The Risk Factor

Government Computer News had a nice little story on the ethics of robot warriors a short time ago. It talked about the work of Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mobile Robot Laboratory professor Ronald Arkin and his attempts to define algorithms to define ethical behavior in machines that can follow norms like the Geneva Convention. This is from the abstract of his paper Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot:

"This article provides the basis, motivation, theory, and design recommendations for the implementation of an ethical control and reasoning system potentially suitable for constraining lethal actions in an autonomous robotic system so that they fall within the bounds prescribed by the Laws of War and Rules of Engagement."

Dr. Arkin's 117-paper is a bit much to digest in one sitting, but I have taken a quick read and find it interesting in its approach and very thorough, at least from my perspective. In an AFP news story, Dr. Arkin is quoted last month as saying, "Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement," since with robots "there are no emotions that can cloud judgment, such as anger."

Arkin's work has direct relevance to another robot story in this week's London Telegraph and the aforementioned AFP story about University of Sheffield's Department of Computer Science professor Noel Sharkey's belief that the major powers are "sleepwalking" into an international robot arms race, and predicted "that it is only a matter of time before robots become a standard terrorist weapon, replacing suicide bombers."

This latter theme was reiterated by others at the UK robotics conference titled The Ethics of Autonomous Military Systems where Sharkey spoke. For instance, UK Rear Adm. Chris Parry spoke about the terrorists using remotely piloted planes as weapons such as Hezbollah's use of pilotless aircraft against Israel in 2006.

BTW, I wrote some about the US military's planned use of UAVs for warfare in the November 2007 issue of Spectrum article. As I wrote, "Back in 2001, Congress mandated, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, that by 2010, one-third of the operating deep-strike aircraft of the Armed Forces are unmanned, and by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles are unmanned.” Currently, there are approximately 4,000 robots and 1,000 UAVs of varying types being used in Iraq and Afghanistan by US forces.