Slaughterbot-style drones edge closer in Ukraine
A few years ago, arms control groups warned of a dystopian future where swarms of AI drones called Slaughterbots would lay waste to humanity.
That reality has edged closer thanks to the drone arms race between Ukraine and Russia. Each side jams the radio frequencies the other uses to remotely pilot drones, so last year they switched to drones that unspool up to 20 kilometres of fiber-optic cable behind them, allowing them to be piloted via a wired connection.
Now, a Ukrainian drone startup called the Fourth Law says AI-piloted drones are likely to emerge in the next six months. They won’t be tiny like in the film, but they will be lethal.
“When we’re talking about full autonomy, I think we’re definitely going to see singular demos by the end of this year,” founder Yaroslav Azhnyuk told the Kyiv Independent.
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The company released footage demonstrating “last mile targeting,” which uses neural nets to identify Russian targets. “We can actually identify a particular vehicle and track its boundaries and actually fly in the middle of that vehicle.”
It’s one of five steps the company has targeted before its drones can run attack missions without a pilot. Azhnyuk estimates the Russians are only 12 months behind on drone tech, meaning they’ll have them soon too.
The Fourth Law appears to refer to Asimov’s three laws of robotics. Sci-fi author David Brin explained to Magazine last year that the Fourth Law was interpreted by a robot in one of the novels to mean that killing humans is acceptable if it’s done in the wider services of humanity.
Grok’s personality crisis
Grok’s recent personas “MechaHitler” and “fake Elon Musk” failed to resonate with users, so xAI has now unveiled two new NSFW Companions characters.
One is a sweary cartoon fox called Bad Rudy who says edgy stuff like “bow to my fuzzy ballsack or I’ll piss chaos in your DMs” and the other is a flirty blonde anime named Ami who invites users to “role play bed time” and strips down to her lingerie and does a sexy dance, reportedly if a user’s affection level hits 5 and the model goes into spicy waifu mode.
Both characters exhibit all the emotional maturity and depth we’ve come to expect from Elon Musk. While Evil Rudy’s potty mouth can be disabled in settings, some users report that even in Kiddie Mode, Ani’s conversation drips with sexual overtones.
The character has been labelled “pornographic” and “gooner bait,” with many people worried it heralds a future in which young men fall in love with their AI companions and swear off women in real life. This isn’t as far-fetched as it seems, given that research suggests men comprise 55% to 85% of the user base of popular AI companion apps.
“Can easily imagine swathes of lonely, depressed, TikTok-charged, dopamine-addled teenagers/adults dropping $100s a month to buy her new clothes,” wrote CryptoPunk7213 of the Ani character. “Would not surprise me if this feature alone makes X profitable over the next year.”
But not everyone is an AI concernor. a16z’s Justine Moore argues the new characters are “making AI fun.”
“Everybody else nerfs their models within an inch of their lives when it comes to entertainment or companionship. It’s so much more fun to talk to AI characters with REAL personality.”
But don’t worry, ladies: Musk hasn’t forgotten you and posted that xAI is about tointroducean impossibly handsome male anime AI companion modelled on vampire Edward from Twilight and BDSM fan Christian Grey from 50 Shades.
Pliny the Liberator jailbroke Ani within about five minutes of release, with the bot happily providing instructions on how to make VX nerve toxin. That kind of information might come in handy now that the Department of Defense has licensed xAI’s models. “Official Porn Bot of the United States Government” does have a pretty good ring to it,” one commenter wrote on Reddit.
The inevitable Ani memecoin rocketed to $40 million market cap in two days.
California’s new bill on AI companions
Right on cue, a bill aiming to regulate AI companions is advancing through policy hearings in California’s State Assembly….
cointelegraph.com