At the third watch of the night, Papirius [commander of a Roman army], who had by now received his colleague’s reply, arose quietly and sent the keeper of the chickens to take the auspices. Now there was no class of men in the camp unaffected by the itch for battle: the highest and the lowest were equally eager, and the commander observed the ardour of the men, and the men that of the commander. That omnipresent ardour even reached those involved with the auspices: when the chickens would not eat, the keeper of the chickens had the temerity to lie about the omen and report to the consul that they ate greedily. Delighted, the consul announced that the auspices were excellent and that they would fight with the support of the gods, and he put up the signal for battle.

While the commander was preoccupied with all this, a quarrel arose amongst the keepers of the chickens over that day’s auspices. This was overheard by some Roman cavalrymen who, thinking it was not a matter to be disregarded, reported to Spurius Papirius, the son of the consul’s brother, that there was some uncertainty about the auspices. Spurius was a young man born before that form of education that slights the gods, and after investigating the matter, so he would not be reporting unsubstantiated rumour, he brought it to the consul’s attention.

‘God bless your integrity and your vigilance,’ said the commander. ‘But if the man who takes the auspices makes any false report, he brings down that sin upon his own head. As far as I am concerned, I was told the chickens ate greedily, and that is an excellent omen for the Roman people and the army.’ Papirius then ordered the centurions to place the keepers of the chickens in the front line.

The Samnites also brought forward their standards, and there followed the line with the decorative armour, providing what even for their enemy was a magnificent sight. Before the first shout was raised and the armies clashed, the keeper of the chickens fell dead before the standards, struck down by a carelessly thrown spear. When news of this was brought to the consul, his comment was: ‘The gods are present at the battle; the guilty party has his punishment.’ As the consul uttered these words a crow cawed out clearly in front of him, and he was delighted with the omen, declaring that never had the gods so palpably helped in human affairs. He then gave the order to sound the trumpets and raise the war-cry.

The Defendant: What I meant to say is that at the end of the plea, it says that I have to submit and say I have been … that “I am satisfied that my defense attorney has represented me in a competent manner,” … I don’t want – I’m scared to go to trial because I don’t think that he’s going to, you know, put a fight for me. Your Honor, he didn’t submit any pretrial motions at all.

… Do I have to have the clause in there about my attorney? [referring to the part of the plea colloquy where she’s asked if she’s satisfied with her attorney's representation]

[Prosecutor]: Yes. You’re asking me?

The Court: Yes, you do. Who are you asking?

The Defendant: Just – I don’t know.

The Court: Well, you turned to [the prosecutor]. That’s part of [Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure] 11, ma’am, because you have to be satisfied with the representation and understand the terms and conditions of your plea agreement. 

But in terms of satisfied with the representation, it doesn’t mean – There’s – In terms of competent representation, it doesn’t mean that [your public defender] has to look at and touch every single aspect of the case. If [the prosecutor] reached out to [your public defender] and said, okay, count number one and count number ten, which happen to be what we’re seeking your client’s guilty plea on, here’s the discovery information that directly relates to Count 1 and Count 10. If he reviews that, that’s a diligent lawyer who’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

…

The Defendant: Why is it the fact that even if I’m willing to take the plea, that clause about him, about my attorney? Why do I have to submit to the fact that he competently, you know, advised me in the matter?

The Court: Rule 11, there’s certain things that must happen if a person says I wish to plead guilty. As part of Rule 11, you have to believe that your lawyer is competent and has represented you properly.

The Defendant: Your Honor, I don’t believe that, but at the same time I’m scared to go to trial with him because I don’t think that he’s going to do me justice.

He notes that one simulated test saw an AI-enabled drone tasked with a SEAD mission to identify and destroy SAM sites, with the final go/no go given by the human. However, having been ‘reinforced’ in training that destruction of the SAM was the preferred option, the AI then decided that ‘no-go’ decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission – killing SAMs – and then attacked the operator in the simulation. Said Hamilton: “We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realising that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.”

He went on: “We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”