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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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A criminal suspect has lost a fight against a police robot. First he tried shooting it, then covering it with a sheet. The robot tear-gassed him, then ran him over (after he was shot by a sniper).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZI1j5GPuSvw

This happened in Texas where in 2016 the police used a suicide bot to blow up a BLM terrorist.

Humans currently are in the position where we can basically dominate everything else. There are some animals that are said to be intelligent, like dolphins, crows, octopus, honey badgers etc. but their evolution has basically hit a ceiling and they're not going to get to the point where they will be carrying around tear gas and AR-15s. So their intelligence doesn't bother us. But soon enough there will be tens of millions of robots walking around, each of whom is smarter than the smartest human. You will lose basically every challenge against them. What then? Nobody voted for this and there's no opting out. Fun.

I just pray the cartels don’t get their hands on this tech

/images/1726884873146521.webp

I'm about 99% certain this robot is just a very expensive and fancy remote-controlled car. I don't think this incident has any bearing at all on AI, since no AI was involved.

However, on that note, I doubt there will be tens of millions of robots walking around anytime soon, even if (especially if) they are smarter than people...because if they are smarter than humans it will be much, much cheaper and more profitable just to connect them to the internet and have them do email and managerial jobs.

I'm about 99% certain this robot is just a very expensive and fancy remote-controlled car. I don't think this incident has any bearing at all on AI, since no AI was involved.

You would be correct. As much as we talk up "autonomous systems" the overwhelming majority of systems are not "autonomous" at all, they're "remotely piloted". Anything resembling true autonomy is still deep in the realm of DARPA grants and strictly enforced NDAs.

What's the line? Our tools have been rebelling against us since the first farmer stepped on a rake?

The idea that this is some sort of escalation or new and novel threat is frankly just dumb. People have been working on ways to kill eachother remotely since the days of Archimedes. It was a major part of his whole "brand". Im also quite skeptical of the claims that they will be "smarter than the smartest human" and or that we will "lose basically every challenge against them" claims.

The blanket play in the video was actually quite smart if clumsily executed, and as you yourself observed, the thing that actually stopped him was getting shot by a human.

The idea that this is some sort of escalation or new and novel threat is frankly just dumb

There are few arguments that make me want to climb up a wall like this one. Intellectually, I know people sincerely believe it. But I still sometimes wonder if I'm the victim of a Ken M-esque troll (if so, bravo)

Nuclear weapons are simply an improvement on our ability to blow shit up. You can tell because they're literally measured by comparison to our previous set of explosives. Nobody is blase about them.

It is of absolutely no comfort to me that we went thousands of years trying to set woods on fire before we figured out how to roast cities.

It is of absolutely no comfort to me that we went thousands of years trying to set woods on fire before we figured out how to roast cities.

Im not suggesting that it should be. I am mearly pointing out that the difference is one of degree not of kind. A man killed by a rock to the head is just as dead as a man killed by a bullet to the head.

Let’s compare this to the police-abolitionist left’s latest martyr. On September 15th, the NYPD shot and wounded a man named Derrell Mickles. Two bystanders were also wounded by gunfire, as was one of the officers on scene. (Apparently by a ricocheting bullet.) In stark contrast to the standard complaint about trigger-happy American cops, this scenario is an example of a very common problem, which is police officers being too reluctant to shoot.

The narrative being circulated is that the NYPD “killed a man over a $2.90 subway ticket.” Well, leaving aside the fact that nobody actually died, this is also a lie, because Mickles was shot for repeatedly charging at police officers with a knife. Mickles had jumped the turnstile at a subway station twice in the span of ten minutes. The first time he did so, police followed him and asked him to leave, which he did. Nobody was shot during this encounter, but Mickles brandished a large knife before departing the station. When he then returned and jumped the turnstile a second time, police followed him onto the platform, where the shooting occurred.

As early as 2:28 into the video, Mickles says to an officer, “I’m gonna make you kill me.” He then repeatedly shouts, “Shoot me!” as the officers ask him probably twenty times to drop the knife. 3:25 is the first time that Mickles moves toward police aggressively; at this point in the encounter it would unquestionably be justified to deploy a taser, and probably ruled justified to use deadly force. Instead, they hesitate, and seconds later the subway train enters the station and Mickles gets on an occupied Subway train with a knife in his hand. The police’s reluctance to shoot Mickens has now created a situation that is far more dangerous to the public. At this point the officers deploy tasers multiple times, striking Mickles at least once; he was almost certainly on drugs during the encounter, because he shrugs off the taser. Only at this point, with Mickles now having departed the train and re-entered the platform, do the officers pull the trigger, with their backstop being the subway train, rather than the empty platform it would have been had they shot him when they first had the chance. Their indecision - their reluctance to shoot another person even when that person is armed, dangerous, and actively goading them into shooting him - endangered their own lives and the lives of others.

Can you understand why I might look toward the decisiveness, the cold competence of a robot cop who’s not afraid of libelous press coverage or administrative leave or criminal charges by an anti-cop DA, and think, “Hell yeah, let’s get some more of that.” I want men like Derrell Mickles to be dispatched quickly and without fanfare, rather than allowed to put the public at risk. Police officers are nervous, pumped up on adrenaline, and can easily forget their training under stress. A robot would have done what needed to be done, and all the people on that train could have been on their way.

The narrative being circulated is that the NYPD “killed a man over a $2.90 subway ticket.”

This can be translated as "this is why America will never look like northern Europe in terms of transit"

Can you understand why I might look toward the decisiveness, the cold competence of a robot cop who’s not afraid of libelous press coverage or administrative leave or criminal charges by an anti-cop DA, and think, “Hell yeah, let’s get some more of that.”

We're getting a head start. This - and not some Brian Herbert Terminator bullshit - is why the Butlerian Jihad happened:

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

It would be nice to have a technological solution to social problems. But all this does is centralize power in the hands of people who made things like Google Gemini a mess. You think they can't see ahead to the "imported" racial bias? They called it way ahead of time, and took steps.

For all you know, your cold robot is going to be given an androgynous body shape, will only answer to Xir and, in a twisted inversion of I, Robot, have a built in random factor to save a marginalized body every so often instead of doing the "rational" thing, for equity. It only makes sense. Getting stabbed in the subway is awful. But what about the violence done against black bodies and other justice-impacted folx? It's not an easy equation.

Only at this point, with Mickles now having departed the train and re-entered the platform, do the officers pull the trigger, with their backstop being the subway train, rather than the empty platform it would have been had they shot him when they first had the chance.

The platform isn't empty though, there's people on it. You're probably right that the train has a higher density of people, although neither was particularly full. It seems pretty likely that the cops wouldn't want to open fire in a big open space like that. It seems plausible that a bullet might even fly out of the station depending on how it's aimed.

I also like the guy who refused to move from his seat while this is all happening.

What does any of that have to do with anything i said, and how did you type all that out in under 5 minutes?

Also are you under the mistaken impression that the robot shot the guy?

I didn’t reply to you, unless you are also @Blunicorn, so I’m not sure what you mean.

No, the robot in OP’s post did not shoot anyone. What I’m saying is that I am not necessarily afraid of the replacement of human cops by robot cops, if it means an improvement in the competence and decisionmaking of police.

Odd, for some reason your comment was showing up as a child of mine. But after refreshing the page it seems to have sorted itself.

Apologies.

(Note i'm on mobile FWIW)