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."

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new robotic overlords.

Too easy to counter

[Sciros]

My Apple comp00tar will just upload a virus wirelessly to them and they will all shut down! I've seen it done!

The biggest question...

[jockeys]

Do these killbots have a preset kill limit? Can they be defeated by sending wave after wave of your own men at them?

Re:The biggest question...

[Sciros]

It's probably MAX_INT.

Re:What's the point?

[KublaiKhan]

At which point, once they take up arms, they're conveniently reclassifying themselves as irregular enemy combatants. If they had only stayed calm and awaited further instruction from our occupying forces, robotic or otherwise, this sad scene could have been avoided. We're just trying to be as humane as possible; is it our fault if they aren't going to follow directions?

Think like an evil overlord, man!

Natalie Portman Robot

[letchhausen]

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.....

So what you're really saying is...

[riseoftheindividual]

...you want robots to make love and not war.

Re:Why is this funny?

[4D6963]

Maybe a script wrote it by detecting some words in the description.

Oh, damn, I didn't think anyone would figure it out. Well since you asked, here's how it really works :

root@localhost# memebot.sh --sovietrussia --overlords --beowulf --linux --underpants
memebot 2.4-debian
Copyright (C) 2008 Michel Rouzic
MemeBot is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.

> Maybe a script wrote it by detecting some words in the description.

Found : 5 results in 0.063 seconds.
1. In Soviet Russia, words in descriptions detect scripts.
2. I, for one, welcome our new humour-making script overlords.
3. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
4. But does it run on Linux?
5. 1. Write a nerd humour generating script. 2. Make it parse and reply anonymously to Slashdot comments. 3. ???. 4. Mod points!!!

Re:What's the point?

[Dancindan84]

Also I'd bet you need some sort of networking to coordinate the robots. Probably wireless.

I agree. Let's do it centrally. We can name the hub skynet. Or V.I.K.I.

Re:What's the point?

[TheNarrator]

The generals will also get to blame collateral damage on bugs in the software.
For instance:
"Oh yeah the flame thrower robot went crazy and torched the entire village because some guy at Lockheed put a semicolon on the end of a for loop. Oops, we'll have to fix that in the next rev".

Unfair spawn points are super unethical

[caywen]

I'm not so concerned with bots in warfare as much as I am about placing really frickin unfair spawn points in the battlefield. Isn't unethical to be able to telefrag enemy soldiers with a cheap bot before they even had a chance to see the enemy? Without solving both ethical issues surrounding telefragging and aimbots, I'm afraid warfare will remain an unpopular and unengaging endeavor.

Let the robots come!

[artemis67]

I'm not worried... I have Old Glory Insurance [metacafe.com]. I'm covered.