Jerry Kaplan, author of Humans Need Not Apply, thinks technology may make warfare safer (well, relatively). Perhaps, but that’s not the goal of all combatants. He uses the landmine as an example, arguing that a “smarter” explosive could be made to only detonate if enemy military happened across it. But any nation or rogue state using landmines does so precisely because of the terror that transcends the usual rules of engagement. They would want to use new tools to escalate that threat. The internationally sanctioned standards Kaplan hopes we attain will likely never be truly universal. As the implements of war grow cheaper, smaller and more out of control, that issue becomes more ominous.

In theory, robotized weapons could make war less lethal or far more so, but that will depend on the intentions of the users, and both scenarios will probably play out. 

From Kaplan in the New York Times:

Consider the lowly land mine. Those horrific and indiscriminate weapons detonate when stepped on, causing injury, death or damage to anyone or anything that happens upon them. They make a simple-minded “decision” whether to detonate by sensing their environment — and often continue to do so, long after the fighting has stopped.

Now imagine such a weapon enhanced by an A.I. technology less sophisticated than what is found in most smartphones. An inexpensive camera, in conjunction with other sensors, could discriminate among adults, children and animals; observe whether a person in its vicinity is wearing a uniform or carrying a weapon; or target only military vehicles, instead of civilian cars.

This would be a substantial improvement over the current state of the art, yet such a device would qualify as an offensive autonomous weapon of the sort the open letter proposes to ban.

Then there’s the question of whether a machine — say, an A.I.-enabled helicopter drone — might be more effective than a human at making targeting decisions. In the heat of battle, a soldier may be tempted to return fire indiscriminately, in part to save his or her own life. By contrast, a machine won’t grow impatient or scared, be swayed by prejudice or hate, willfully ignore orders or be motivated by an instinct for self-preservation.•

Like most Atlantic readers, I go to the site for the nonstop Shell ads but stay for the articles. 

Jerry Kaplan, author of Humans Need Not Apply, has written a piece for the publication which argues that women will fare much better than men if technological unemployment becomes widespread and entrenched, the gender biases among jobs and careers favoring them. I half agree with him. 

Take for instance his argument that autonomous cars will decimate America’s three million truck drivers (overwhelmingly men) but not disrupt the nation’s three million secretaries (overwhelmingly women). That’s not exactly right. The trucking industry, when you account for support work, is estimated to provide eight million jobs, including secretarial positions. Truckers spend cash at diners and coffee shops and such, providing jobs that are still more often filled by females. And just because autonomous trucks won’t eliminate secretarial positions, that doesn’t mean other technologies won’t. That effort to displace office-support staff has been a serious goal for at least four decades, and the technology is probably ready to do so now.

This, of course, also doesn’t account for the many women who’ve entered into white-collar professions long dominated by men, many of which are under threat. But I think Kaplan is correct in saying that the middle-class American male is a particularly endangered species if this new reality takes hold, and there won’t likely be any organic solution coming from within our current economic arrangement.

Kaplan’s opening:

Many economists and technologists believe the world is on the brink of a new industrial revolution, in which advances in the field of artificial intelligence will obsolete human labor at an unforgiving pace. Two Oxford researchers recently analyzed the skills required for more than 700 different occupations to determine how many of them would be susceptible to automation in the near future, and the news was not good: They concluded that machines are likely to take over 47 percent of today’s jobs within a few decades.

This is a dire prediction, but one whose consequences will not fall upon society evenly. A close look at the data reveals a surprising pattern: The jobs performed primarily by women are relatively safe, while those typically performed by men are at risk.

It should come as no surprise that despite progress on equality in the labor force, many common professions exhibit a high degree of gender bias. For instance, of the 3 million truck drivers in the U.S., more than 95 percent are men; of the nearly 3 million secretaries and administrative assistants, more than 95 percent are women. Autonomous vehicles are a not-too-distant possibility, and when they arrive, those drivers’ jobs will evaporate; office-support workers suffer no such imminent threat.•

In Jerry Kaplan’s excellent WSJ essay about ethical robots, which is adapted from his forthcoming book, Humans Need Not Apply, the author demonstrates it will be difficult to come up with consistent standards for our silicon sisters, and even if we do, machines following rules 100% of the time will not make for a perfect world. The opening:

As you try to imagine yourself cruising along in the self-driving car of the future, you may think first of the technical challenges: how an automated vehicle could deal with construction, bad weather or a deer in the headlights. But the more difficult challenges may have to do with ethics. Should your car swerve to save the life of the child who just chased his ball into the street at the risk of killing the elderly couple driving the other way? Should this calculus be different when it’s your own life that’s at risk or the lives of your loved ones?

Recent advances in artificial intelligence are enabling the creation of systems capable of independently pursuing goals in complex, real-world settings—often among and around people. Self-driving cars are merely the vanguard of an approaching fleet of equally autonomous devices. As these systems increasingly invade human domains, the need to control what they are permitted to do, and on whose behalf, will become more acute.

How will you feel the first time a driverless car zips ahead of you to take the parking spot you have been patiently waiting for? Or when a robot buys the last dozen muffins at Starbucks while a crowd of hungry patrons looks on? Should your mechanical valet be allowed to stand in line for you, or vote for you?•