Daily Report: Robots Can Kill and Deliver Beer. Do We Need Humans?

While Uber has been deploying self-driving technology for the task of delivering beer, military strategists have been considering weightier issues: autonomous weapons. As Matthew Rosenberg and John Markoff write, the Pentagon is studying what some people call the “Terminator” conundrum. Weapons technology is advancing and merging with artificial intelligence to a degree that weapons like drone aircraft could soon decide for themselves what they should kill. But should weapons be allowed to make that decision? Some military researchers believe a combination of humans and A.I. technology is wiser — what they call centaur warfighting, after the half-man, half-horse of Greek mythology. When it comes to decisions about life and death, “there will always be a man in the loop,” said Robert O. Work, the deputy defense secretary, who has been a driving force for the development of autonomous weapons. And that brings us to the beer. Otto, the self-driving-truck operation acquired by Uber this year, revealed on Tuesday that one of its trucks made a beer run in Colorado this month. The beer — Budweiser, to be specific — was delivered without incident, the company said. It is not known if people in Colorado, where there is plenty of good beer to be had, asked for something besides Budweiser. But for the record, Uber had its own centaur strategy, with a driver at hand in case something went wrong. Continue reading the main story