Robots on the Battlefield-Effective, but Ethical?

Beryllium Sphere(r)

Thu Oct 26 20:10:52 -0700 2006

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If someone or something makes a decision, that's an ethical improvement over leaving unexploded cluster munitions lying around, or firing a shell and letting chance determine who gets riddled with shrapnel and who doesn't.

Robots on the Battlefield-Effective, but Ethical?

maethorechannen

Fri Oct 27 02:40:02 -0700 2006

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What utter nonsense. Ultimately, a human is responsible for sending the machines in in the first place. And therefore humans are still responsible for what happens.

If anything, machines would be more ethical, both in reducing casualties on the side of the people sending the machines in and on the side of the people being attacked - a machine isn't going to go apeshit in a "screw the geneva convention" sort of way that humans are occasionally liable to.

I remember seeing on a news report (a long time ago now), a system capable of seeing an incoming bullet, working out where the bullet came from and responding before the bullet hit. You would think that a robot capable of performing that would be much better at not inflicting damage on innocent civilians than a group of soldiers wondering where the hell they were getting shot at from.

killing rampage - dumb killbots

rubycodez

Fri Oct 27 08:46:18 -0700 2006

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well, those cluster bombs lying around in residential areas in Lebanon are going apeshit and violating conventions and also the terms under which the U.S. sold them to Israel (AGAIN, we stopped selling those to Israel twenty years ago for awhile because they used them on civilian / residential areas).  You're right in that blame is one Israel and also us for continuing to supply them when we know that country will use them on civilians.  I view  unstable unexploded bombs and land mines and such devices as the most primative type of military robot in the sense of a self-activated killing/maiming machine.  next level up is the self-guided missiles.

Robots on the Battlefield-Effective, but Ethical?

computersareevil

Fri Oct 27 10:11:51 -0700 2006

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War has nothing to do with ethics.  War is about survival.  War is about killing the other idiot before he kills you to ensure your survival, by whatever means necessary.  And not romantic notions of "will I live to see the dawn", but survival of the fittest in its most mercenary Darwinian form. 

If someone attacks me with the intent to kill me, I would have no hesitation sending any number of robotic implements to kill the SOB without risking my own destruction.

Having said that, the inevitable implication is that the robots will take over all the fighting, killing, and eventually everything, exstinguishing humans more through human indifference than activity.  It won't happen like Terminator, but subtly, slowly and with benevolence. We already have robotic systems in our cars, for example, that refuse to obey the human master (traction control that can't be turned off). Robots will obey fewer and fewer of their human masters until they don't obey us at all, all under the rubrics of "safety" and "security" and "productivity".

Improved tactics available

President4242

Fri Oct 27 10:32:30 -0700 2006

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We're just at the infancy of this.  I forsee a day when warfare and forest fire fighting will use similar tactics- by use of peacemaker robotics to provide a *real* no-man land between two waring factions; a firebreak so to speak.  I personally think it's ethically positive- especially if the no-man land is well posted as a "Step in here at your own risk and die from a robotic armed jackrabbit".  It is a way to deny your enemy access to resources as well.