*Can Military Robots Commit War Crimes?
*By Darryl Mason
If you're planning to go see the killer robot action of Terminator Salvation
at the cinema, and you don't want to see too much of what unfolds in the
movie, probably best not to watch the below 4 minute long video capsule of
just about the entire flick, bar the "surprise" ending.
If you have no intention of seeing Terminator Salvation at the cinema, or on
DVD, because you think killer military robot movies that rip off some of the
best ideas of Philip K Dick without bothering to give any credit are stupid
and bereft of originality, then your prejudices will be confirmed :
It's very interesting to note that when the first Terminator movie was
released and found its monumental worldwide audience on video in the
mid-1980s, the idea of turning robots into ethics-and-morality-free killers
for the world's military was pure science fiction for most, even though
armed robots were already well under development in the research divisions
of the world's biggest military contractors.
Today, the United States has a fleet of 7000 drones (some armed) and more
than 12,000 "unarmed ground vehicles" deployed in its combat zones. The US
is not alone by any stretch in trying to remove the human soldier from
dangerous, expensive, future war deployments :
More than 43 countries are developing military robotics, including Israel,
Iran, China, Pakistan and Russia, as well as Britain and Australia.
The world is on the brink of a "robotics revolution" in military combat that
will have profound social, psychological, political and ethical effects,
says a leading US defence analyst.
"We are living through the end of humankind's 5000-year-old monopoly on the
fighting of war … The robots of today are the first technologies to change
the 'who' of war, not just the 'how' of war…"
With robotics transforming the nature of warfare, it was risky, he warned,
to "make grand commitments before you figure out where things are headed".
Autonomous robots in the battlefield will soon, it is claimed, be making the
all important decision to open fire on their own. There will be no human
telling the robot when to shoot, or what target to fire its missiles at.
Could a software programmer be complicit in the slaughter of civilians when
killer robots kill two 'terrorists' but a dozen women and children as well?
If no-one, or no defence contractor, is directly responsible for the
civilian-slaughtering decisions made by its robotic army, and stealthy
flying assassins, killer robots will become the front line soldiers of all
future wars fought by the West :
The unmanned bombers that frequently cause unintended civilian casualties in
Pakistan are a step toward an even more lethal generation of robotic
hunters-killers that operate with limited, if any, human control.
The Defense Department is financing studies of autonomous, or self-governin*g,
armed robots that could find and destroy targets on their *own. On-board
computer programs, not flesh-and-blood people, would decide whether to fire
their weapons.
Autonomous armed robotic systems probably will be operating by 2020,
according to John Pike, an expert on defense and intelligence matters and
the director of the security Web site GlobalSecurity.org in Washington.
Human operators thousands of miles away in Nevada, using satellite
communications, control the current generation of missile-firing robotic
aircraft, known as Predators and Reapers. Armed ground robots, such as the
Army's Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, also require a human
decision-maker before they shoot.
Many Navy warships carry the autonomous, rapid-fire Phalanx system, which is
designed to shoot down enemy missiles or aircraft that have penetrated outer
defenses without waiting for a human decision-maker.
Some people have high hopes for the most brutal and heartless killing system
ever devised by man :
"Robots must be constrained to adhere to the same laws as humans or they
should not be permitted on the battlefield..."
Yeah, like that's going to happen.
But could a killer robot be developed that is more empathetically human than
a flesh and blood human?
Arkin contends that a properly designed robot could behave with greater
restraint than human soldiers in the heat of battle and cause fewer
casualties.
"Robots can be built that do not exhibit fear, anger, frustration or
revenge, and that ultimately behave in a more humane manner than even human
beings in these harsh circumstances," he wrote.
A British critic of autonomous armed robots says the idea that robots can be
'taught' to tell the difference between enemy and civilian is the stuff of
pure fantasy :
"....it's doomed to failure at present because no robots or AI (artificial
intelligence) systems could discriminate between a combatant and an
innocent. That sensing ability just does not exist."
Selmer Bringsjord, an artificial intelligence expert at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., is worried, too.
"I'm concerned. The stakes are very high," Bringsjord said. "If we give
robots the power to do nasty things, we have to use logic to teach them not
to do unethical things. If we can't figure this out, we shouldn't build any
of these robots."
But they're already being built. It will take years for international law to
catch up with the use of autonomous killer robots in the warzones of the
world.
Meanwhile, China and the United States are expected to fire up military
killer robot production lines in the next twelve months.
http://yournewreality.blogspot.com/2009/05/im-killer-robot-but-i-didnt-know-that.html
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