One of the ways the U.S. is distinguished in history is that defense is the common responsibility of all citizens. This flows from the decision to establish it as a republic.

This was the basis for the draft, which was not restricted to a specific warrior class; any man of eligible age had to fight if called up and medically cleared.

Today, anyone can volunteer for military service and (again, if medically cleared) they will get trained up and added to the military.

If members of the military see themselves as somehow special within society, it is because of the choices, commitments, and service they have each made as individuals. Not because they are part of some separate class of violence.

And who accept the physical risk of doing so, in order for people like Palmer can profit handsomely from it, without having to take on any of that risk themselves.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostly_Other_People_Do_the_Kil...

“You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don’t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom.”

Yeah, repeat that when you’re on the frontline there, buddy. What a tool.

Another in a long line of those who would ask for others to suffer on their behalf. It's not as if palmer is offering to fight. Absolute parasite behavior.

A classless society that never aspired to have or need a warrior class, to a society that inexplicably needs a "warrior class" that presumably answers to the moneyed capital class alone.

We don’t need a warrior class.

We do need to stop stigmatizing people for trying to defend their loved ones or defend their country.

So long as wars are waged with violence, he's probably right. At least, you do need a set of people who are up to the job when it needs doing.

Water is wet and this techbro profiteers from war, so obviously he's pro war and violence.

First, let me be clear: I don’t take hardline positions on this issue. As much as I, or anyone, might dislike the idea of advanced AI in warfare, I know it’s been in use for decades in various forms, and its continued development is inevitable.

I shouldn’t have to preface my comment with this, but too many people try to pigeonhole others into extreme camps. So, for the record: I am not a moderate, nor am I trying to balance my opinion to appease anyone, nor am I compromising my ethics because I do not choose one idiotic camp over the other.

I despise how this issue has been framed. This isn’t some false dichotomy where we either give obnoxious billionaires a free pass to build whatever they want in the name of “necessary evil,” or throw up our hands with vague hardline positions like “a robot should never decide who lives or dies.”

Also, I want to call out Luckey's nonsense argument where he compares the ethics of AI to the ethics of land mines. Just to be clear, 164 countries have made their ethics on land mines clear when they signed the Ottawa Convention. Even the US, who isn't on that list, goes out of its way not to use land mines since 1991, though I understand there were some rare exceptions made in Afghanistan.

The reality is, we’re moving into an era where AI is going to radically widen the asymmetry of power between those who control precision weapons and everyone else.

And let me be even clearer: as we move deeper into this era, our failure to assert our ethical standards—and our tolerance of those who openly dismiss them—will only make it a little easier for the lesser states, warlords, insurgents, terrorists, and criminal organizations who will eventually get their hands on it and use it to terrorize people who challenge their power.

This is not a problem that’s going away and having unimpeachable and uncompromising ethics isn't going to magically solve the problem. It’s an intractably complex, accelerating trend. But anyone who suggests ethics have no place in the development of these weapons should be censured by a civically intelligent society. We need to struggle, debate and deliberate the ethics of AI in warfare, not ignore the issue.

This issue isn't about picking a camp and making their shitty ethics your shitty ethics. This issue requires all of us to think for ourselves and to try to do the right thing.

I've never heard of more obvious statement been so blatantly disagreed with by people who should genuinely know better.

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I think this guy is getting a bit overboard and trying to monetize the moment. He should recall the Cold War - one country can't advance without other major powers catching up quickly. The only way to avoid conflict is diplomacy and America has been bad at it recently! The Democrats pushed both Russia and China into war mode, making them partners.