

Stopping killer robots - WestCoastJustin
http://bos.sagepub.com/content/70/1/32.full

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tlb
As the article explains, the main rule of civilized war is to attack only
military targets and not civilians. The authors think robots will be worse at
this: " _Technical limitations mean robots could not reliably distinguish
civilians from combatants, particularly in irregular warfare, and could not
fulfill the requirement to judge proportionality._ "

On the contrary, I think robot soldiers will be much better at not hurting
civilians. Human soldiers are actually very bad at this, as a century of
televised atrocities have shown. Robot soldiers are:

\- capable of waiting to be fired upon before returning fire

\- auditable, so mistakes can be corrected or avoided next time

\- have a clear chain of command, so the military can't deny responsibility
for war crimes

\- not motivated by fear, revenge or cruelty

