwash Committee; Former Chairman, Federation of American
Scientists.
Documentary Film: "Star Wars: A Search for Security," produced by Ian
Thiermann for PSR, 11:30-12:00 and 2:00-2:30, Room 4, Dwinell Hall.
Friday Afternoon, 3:00-5:00, Wheeler Auditorium
Panel Discussion: "The Effects of SDI on Universities"
Marvin Goldberger (moderator), President, Caltech.
Vera Kistiakowsky, Professor of Physics, MIT.
John Holdren, Professor of Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley; Chairman,
U.S. Pugwash Committee; Former Chairman, Federation of American
Scientists.
Clark Thompson, Professor of Computer Science, University of Minnesota.
Danny Cohen, Director, Systems Division, Information Sciences Institute,
University of Southern California; Chairman, SDIO Committee on
Computing in Support of Battle Management.
-------------------- PART TWO: Responses to the SDI --------------------
Saturday Morning, 9:00-1:00, Wheeler Auditorium
Panel Discussion: "Demystification of the SDI: Software, Hardware, and the
Appropriateness of Technological Solutions to Political Problems" 9:00-
10:30
Hugh DeWitt, Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Dave Redell, Computer Scientist, Systems Research Center, Digital
Equipment Corporation.
Panel Discussion: "Alternatives to the SDI: The Peaceful Uses of Space
Technology and Alternative Security Strategies" 10:45-1:00
Congressman George Brown (D. CA), Co-Chair, Congressional Space Caucus,
a leading advocate for space cooperation and opponent of space
militarization.
Dan Deudney, author of "Forging Missles into Spaceships," World Policy
Journal, Spring 1985, and "Whole Earth Security: Toward a Geopolitics
of Peace," Worldwatch Paper No. 55.
Mark Sommer, Co-founder of the Exploratory Project on the Conditions of
Peace (EXPRO) and author of Beyond the Bomb.
Anne Ehrlich, Senior Research Associate in Biological Sciences, Stanford
University; member of the Sierra Club Committee on the Environmental
Aspects of Warfare.
Vivienne Verdon-Roe, Co-founder of the Educational Film and Video
Project; her films include "In the Nuclear Shadow" and "Women--For
America, For The World."
Saturday Afternoon, 2:00-5:30, Room 10, Evans Hall
National and Local Political Strategies, 2:00-3:30
Congressman George Brown (D. CA), Co-Chair, Congressional Space Caucus.
Jerry Sanders, Senior Research Fellow, World Policy Institute; author of
Peddlers of Crisis.
Michael Shuman, President, Center for Innovative Diplomacy.
Lee Halterman, Legal Counsel to Congressman Ron Dellums.
Robert Ferrell, member, Los Angeles City Council; National Democratic
Committee.
Organizing Strategies for Universities, 3:30-5:00
Leonard Minsky, Executive Director, National Coalition of Universities
in the Public Interest.
Keith Miller, Professor of Mathematics, UCB; Chairman of the SDI
Roundtable.
Ted Forrester, Professor of Physics, UCLA; Chairman of Concerned
Faculty.
Roger Axford, Professor of Education, University of Arizona; Chairman
of the Coalition for World Peace.
Concluding Remarks, 5:00-5:30
Conference sponsors include: Federation of American Scientists, National
Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest, Physicians for Social
Responsibility, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility,
Progressive Space Forum, Student Pugwash, Peace and Conflict Studies (UCB),
ASUC.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Sep 1986 1149-PDT
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: Dangerous jokes at LLL et al
Item 1: a few years ago Ronald Reagan made an "off mike" joke about
declaring the USSR illegal and bombing it in 5 minutes. A later rumor
says the USSR put their pacific fleet on alert as a result, although
I haven't heard that confirmed.
Item 2: just now on the news I heard about four security guards at
Laurence Livermore Labs which teased a sleeping guard by shooting at
him with blanks, but the guard woke up and thinking he was under attack
he shot back, wounding two of the other four guards.
Item 3: some time in the future another joke happens, but it triggers
a thermonuclear attack (maybe somebody jokingly loads the LAUNCH UNDER
FIRE tape and somebody else believes it instead of checking it out
first, etc.). With so many thermonuclear weapons around the world,
and so many hairtrigger launch plans due to fear of pre-emptive strike
from other side, and every so often some person in a position of
responsibility in the weapons game playing a joke on somebody, is it
unreasonable to worry?
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Date: Wednesday, 17 September 1986 10:10-EDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws at SRI-STRIPE.ARPA>
To: arms-d, Risks at CSL.SRI.COM
Re: Autonomous Weapons
Eugene Miya asks whether autonomous weapons can be considered moral. Brief
thoughts (since Risks may not be the right forum):
Dumb weapons or those guided incompetently are no better -- was the
accidentaly bombing of the French Embassy in Libya moral?
Autonomous vehicles (or, for that matter, bombs) are not smart enough
to perform trivial civilian duties in cooperative environments (e.g.,
driving to the grocery store or picking weeds in a corn field).
Someday they may be, in which case questions about their intelligence
and morality may be worth debating. For now, the assumption is that
they are only to be used in situations where anything that moves is
a legitimate target and where taking out the wrong "target" is better
than taking out no target. This is rather similar to the situation
facing nukes, and the moral choices in initiating use are the same.
The advantages of autonomous weapons over nukes should be obvious,
although there will always be philosophers and humanists who mourn an
isolated wrongful death as much as the destruction of a city.
-- Ken Laws
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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