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    The Morality of Robotic War: New York Times Op-Ed

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    This document discusses the challenges posed by autonomous weapons and calls for ensuring human responsibility and control over their use. It notes that while some autonomous weapons like defensive missile systems have operated safely for decades, fully autonomous weapons that can select and engage targets without human input raise issues of accountability and responsibility. The key is to guarantee that weapons with greater autonomy do not become uncontrollable or unpredictable, and that human operators understand the limitations of the technology and bear responsibility for its effects. Overall it argues for responsible development and use of autonomous technologies rather than an outright ban.

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    The Morality of Robotic War: New York Times Op-Ed

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    This document discusses the challenges posed by autonomous weapons and calls for ensuring human responsibility and control over their use. It notes that while some autonomous weapons like defensive missile systems have operated safely for decades, fully autonomous weapons that can select and engage targets without human input raise issues of accountability and responsibility. The key is to guarantee that weapons with greater autonomy do not become uncontrollable or unpredictable, and that human operators understand the limitations of the technology and bear responsibility for its effects. Overall it argues for responsible development and use of autonomous technologies rather than an outright ban.

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    This document discusses the challenges posed by autonomous weapons and calls for ensuring human responsibility and control over their use. It notes that while some autonomous weapons like defensive missile systems have operated safely for decades, fully autonomous weapons that can select and engage targets without human input raise issues of accountability and responsibility. The key is to guarantee that weapons with greater autonomy do not become uncontrollable or unpredictable, and that human operators understand the limitations of the technology and bear responsibility for its effects. Overall it argues for responsible development and use of autonomous technologies rather than an outright ban.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    27 views3 pages

    The Morality of Robotic War: New York Times Op-Ed

    Uploaded by

    muhammadmusakhan
    This document discusses the challenges posed by autonomous weapons and calls for ensuring human responsibility and control over their use. It notes that while some autonomous weapons like defensive missile systems have operated safely for decades, fully autonomous weapons that can select and engage targets without human input raise issues of accountability and responsibility. The key is to guarantee that weapons with greater autonomy do not become uncontrollable or unpredictable, and that human operators understand the limitations of the technology and bear responsibility for its effects. Overall it argues for responsible development and use of autonomous technologies rather than an outright ban.

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    The Morality of Robotic War

    By Michael C. Horowitz and Paul Scharre


    New York Times Op-Ed
    May 26, 2015
    Earlier this month, Avengers: Age of Ultron was released in theaters across the United States,
    featuring Marvel comics superheroes battling evil robots powered by artificial intelligence and
    hellbent on destroying humanity.
    Sentient military machines still remain in the realm of science fiction, but some autonomous
    weapons are already technically possible today. And the role of autonomy in military systems is
    likely to grow as armies take advantage of the same basic technology used in self-driving cars
    and household robots. Autonomous weapons are not the same as drones. A drone is remotely
    piloted by a person, who makes the decision to fire its weapons. In contrast, an autonomous
    weapon is one that, once activated, can select and engage targets on its own.
    In mid-April, 90 countries and dozens of nongovernmental organizations met in Geneva to
    discuss the challenges raised by lethal autonomous weapons, and a consortium of more than 50
    NGOs called for a pre-emptive ban.
    Advocates of a ban on autonomous weapons often claim that the technology today isnt good
    enough to discriminate reliably between civilian and military targets, and therefore cant comply
    with the laws of war. In some situations, thats true. For others, its less clear. Over 30 countries
    already have automated defensive systems to shoot down rockets and missiles. They are
    supervised by humans but, once activated, select and engage targets without further human input.
    These systems work quite effectively and have been used without controversy for decades.
    Autonomous weapons should not be banned based on the state of the technology today, but
    governments must start working now to ensure that militaries use autonomous technology in a
    safe and responsible manner that retains human judgment and accountability in the use of force.
    Greater autonomy could even reduce casualties in war, if used in the right way. The same types
    of sensors and information-processing that will enable a self-driving car to avoid hitting
    pedestrians could also potentially enable a robotic weapon to avoid civilians on a battlefield. It is
    entirely plausible that future sensors could distinguish accurately between a person holding a
    rake and a person holding a rifle, and do it better than humans.
    Precision-guided weapons, or smart bombs, have already dramatically reduced civilian
    casualties in war. Air-to-ground bombs that had a 50 percent chance of landing within a half-mile
    of the target during World War II are now accurate within five feet. This guidance technology has
    been so instrumental in saving civilian lives that Human Rights Watch has suggested that using
    unguided weapons in populated areas is a war crime.

    Even if autonomous weapons could accurately discriminate and engage targets, however, they
    would still raise issues of safety, responsibility and control. Autopilot systems already help
    airplane pilots navigate dangerous weather conditions and reduce human error. But the same
    features that make them reliable the fact that they follow their programming precisely every
    time can make them brittle when used outside of their intended operating environment. The
    same goes for autonomous systems operating in environments outside the bounds of their
    programming.
    Militaries are also unlikely to share their algorithms with competitors, raising the prospect of
    unanticipated encounters between autonomous systems on the battlefield. Like the stock market
    flash crash in 2010 that was exacerbated by automated high-frequency trading algorithms, a
    flash war sparked by unintended interactions between autonomous systems could occur one
    day.
    Most important, we must avoid a situation where the spread of autonomous weapons leads
    civilian leaders and militaries to ethically dissociate themselves from the costs of war. Humans
    should be making decisions about taking human lives.
    If an autonomous weapon struck the wrong target, could the person who launched it deny
    responsibility, pointing out that she launched the autonomous weapon, but did not choose that
    specific target?
    Recent debates over drones have raised similar questions. A drone operator is just as accountable
    as a pilot in an airplane or a tank driver for their actions and numerous sources suggest drone
    pilots do not exhibit moral detachment from war. The concern is that autonomous weapons could
    lead to a situation where people no longer feel morally responsible for the use of force.
    Today, if a fighter pilot launches a missile, she knows that she is responsible for it. The missile,
    once released, often cant be recalled and homing missiles lock on to targets autonomously. If
    the result is deemed an illegal use of force, accountability turns on whether what happened was
    an unpredictable technical malfunction, or something that the pilot should have foreseen.
    Autonomous weapons could complicate this in two ways: either because the weapon is so
    complex that its operator doesnt know how it will behave or because the human operators feel
    that it is the weapon, not themselves, doing the killing.
    We must recognize that autonomous systems are machines that people operate, not independent
    moral agents.
    Weapons themselves do not comply with the laws of war. Weapons are used by people in ways
    that comply with, or violate, the laws of war. This means that as weapons incorporate greater
    autonomy, the human operator still has a responsibility to ensure that the actions he or she is
    taking are lawful.
    Ensuring responsibility, not just accountability, is the real challenge. Accountability is a problem
    when there is an accident and it is unclear who is to blame. The real problem is that a

    responsibility vacuum might emerge, where people are being killed by autonomous weapons but
    no person is clearly responsible for the killing.
    This could occur if bad training or poor system design led the operator to misunderstand the
    weapon. It also could happen if the system itself exhibits surprising behavior in a real-world
    environment that even the designers couldnt have anticipated. In that case, it would be hard to
    blame the engineer. It could be that those who tested the weapons failed to anticipate that
    situation. Or it could be that the real world is simply too complex to foresee every problem.
    In 2003, the United States Patriot air-defense system, which incorporates a high degree of
    autonomy, shot down two friendly aircraft. Ultimately, no one was held responsible. Partly, this
    was because the friendly-fire casualties resulted from poor operator training, complex system
    design, and a real-world environment that wasnt anticipated.
    Stopping weapons from having more intelligence will not solve these problems. Its how we use
    the technology that matters.
    Humans must ultimately bear moral responsibility and face the horror of war squarely not
    outsource it to machines. And people must be able to remain in control of a weapon and manage
    its behavior. We cannot have weapons that are intrinsically uncontrollable or wildly
    unpredictable. After you fire a bullet, you cant take it back, but its trajectory is predictable. The
    key is to ensure that future weapons that behave like self-steering bullets do not run amok. They
    should have enough autonomy to complete the approved mission and nothing more. And
    armies must ensure that operators are confident they are taking lawful action, given what they
    know about the weapons capabilities, the target and the context.
    Weapons with greater autonomy could mean more accuracy and fewer civilian casualties. The
    appropriate response is not to forgo potentially useful technology, but instead to understand
    where human judgment is still required, regardless of how advanced the technology becomes.
    Michael C. Horowitz, an associate professor of political science at the University of
    Pennsylvania, and Paul Scharre, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security,
    direct the centers Ethical Autonomy Project.

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