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Mar
31
A SWORDS military robot in Iraq
Recent talk of a turing test possibly making autonomous military robots legal because they will have ability to distinguish between friends, foes, and civilians raises the possibility that the new weapons systems of the future could be autonomous military robots.
“Can a robot commit a war crime?” That question was raised at the conference on The Ethics of Autonomous Military Systems behind yesterday’s story on ethical concerns over robotic weapons.
Barrister and Engineer Chris Elliot explained his thoughts on the legality of future “intelligent” weapons, within international, criminal and civil law. He started by suggesting that as systems become more autonomous, they become capable of actions that are not, in legal terms, “foreseeable”.
At that point, he suggested, it would be hard to blame a human for its actions. “We’re getting very close to the where the law may have to recognise that we can’t always identify an individual - perhaps an artificial system can be to blame.”
Military robots are already in use in Iraq — the SWORDS system is controlled by a remote operator.
The U.S. Army quietly entered a new era earlier this summer when it sent the first armed ground robots into action in Iraq.
So far, the robot army’s entrance into the war has been a trickle rather than an invasion.
Only three of the special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system (SWORDS) have been deployed so far.
The Army has authorized the purchase of 80 more robots — which are being touted as a potentially life-saving technology — but acquisition officials have not come forth with the funding.
“As [soldiers] use them and like them, I’ve heard positive feedback, they want 20 more immediately. It’s a shame we can’t get them to them,” Michael Zecca, SWORDS program manager, told National Defense.
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4 Responses to “Will Autonomous Military Robots Soon Be Deployed?”
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How do they put it on the Simpsons?
“I would like to be the first to welcome our robot overlords”.
Something like that.
This is an interesting development for us “Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles” junkies. That’s one of the few shows that I TiVo.
Hi Buzz,
I was thinking of “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” when I was writing this post. There’s something about Summer Glau that is intriguing.
Very intriguing. We have a hard enough time distinguishing the civilians from the enemy as humans, and a robot will do it? I guess I come at this from a slightly different perspective (4.5 years served - US Army). Remember back when the Marine shot an unarmed individual while clearing a building? Everyone debated whether or not the guy made a threatening move, had a weapon or what looked like it, etc. It’s really easy for people sitting in comfortable chairs on American soil to argue about the ethics surrounding someone’s actions in war, but ultimately someone will be responsible if a robot kills innocent Iraqi civilians. Kinda crazy… .
Hi Dan,
I suspect that there will be much debate when it finally comes down to robots fighting our wars. I suspect half of the people will support it because it means greater force protection. The other half will be against it because they’ll see it as being unfair — the rich Americans are taking advantage of technology to rule the world.
It will raise ethical issues. I always think of Terminator when I hear about military robots.