Robot Warriors Will Get a Guide To Ethics

thinker sends in an MSNBC report on the development of ethical guidelines for battlefield robots. The article notes that such robots won't go autonomous for a while yet, and that the guidelines are being drawn up for relatively uncomplicated situations — such as a war zone from which all non-combatents have already fled, so that anybody who shoots at you is a legitimate target. "Smart missiles, rolling robots, and flying drones currently controlled by humans, are being used on the battlefield more every day. But what happens when humans are taken out of the loop, and robots are left to make decisions, like who to kill or what to bomb, on their own? Ronald Arkin, a professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, is in the first stages of developing an 'ethical governor,' a package of software and hardware that tells robots when and what to fire. His book on the subject, Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, comes out this month."

Comments

Re:Well duh

[sesshomaru]

I am so God-damned sick of the three laws. I want to say to people who take them seriously, "Oh, you read Asimov in high school, good for you." It's been so obvious that this is not the path the human race is on.

Also, for things for people to fixate on, why the three laws? Why not psychohistory? That seemed more fun to me.

Asimov was a cockied-optimist. His is not the world we inhabit.

We don't even inhabit this world, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

This is the world we inhabit: "you now have 15 seconds to comply!"

Verhoven:1 -- Asimov:0 !