12-9-16 Russian special forces have resorted to using a machine gun-wielding robot to 'neutralise' an ISIS warlord . Footage has emerged showing Russian troops cornering a man known as Rustam Aselderov in a secret compound in the city of Makhachkala, on the Russian coast. http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/russian-special-forces-use-machine-9423653
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2) Mexico more or less tied numbers-wide in the killing of journalists, 2017--https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/world/americas/journalist-killings-mexico.html
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3) Over the past five months, three state governors have been arrested abroad while trying to escape justice, and fully eleven of the country’s 32 total governors are currently under investigation or fighting prosecution for corruption.
Today, nearly 90% of Mexicans see the state and federal government as deeply corrupt, according to the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Citizens regard corruption as the second most important problem facing the country, after crime and violence....
In June Roberto Borge, ex-gov of Quintana Roo, was apprehended in Panama after fleeing accusations of, among other crimes, using thugs to drive people off beachfront hotels and homes after court officers connected to his network had seized the properties from their owners. The August 2016 incidents made world headlines, spooking international tourists already uneasy about Mexico’s homicide epidemic.
Borge was the third rogue governor rounded up in 2017. In April, after five years on the run, Tomás Yarrington, who lead the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas from 1999 to 2005, was arrested in Italy in a joint operation by Interpol and the Mexican police. He stands accused of taking millions in bribes from both the Gulf and the Zeta cartels, two of the most vicious criminal organisations that have terrorised Mexico for the past decade....
Six days after Yarrington’s capture, former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte (2010-2016) was tracked down in Guatemala after months on the lam. He allegedly stole almost US$3 billion, bankrupting his home state in the process....In a notebook believed to belong to Duarte’s wife, Karime Macías, the phrase, “Yes, I deserve abundance” appears no fewer than 45 times....
Duarte was close to the president, who once praised him for his honesty, and all three runaway governors are affiliated with his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). In 2012, then-candidate Peña Nieto claimed that the party was renewing its ranks with “new politicians who are doing things differently”, naming Borge and Duarte specifically. https://theconversation.com/governors-gone-wild-mexico-faces-a-lost-generation-of-corrupt-leaders-76858
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4) Chechnya is a striking example of an otherwise sovereign state methodically choosing to create a warlord on its territory....But Ramzan was chosen and groomed by Putin for his role after a long period of Russian and Soviet rule over Chechnya. -Kimberly Marten: Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States , Cornell U. P., 2012, p. 103
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5) Sanctuary states (like California) are about halway to warlord status, striving to obey only their own boss (local money, power, drugs, status) -r, yreka, ca
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6) (How is widespread usage of robots not going to lead to warlordism? Who controls the robots will seemingly rule.)
12-28-17 80% of Swedes view robots and AI positively, per a European Commission survey. By contrast, Pew reports that 72% of Americans are "worried" about robots and computer intelligence. https://www.axios.com/how-sweden-is-preparing-for-the-robot-revolution-2520510112.html
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7) 11-21-17 there is still a massive appetite for robots among Chinese manufacturers. And there are also now massive Chinese government subsidies for domestic robotic companies.
The Chinese government is pouring money into robotics and artificial intelligence. President Xi Jinping has an ambitious plan called MadeinChina2025; the goal is to turn his country into a hub for advanced manufacturing through automation. http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/11/21/robots-rethink-china
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8) 9-8-17 Faced with rising labor costs, China is making a strong move to establish itself as the world's leading manufacturer of robots.
The country is already the world's largest buyer of industrial robots, but it's lagged behind Japan, its perennial Asian market rival, when it comes to technology development.
There are big signs that's changing rapidly. According to a report from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China will triple its sales of robots by 2018. By 2019, the IFR predicts that more than 1.4 million new industrial robots will be installed in factories around the world, and China will account for 40 percent of global robotics sales. http://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-poised-to-dominate-robotics-markets-sooner-than-expected/
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9) 7-29-15 In an open letter released today, a group of Artificial Intelligence experts have renewed calls for a ban on research and development into offensive automated weapons. Their letter argues that such R and D will spark an arms race and autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow, in the hands of terrorists and warlords. http://www.ox.ac.uk/Research/will-killer-robots-be-kalashnikovs-tomorrow
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10) 7-19-17 Russian weapons maker Kalashnikov is working on an automated gun system that uses artificial intelligence to make "shoot/no shoot" decisions. But exactly how this AI or any other decides who is a combatant and who isn't is at the heart of a raging debate over allowing autonomous weapons on battlefields filled with both soldiers and civilians.
The Kalashnikov "combat module" will include 7.62-millimeter machine gun coupled with a camera attached to a computer system. According to TASS, the module uses "neural network technologies that enable it to identify targets and make decisions". A key part of neural networking technology is the ability to learn from past mistakes. http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a27393/kalashnikov-to-make-ai-directed-machine-guns/
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11) 11-21-17 Russia to the United Nations: Don’t Try to Stop Us From Building Killer Robots http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/11/russia-united-nations-dont-try-stop-us-building-killer-robots/142734/
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12)
10-25-15 In fact, as U.S. soldiers sit in bunkers and conduct drone strikes thousands of miles away, the military is testing a computer-operated drone that could be rolled out in a matter of years....
As The Intercept’s recently released Drone Papers showed, 9 out of 10 people killed by human-controlled drones during one five-month period in Afghanistan were not the intended targets. The use of autonomous weapons controlled by current artificial intelligence (AI) systems would generate even worse casualty rates, says Toby Walsh, a professor in AI at the University of New South Wales and a campaign member. The machines wouldn’t do a better job at differentiating between soldier and civilian or calculating a more proportionate response, he says. While computer-controlled weapons are imminent, he argues that their artificially intelligent brains are “perhaps 50 or so years away” (or perhaps 15 years?? -r.) from having the higher capabilities of a Terminator-esque type of technology. http://www.newsweek.com/killer-robots-must-be-stopped-activists-say-387109
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