Examining the Ethical Implications of Robots in War

Schneier points out an interesting (and long, 117-pages) paper on the ethical implications of robots in war [PDF]. "This report has provided the motivation, philosophy, formalisms, representational requirements, architectural design criteria, recommendations, and test scenarios to design and construct an autonomous robotic system architecture capable of the ethical use of lethal force. These first steps toward that goal are very preliminary and subject to major revision, but at the very least they can be viewed as the beginnings of an ethical robotic warfighter. The primary goal remains to enforce the International Laws of War in the battlefield in a manner that is believed achievable, by creating a class of robots that not only conform to International Law but outperform human soldiers in their ethical capacity."

Comments

Re:What's the point?

[The Aethereal]

Obviously a country that can send robots instead of soldiers to fight is way more likely to become 'war happy' Of equal concern to me is the fact that a country with a robot army can use them against their own citizens with no chance of mass mutiny.

Re:Why bother going to war in the first place anym

[moderatorrater]

If you've got battlebots, why not have one against another to resolve international conflicts, rather than destroy infrastructure and the like? We've already built structures to solve international conflicts, and it works extremely well when the two sides are willing to work through those structures. The US doesn't need battlebots to deal with European powers, because both sides are willing to talk it through instead. However, when Iraq refuses to cooperate, or the Arabs in Israel refuse to cooperate, the procedures break down and you're left with two countries that can't reach an agreement without raising the stakes.

In other words, for those countries willing to abide by a mountain of treaties, the problem's already solved. It's the other countries that are the problem, and they're unlikely to resolve their differences like this anyway.

Re:What's the point?

[KublaiKhan]

I'd think that it'd be more effective to attack infrastructure--things like power stations, traffic control systems, that manner of thing--than to go after civilians directly.

For one thing, what's the point of taking over a territory if there's nobody there to rebuild and to use as a resource?

For another, it looks a -lot- better on the international PR scene if your robots decidedly ignore the civilians and only go after inanimate strategic targets--at least, up until the point that they get attacked. With that sort of programming, you could make the case that you're "seeking to avoid all unnecessary casualties" etc. etc.

Mowing down a civilian populace does sow terror, of course, but keeping the civilians intact (if in the dark and without water) can be argued to be more effective.