Is this a realistic, exigent concern? We're all ga-ga these days over the beneficent potential of AI in the health care space, but,
From the autonomousweapons.org site:
What are killer robots?
Killer robots are weapons systems that, once activated, would select and fire on targets without meaningful human control. They are variously termed fully autonomous weapons or lethal autonomous weapons systems.
The concern is that low-cost sensors and rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making it increasingly possible to design weapons systems that would target and attack without further human intervention. If this trend towards autonomy continues, the fear is that humans will start to fade out of the decision-making loop, first retaining only a limited oversight role, and then no role at all.
The US and others state that lethal autonomous weapon systems “do not exist” and do not encompass remotely piloted drones, precision-guided munitions, or defensive systems. Most existing weapons systems are overseen in real-time by a human operator and tend to be highly constrained in the tasks they are used for, the types of targets they attack, and the circumstances in which they are used.
While the capabilities of future technology are uncertain, there are strong reasons to believe that fully autonomous weapons could never replicate the full range of inherently human characteristics necessary to comply with international humanitarian law’s fundamental rules of distinction and proportionality. Existing mechanisms for legal accountability are ill suited and inadequate to address the unlawful harm that fully autonomous weapons would be likely to cause...
Wonder what Elon Musk thinks about this stuff? Recent reporting.
'eh? See also my prior post "Artificial Intelligence and Ethics."
ERRATUM
Read an interesting set of posts over at Medium today.
"What to look (out) for when raising money." |
If You Take Venture Capital, You’re Forcing Your Company To ExitI follow VC news tangentially in the health care space, e.g., "#WinterTech2016: Venture Capital in #HealthIT."
To understand venture capital, you must understand the consequences of how VCs return capital to their investors
Why the Most Successful VC Firms Keep Winning
The best companies seek out the most successful investors, and gains accumulate at the top
One Investor Isn’t Enough
A company’s success is highly reliant on peer validation of investor decisions. This stunts diversity and must change if we want the best founders working on the biggest opportunities.
Just became apprised of this company.
"We are a private investment company that practices a disciplined, evidence-based approach to define innovative business models capable of delivering new products and services that can positively impact the way we live, work and play.Interesting. I found this noteworthy in particular:
What We Look For
We are not traditional seed investors. Rather, we are active and engaged co-founders who seek to get the most promising opportunities from the lab to the market. We bring to the table decades of entrepreneurial success and experience, offering seasoned perspectives. We seek individuals who share our desire for exploration, who are intellectually honest and have insatiable curiosity, who have the ability and the desire to systematically test their assumptions in the real world. We believe that the best entrepreneurs have the ability to blend technical insight with market-based feedback, allowing their innovations to mature into a successful company. Even our name evokes this passion. M34 is short for Mach 34, the speed that an object needs to achieve to escape the gravitational pull of the earth. Our goal for all of our companies is to achieve a successful liftoff from traditional forces that hold most new ventures back...."
M34 Capital founders understand the risks associated with developing new and innovative ideas. We have pioneered the principles of the lean startup approach to accelerate and improve the efficiency of the commercialization of new technologies.More on this stuff perhaps later. "Lean startup?" Hmmm...
Seriously; this old school Deming/Shewhart dude loves me some "Lean."
UPDATE
apropos of the upcoming December 12th Health 2.0 "Technology for Precision Health Summit."
Health 2.0 sat down with Linda Molnar to discuss the evolution of Precision Health, the imperatives at stake in a fast-paced field, and empowerment through big data. Linda has over 20 years in the field of Life Sciences and is responsible for a number of initiatives that further the field with start-ups, the feds, and for investors. Her current endeavor is leading the upcoming Technology for Precision Health Summit in San Francisco alongside Health 2.0. “We’re never going to pull together all of this disparate data from disparate sources in a meaningful (i.e. clinically actionable) way, unless we talk about it” she says. The Summit is an attempt to bring together the worlds of Precision Medicine and Digital Healthcare to realize the full potential of a predictive and proactive approach to maintaining health...
Get an in-depth look at funding sources for precision medicine and health from @GE_Ventures, @Illumina, @wef, and @Cal_OPR at #Health2con Tech for Precision Health. #tph2017 https://t.co/PZTT6Krx5I— Health 2.0 (@health2con) November 30, 2017
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More to come...