

Call for ethical debate surrounding use of "killer robots" - theblackbox
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8182003.stm

======
asciilifeform
No one should consider themselves informed on the subject of "killer robots"
without having read this:

[http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-second-
amendm...](http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-second-amendment-in-
iraq-combat-robotics-and-the-future-of-human-liberty-820)

~~~
pavel_lishin
"What this effort will do, if it is successful, is defang ... all populations,
overthrowing the protective effect individual firearms ownership, destroying
the intent and effectiveness of the Second Amendment, and unbalancing the
Constitution permanently through evolving technology which end-runs around the
original intent of the Framers."

Hasn't this already happened? Iraq very clearly demonstrates that a massive
force will overrun you no matter how many arms your citizens possess. Citizens
usually don't possess missiles, anti-tank weaponry, large-caliber arms, etc.

You don't need significantly advanced technology; you just need slightly
better weapons, and slightly more of them.

The flipside, though, is that we could reinterpret software and hardware as
arms; if robots are standing on the street corners, the ability to fight back
electronically becomes the only option.

------
krschultz
"The problem, he said, was that robots could not fulfil two of the basic
tenets of warfare: discriminating friend from foe, and "proportionality",
determining a reasonable amount of force to gain a given military advantage."

That is true for autonomous robots, but we are currently not there yet. And if
the choice is between the UAV overhead with cameras and sensors on the target
firing guided missiles, or the UAV overhead with a camera and someone firing
artillery at the target from a few miles away, the UAV is more accurate and
less likely to cause collateral damage.

He also talks about how they are further distancing the soldiers from battle.
Not really, if you are a normal pilot you drop the weapons on the target and
get the hell out of there, and don't see really any of it except on film later
because you are moving so fast. The UAV operators keep the UAV overhead and
are watching before, during, and after the attack much more closely than
pilots. It turns out it can be more emotionally damaging than manned flight.
Especially because of the lack of danger for you, it triggers different
emotions.

------
rfreytag
The US better get out in front on this and engage in the debate and get
something they can sign. Elsewise the result will be something impractical and
both 'good' and 'bad' guys will get a pass.

Don't pretend everyone won't be able to afford this because robots will be
cheap enough eventually for both sides to go this automated.

Engagement is the better option.

~~~
jacquesm
The lower the price of something the higher the volume.

Risking yourself while killing somebody else increases the price on your side.
If that risk disappears the 'cost' gets so low that the volume might increase
dramatically.

~~~
yummyfajitas
On the flip side, the cost of _caution_ also decreases.

Scenario: a person is approaching a checkpoint and does not obey verbal
commands. No civilians are present near the checkpoint.

Human soldier: "Oh shit, shoot him, I don't want to get blown up!"

Robot soldier: "Direct extra scrutiny towards target. Do not allow him to
approach civilians. Allow him to approach the checkpoint. I only cost
$100,000, no reason to kill a human to save my metallic skin."

~~~
anigbrowl
Wrong. The manufacturing cost of the robot may be a mere $100,000. But besides
the argument that human lives are often valued at less than that, there's also
the security argument: 'we can't allow our technology to be stolen and
exploited by the enemy'. I can pretty much guarantee you that one will get
trotted out. It's not very logical, but that has never mattered in war.

I mean, let's not be naive here. When the fighting in Iraq was intense a few
years ago, the biggest threat to coalition (and especially US) soldiers was
'IEDs' - improvised explosive devices, which in turn was a fancy name for
'homemade mines'. Generally these were triggered by cellphone and there were
many comments about how cowardly and evil this was (because it was happening
to us). Imagine the reaction if these had been mobile devices - or more
accurately, when they are. Because while there are many engineering challenges
involved, there's nothing fundamentally difficult about it.

------
dtf
Professor Sharkey shows a great deal of social and political insight for
someone whose academic specialization is in neither of those domains. Let's
hope he continues to make these points heard.

------
citation_needed
"While 14 al-Qaeda were killed, some 687 civilian deaths also occurred…"

That is profoundly disturbing. How can governments justify the continued use
of drones with statistics like that? There needs to be an ethical debate, yes,
and urgently.

~~~
radu_floricica
It's not the drones, it's what they consider a fair exchange. Guerrilla wars
are like that.

~~~
jacquesm
Ask the families of the 687 civilians if they thought it was a fair
exchange...

It's the de-humanizing use of terms like 'fair exchange' and 'collateral
damage' that make this kind of atrocities possible in the first place. If we
just called it by its name (cold blooded murder by remote control) then it
would be looked at quite a bit differently by the general public.

~~~
biohacker42
I think his point is that the only thing new here is drones. The numbers
themselves are old and that is what we should be correctly outraged about. The
exact type of weapon used is not relevant. (Except for things like white
phosphorus, obviously.)

~~~
jacquesm
I think drones are a major game changer. They increase the distance between
the humans on the receiving end and the humans on the 'giving' end to such an
extent that there is now a major disconnect. Regular fighter jocks at least
put their own lives on the line as well, drone pilots could literally do their
jobs from the other side of the planet while eating donuts.

It doesn't matter much to a victim what weapon they get killed by, dead is
dead. That doesn't mean we should not outlaw certain types of weapon (white
phosphorous is an excellent sample for that, but drones would qualify as well
imo).

My guess is the parties that 'have' the drones would never agree to give them
up on the insistence of the 'have nots', it's too much of an advantage. War
becomes a simple decision, none of those pesky losses to explain to the
homefront. Only some energy and steel lost, there's plenty of that to go
around before the homefront will realize there is a cost to war.

~~~
biohacker42
There is a difference between fighter pilots and drone pilots but not between
drone pilots and who's ever job it is to push the launch button on any one of
many missile types we'd had much, much longer then we've had drones. So war =
bad, drones = red herring.

~~~
anigbrowl
I disagree. Almost always, missiles are targeted against fixed military
installations. Of course there are tactical missiles fired between aerial and
ground targets, but again these are optimized for and usually deployed against
hardened military targets like tanks or gunships.

The problem here is not one of drones firing at columns of tanks, but the fact
that they are being deployed as anti-personnel devices targeted at guerrilla
leaders. I am OK with targeting such people (and as it happens, I support the
_idea_ of fighting and defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, but I'm very
disappointed with the _implementation_ ). The kind of drones we use now are
basically lightweight planes, and given the physics of fixed-wing flight, that
means fly-bys and high-yield single-use weapons.

If your intel is good and you have found an isolated Taliban training camp,
then OK. But if it's poor, you're throwing a lot of destructive power at the
wrong target. Whereas a sniper team might employ a scope or long-range
microphone and observe the presence of many women and children or singing and
dancing (conclusion: might be a wedding party), a drone on flyby can identify
the _existence_ of a target, but is poorly equipped to identify the _nature_
of the target...which is one reason we've blown up a lot of wedding parties in
the last few years.

Realistically, we can get away with it to an extent because the US is a big
powerful country that can throw its weight around (and is allied with other
relatively big and powerful countries). But a 50:1 kill ratio for
civilians:bad guys is piss-poor - even if you assume a degree of dishonesty
and propaganda on the other side, a ratio of 25:1 or even 10:1 is still piss-
poor and _exactly_ the sort of thing held up as an example of moral failure in
history. By depending so heavily on tools which do not allow easy
discrimination of military and civilian targets, we weaken our freedom to act
effectively and early in other contexts.

I hope it's clear that my argument here is economic rather than political.

~~~
jacquesm
In fact the 50:1 ratio will probably create 2 new fighters for every one
killed. Most people have families and don't like seeing their relatives blown
up. Do not put people in a position where you've taken away their every reason
to live for.

