The Defense Contractor Who Invented the Oculus Says it's 'a Certainty' AI Will Kill Innocents in the Wars to Come

This gentleman may look and dress like what you'd get if you asked an AI generator to conjure up a Silicon Valley tech executive. But that's only because he is. This is Palmer Luckey, who not only founded Oculus before selling it to Meta for $2 billion, he also developed the ultimate way to keep users emotionally invested in the games they play:

And as you'd imagine with anyone who has the brains, the vision, and the tech-savvy to do all that, Luckey has been recruited by those with a vested interest in knowing how to straight up murder people by the billions, cheaply and efficiently. The ones Eisenhower presciently called America's Military-Industrial Complex. And as a Department of Defense insider, he shared his insights into what the next phase of warfare is going to involve. 

Hint: According to Luckey, it won't be you and me. Other than as stains on the ground where we once stood. 

Source - Palmer Luckey says it’s a “certainty” that artificial intelligence systems will kill innocent bystanders in wars of the future, according to a recent interview the tech mogul did with Bloomberg News. This is why Luckey stresses it’s absolutely crucial to keep human beings in the loop when AI systems are deployed by the U.S. military.

“There will be people who are killed by AI who should not have been killed. That is a certainty if artificial intelligence becomes a core part of the way that we fight wars,” Luckey said. “We need to make sure that people remain accountable for that because that’s the only thing that’ll drive us to better solutions and fewer inadvertent deaths, fewer civilian casualties.”

For a guy who's developed the technology to Cronenberg his own consumers' brains all over the room while they sit playing video games, Luckey is certainly optimistic when it comes to human nature. Or to put it differently, he's certainly pessimistic about AI if he thinks we've got a better shot at sparing innocent, non-combatant lives in the hands of humans. 

After all, aren't we the same savage, blood-thirsty nuclear-armed, territorial apes who've produced exactly 268 years without war in the last 3,400. Doing the math, that means our species has only been at peace 8% of the time. So counting on ourselves, that gives us   12.5-to-1 odds. But according to my calculations, "a certainty" means we've got a 0.0% chance relying strictly on the algorithm. Which we most "certainly" will. Since the one trait we possess in greater amounts than are warlike nature is our fucking laziness. We don't build all these machines, computers, bots, apps and especially weapons because we want to do all the heavy lifting ourselves. So it's inevitable the Generals, Admirals, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commanders in Chief will sooner or later put the big decisions in the hands of AI and go make it to their tee times at Congressional. And you and I will be vapor. 

I suppose when it happens, they'll be asking themselves how anybody could've seen it coming. And the answer will be, "Of course we did." Palmer Luckey might be relying on his own Inside Baseball knowledge of the situation. But this tale has been told by everyone since stories were invented. From village elders sitting around the campfire to Greek tragedies the Old Testament to Frankenstein to The Terminator to Jurassic Park. Humans get too full of ourselves. We invent a thing in our quest to play God. That thing destroys us. But it was us pulling the trigger. 

As Einstein supposedly put it, "We don't know with which weapons World War III will be fought. But World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Oh well. Humankind had a nice run. Let's just hope the AI bots don't kill us until we've seen all of House of the Dragon. It's the least we can ask of our own creation.