Towards a Red Goo AI Singularity

One of the scariest science fiction-y future scenarios is Grey Goo, where artificial machines self-replicate in an out-of-control manner until all accessible matter and energy resources have been turned into artificial machines.

I consider a 'Red Goo' future scenario to be more likely, due to the development and increasingly prolific use of precision guided weapons and drones in warfare.

I define the Red Goo scenario as one where most human resources (people) have been turned into Red Goo (killed) by precision guided weapons and/or drones.

 

The Structure of Military Revolutions

I've been a skeptic of precision guided munitions (like Tomahawk missiles) since their use in the Iraq war, based on my study of history and military strategy.

- Precision guided munitions and drones can do more damage to economically prosperous regions with well-developed infrastructure, than they can damage regions with low economic prosperity and low levels of modern infrastructure. (Even low-tech versions of these high-tech weapons can be very effective in causing damage and disruption).

- The technology of war is a literal arms race. What was 'high tech' tends to become 'commonly distributed tech' within 20-30 years. The exception to this is technologies of warfare that are strictly prohibited by widely-accepted treaties and norms, such as nuclear weapon technology and landmines.

- Without a strict treaty and norm regimen, the use of precision guided weapons and drones will provide an asymmetrical advantage to nation states and organizations that DO NOT have high levels of economic prosperity and modern infrastructure. These weapons will tend to benefit the aggressor, vs the defender.

The disruption effect of precision guided weapons and drones is beginning to be felt in the world.

Photo Credit: Naomi's Hope for a Cure, one of our handmade cedar chests was stylized and signed by former president George Bush Sr.

Use of Drones for Targeted Assassination

"The killing of Soleimani (by the Trump administration), a top Iranian military leader ... seemed to throw the drone rulebook out of the window and open the door to widespread drone misuse." -- Source 

Escalation of drone assassinations didn't begin with President Trump, President Obama developed extensive kill lists for Predator drones.

Nor was it the first attempted assassination of a prominent nation-state leader. 

It did, however, provide legitimacy to the idea that precision guided weapons and drones can be used indiscriminately.

That's the fundamental problem with these weapons: once the genie is out of the bottle, once international norms of 'there are no rules' are established, it becomes a precedent for future actions. 

It also escalates an arms race among Westphalian nation states and non-nation state actors.

Use of Drones in Modern Warfare

War-capable drones are being used by nation states like Turkey and Iran to expand and defend their territory:

"By looking at the world’s most prolific drone powers, such as Iran and Turkey, it becomes clear that the new drone age has altered the rules of war. Turkey has deployed drones to Syria, northern Iraq and the Caucasus — and used drones to protect its oil claims in the Mediterranean. Turkey also intervened in the Libyan civil war, adding its drones to what one U.N. official called “the largest drone war in the world.” -- Source

Drone warfare is quickly becoming the preferred method of waging 4th generational warfare:

"Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked an Aramco refinery in the Saudi capital Friday using six bomb-laden drones, stepping up their offensive on the kingdom’s energy and security installations." - Source

The return on investment of attacks like these is very high, and can be roughly calculated.

Currently, the methods to manufacture maintain and pilot drones still require a lot of human labor. How much longer will this be true?

Necessary Pre-Requisites for a Red Goo Singularity

A Red Goo Singularity would require a vast increase in drone precision, numbers and simplicity of piloting/managing.

These plans are in the works:

"Human control over a swarm can take many forms. Human commanders might develop a detailed plan and then put a swarm into action, allowing it to adapt to changing circumstances on the ground. Alternatively, human commanders might establish only higher-level tasks, such as “find enemy targets,” and allow the swarm to determine the optimal solution through centralized or decentralized coordination. Or human controllers might simply change swarm goals or agent preferences to induce certain behaviors. If the cognitive load of controlling a swarm exceeds that of one person, human tasks could be split up by breaking a swarm into smaller elements or by dividing tasks based on function. For example, one human controller could monitor the health of vehicles, with another setting high-level goals and yet another approving specific high-risk actions, like use of force. " - Source

It would require at least one nation-state, or several nation-states, to develop vast drone armies on the level of their nuclear weapons arsenals: weapons so terrible that could destroy the world many times over. 

Based on strategies developed by modern military theorists, the best use case for drone total warfare would be to quietly pre-position them inside of enemy territory and then launch them all at once to take out critical infrastructure and people.

A writer like Harlan Ellison (creator of 'The Terminator' idea, at least according to his excellent lawyers) could imagine the terrible-ness of small swarms of explosive suicide drones targeting people's foreheads, of drones that sneak through open doorways and subways and then release poison gas once they've found a sufficiently dense crowd of people. 

This kind of pre-placement would require drones that could maintain and power themselves, perhaps feeding off of the host country's power grid or going into some sort of sleep mode. 

It would also require some form of artificial intelligence, to either take over the entire operation or to enhance a human being's ability to manage the complexity of pre-positioned drone swarms ensconced in the fog of war.

Towards A Red Goo AI Singularity

The race for Artificial Intelligence isn't an area of expertise/study of mine. 

I'll simply observe that in terms of nation states with the technical and economic capacity to design a drone army capable of surpassing any existing military force on Earth, and having the means to control all of them simultaneously -- China seems to be the most highly focused on creating the world's largest data stream towards development of an AI with these sorts of capabilities:

"For AI, China’s unique advantage is the data from the largest internet population globally – 900 million and still increasing. AI runs on data and that correlation leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of consolidation in industries: the more data you have, the better your product. The better your product, the more users you gain. The more users you gain, the more data you have." -- Source

Once a nation-state has the ability to manufacture maintain and manage drone swarms so vast and terrible that they could consume the world like locusts -- what would prevent them from doing so, other than the risk of nuclear retaliation?

What if sufficient numbers of drones were pre-positioned to take these nuclear weapons out before they can be launched, or shortly after launch?

What would prevent the country/countries that comes up with an AI drone singularity from turning the rest of the world (anyone who isn't a declared ally or vassal) into Red Goo?

The Mongolian strategy, as practiced by Chinggis Khan, was to place cities under siege and offer them a choice: become a (relatively free) vassal of Mongolia, or be utterly destroyed to send a message to the next ten cities.

These ancient methods of warfare have not been forgotten in the world of military strategy, brutal mass genocides are not an artifact of history, nor are they unimaginable by modern political leaders.