Pentagon AI more ethical than adversaries’ because of ‘Judeo-Christian society,’ USAF general says

When an air force general uses a term like Judeo-Christian that is worrying. The brainwashing runs high. There's no such thing as Judeo-Christian. Judaism and Christianity are vastly different religions albeit related. It's a propaganda term to create an emotional tie with the US and Israel. No one says Judeo-Islam or Judeo-Mormon because it's idiotic.

tl;dr: The headline is false; the general did not actually say that. I thought it sounded wrong, so I watched the video that the article linked to, to check. Sure enough, it was wrong. However, the reality may not be any more reassuring.

Hypothesis: Like, no, that's obviously wrong; either the headline is trash or the general made a whole tossed salad with mango sauce out of whatever the people working on it said. (stated before further investigation; stay tuned)

Updating: https://youtu.be/wn1yEovtYRM?t=3459

Okay, wow.

So the speaker is saying this at the end of the panel, in response to a question asking about the use of autonomous weapons.

They want to talk about who's trusted to make the decision of whether to employ lethal force in a combat situation: a human American soldier, who might be exhausted and not thinking clearly, or an algorithm that doesn't get tired.

And one thing they mention is that an enemy might not have ethics that would lead them them even care about that distinction. And they express that as "Judeo-Christian morality".

That doesn't sit right with me. It sounds to me, in that moment, like they're implying that people from other cultures could be less moral, and that we should be willing to be more free with our weapons towards such people. That sounds to me like the sort of bullshit that came out of the Vietnam War.

But the rest of the answer sounds like they're trying to point at the problem of making command decisions in scenarios where the opponent might deploy autonomous weapons first. If the enemy has already handed decision-making over to an algorithm, how does that affect what we should do?

And they're maybe expressing that to their expected audience — mind you, the Air Force is heavily infiltrated by far-right Christian radicals — in a way that they hope makes sense.

Conclusion: The headline is incorrect; the general did not actually say that a Pentagon AI would be more ethical for any reason; he was talking about the human ethical decision of whether to trust AI to make decisions. But what he did say is complicated and scary for different reasons, including the internal culture of the US Air Force.

our society is a Judeo-Christian society and we have a moral compass.

And here I thought the US was a secular country. Very worrisome that some government employees are using these words.

As I understand it, of the branches, the Air Force is the worst for neocon evangelicals. What a quote! It gives me shivers.

Judeo-Christian is such a bullshit made-up term to rope in multiple gullible idiots into the fold.

is there nottheonion on Lemmy yet? because this belongs on there. jfc what a time to be alive

Well I just lost some faith in the United States Air Force. Now I'm worried if we can trust them with General Electric 2.1 megaton hydrogen bombs. The USAF has more than a few.

Yes, because the Old Testament is all peace and love and kumbaya.
Another dipshit military lifer inserting subjective religious arrogance - whatever religion it may be - into his spiel, details at eleven.

“You see, first thing we did was teach it about the Bible and its teachings. Of course none of that Roman Catholic shit.”

Yeah let's make sure AI is ethical by some religious standard before we put it in charge of the nuclear arsenal. What an ass.

Welp time to strip him of his rank, he's an idiot.

"Judeo-Christian society" has been airstriking the Middle East for years and provoking wars for a lot longer than that which is a violation of Christian beliefs ("Do to others what you would have them do to you", among others) so they can kindly shove it up their warmongering ass

Kinda sounds like they mean it follows their personal ethics and religious rules more closely than others, not that it's actually more ethical.

Ethics are entirely subjective.

I would argue that any system that follows the rules of a religious society is deeply unethical.

lmao

Can you please leave us out of this?

Sincerely, The Jews

I read the article and this is clearly a guy who watched Terminator and thought, 'Well hold on that sounds fantastic if we just programmed in a rule where it's not allowed to violate its programming or misunderstood what we want.'

Permanently Deleted

So long as it follows them better than humans do. Though then again, I'm sure Christ wouldn't approve of some of the things the Pentagon will want to do with said AI... So...

this is one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard.

Since most of the targets are Muslim, I guess it makes sense? /s

This is what AI would like them to believe

A lot researchers a long time ago used to say that in order to judge AI, they would have to get it to pass a Turing Test in order for us to figure out if it just as intelligent or more intelligent than us.

I always enjoyed the idea that AI will quickly fly right over our heads and our ability to identify it that it will purposely make itself appear dumb or dumber than us while it figures out how to deal with us.

if it's Christian ethics that guide us, we're all fucked

Is this satire? If not, good lord.

Lol, suuuuuuuuuuuuure it is.

He would have only said Judeo, but thought about it more given the popularity of what Netanyahu is doing. 🧌

...That doesn't instill me with a lot of confidence.

dirsa

These guys and everyone in upper military and government need to just die and the ensuing chaos will be a better form of government without even trying. That's how fucked up this sounds.