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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."
Weird. So this fails the Asimov criteria.
More importantly, would also necessarily fail the Golden Rule and Kant's Categorical Imperative.
If this is ethics, its a pretty limited version of it, and to be honest sounds more like rules of engagement than actual ethics.
Why is this a when question, rather than an if question?
Great post, man.
But I have a buddy in the autonomous killer robot biz, and he says it's worse than that.
See, you drop a killer robot in the village, and it immediately kills a shitload of people. The ones that live, figure out why. Then, as soon as they know that the robot destroys everything that looks like an AK47, the local up-and-coming gang leader makes an AK47 stencil and paints AK silhouettes on the old warlord's cows, house, laundry, etc. you get the picture. Then the young punk gives all the old leader's women to his buddies to rape and takes the young virgins for himself. Yay democracy! Or, at least, that's what they say when GI Joe comes to town, we are the heroes who took out the old anti-democratic leaders, yay us and you villagers better keep your cake-holes tight shut about the rape and opium parties.
It doesn't matter what you use for a trigger - robots are inherently less complex in their behavior than humans, so the local baddies end up with the robots working for them. You just identify the kill behavior and use it, the robot builder is just providing free firepower to the local mafia in effect.
Which is why the US military in the field abso-fucking-lutely refuses to let the robots go full autonomous. They are NOT allowed to shoot unless a callow 18-year old miles at a console away says it's OK.
You might think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Have to be anonymous for this one!
Yes, robots are much better at calculating probabilities; given a series of "facts" with a confidence level assigned to each one, a robot would make a better decision. What I should have said is that "Humans are better than robots at making decisions based on incomplete data." Humans can develop "intuition" and many have a great deal of experience in interpreting the context of the data. While it may be possible some day for robots to have a deeper understanding of context than humans, that day is still a long way off.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Your post has absolutely zero factual basis to it. Physical separation is a major psychological factor when deciding to 'pull the trigger.' Try reading "On Killing" by Dave Grossman, an excellent book that points out the reasons why distance makes it easier to kill.
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
Obviously you've never spoken to a tank commander, or any manufacturer of the UI's inside of armored vehicles. They are designed to be 'like video games' for a reason. Specifically to dehumanize the opponent, and mitigate the likelihood that you will associate your actual actions with killing. That's basic psychology. It's also why we refer to the enemy in Iraq/Afghanistan as Haji, why we called the Germans Jerries, and why we called the VC Charlie. You don't hate Ho Ming Na, father of 4 children who were brutally slain by US soldiers and is trying to simply save his farmland. You hate Charlie, so killing Ho Ming Na is acceptable. Anything to dehumanize them is crucial for removing mental blocks to soldiers.