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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."
Obviously a country that can send robots instead of soldiers to fight is way more likely to become 'war happy' - so I'm not sure this robot thing is a good idea at all.
Besides, if your enemy expects your robots to defeat their army, what would be the point of fighting them in the first place? Attacking civilians seems a more logical step (I don't think it's reasonable to demand any country at war not to attack only military targets where there's none that can't be replaced easily).
(and no, I didn't read the whole 117 pages, but after a quick glance I reached the conclusion that whoever wrote the title didn't either, so I'm sharing my thoughts on the title, not the PDF)
I for one welcome our new robotic overlords.
Yes. Superior robotic ethics. A regular Ghandi-bot, saving only those who are threatened, willing to die rather than kill in doubt.
That's all well and good... but what of the men who send these robots into battle? What happens to their sense of ethics? Do they begin to believe that their sending troops into pacify a landscape over political differences is a morally superior action? Do they begin to believe that death-by-algorithm is a morally superior way of dealing with irrational people?
There's an endless array of rationalizations man can make for war, and subjugation of those who disagree with them. Taking the cost of friendly human lives out of the equation of war, and replace it with an autoturret enforcing your wishes doesn't make for a 'morally superior' political game. For many, it would make for an endgame in terms of justifying a military police as the default form of political governance.
Ryan Fenton
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.
War is what happens when treaties stop working. You can't have a treaty for some other competition to replace war--if that was the case, FIFA would have replaced the UN by now and Brazil would be a superpower. The purpose of war is to use force in order to impose your will on the enemy, whoever those people may be. The idea is, after your robots destroy the enemy's robots, they will continue to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and population until they give up.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Do these killbots have a preset kill limit? Can they be defeated by sending wave after wave of your own men at them?
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
When are they going to stop using robots for evil and start using it for good? I want a Natalie Portman "pleasure model" robot and I want it now! Science has lost it's way.....
Hey, you think your house is cool?
The question of making lethal robots act ethically is far easier in some ways than doing so with humans and far harder in others. On the plus side, robots will not be subject to anger, fear, stress, desire for revenge, etc. So they should be effectively immune to the tendency toward taking out the stress of a difficult or unwinnable conflict on the local population. On the minus side, robots have no scruples, probably won't include whistleblowing functions, and will obey any order that can be expressed machine-readably.
The real trick, I suspect, will not be in the design of the robots; but in the design of the information gathering, storage, analysis, and release process that will enforce compliance with ethical rules by the robot's operators. As the robots will need a strong authentication system, in order to prevent their being hijacked or otherwise misused, the technical basis for a strong system of logging and accountability will come practically for free. Fair amounts of direct sensor data from robots in the field will probably be available as well. From the perspective of quantity and quality of information, a robot army will be the most accountable one in history. No verbal orders that nobody seems to remember, the ability to look through the sensors of the combatants in the field without reliance on human memory, and so on. Unfortunately, this vast collection of data will be much, much easier to control than has historically been the case. The robots aren't going to leak to the press, confess to their shrink, send photos home, or anything else.
It will all come down to governance. We will need a way for the data to be audited rigorously by people who will actually have the power and the motivation to act on what they find without revealing so much so soon that we destroy the robots' strategic effectiveness. We can't just dump the whole lot on youtube; but we all know what sorts of things happen behind the blank wall of "national security" even when there are humans who might talk. Robots will not, ever, talk; but they will provide the best data in history if we can handle it correctly.
Consider that robots cost money, the country with more economic power is likely to be the winner in such a conflict. A large part of the U.S.A.'s success in WW2 was the sheer capacity of it's factories which were by if nothing but distance well defended against attack. European nations where under constant attack on their military infrastructure while American Factories where never bombed and even the concept of saboteurs blowing up factories in the States was a ridiculous notion to the Axis. Sure, Blow up the Pittsburgh bomb factory then you still have 20 more scattered about the US.
Robots won't be used simply because a robot doesn't have the discrimination as to who to attack and not to. Despite Orwellian fantasies, the practical upshot is that you would suffer to much friendly fire from such weapons and intense PR backlash. Sorry I don't see it happening.
Telepresence weapons are far more likely, as we have already seen in use.
Japan's Ministry of Agriculture has been denying their work on this. America is full of fully trained pilots for these crafts (Wii, Xbox, Playstation etc).
Suggested reading of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Robert Aspirin's Cold Cash War
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
...you want robots to make love and not war.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.