000I
Long --°--'N Lat --°--'E
There is an armed drone circling the Kremlin right now. It cannot enter its airspace. It is being constrained by a set of baked-in rules of engagement. That drone detects that the area is a civilian airport. But it is not. Its on-board software is unaware that it has been fed false co-ordinates––by malware of unknown origin. Defensively. On this occasion.
When the weapon is out live in the field, on active duty, it is autonomous. The on-board AI does not know it has been hacked. There is no way of the machine learning that its GPS subsystem has been comprised. Bad data makes for bad decisions. Until it returns to base for a mission postmortem. Best if they ground the entire fleet.
However, the manual override (the “kill switch”) has been tampered with too. We could have a rogue unit. Or worse.
There is an armed drone circling the Kremlin right now. It cannot enter its airspace. It is being constrained by a set of baked-in rules of engagement. That drone detects that the area is a civilian airport. But it is not. Its on-board software is unaware that it has been fed false co-ordinates––by malware of unknown origin. Defensively. On this occasion.
When the weapon is out live in the field, on active duty, it is autonomous. The on-board AI does not know it has been hacked. There is no way of the machine learning that its GPS subsystem has been comprised. Bad data makes for bad decisions. Until it returns to base for a mission postmortem. Best if they ground the entire fleet.
However, the manual override (the “kill switch”) has been tampered with too. We could have a rogue unit. Or worse.
Comments
Post a Comment