The Terminators: Drone Strikes Prompt MoD to Ponder Ethics
of Killer Robots
by Richard Norton-Taylor and Rob Evans for The Guardian
Monday, April 18, 2011
The growing use of unmanned aircraft in combat situations
raises huge moral and legal issues, and threatens to make war more likely as
armed robots take over from human beings, according to an internal study by the
Ministry of Defence. The report warns of the dangers of an "incremental
and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality", referring to
James Cameron's 1984 movie, in which humans are hunted by robotic killing
machines. It says the pace of technological development is accelerating at such
a rate that Britain
must quickly establish a policy on what will constitute "acceptable
machine behaviour".
"It is essential that before unmanned systems become
ubiquitous (if it is not already too late) … we ensure that, by removing some
of the horror, or at least keeping it at a distance, we do not risk losing our
controlling humanity and make war more likely," warns the report, titled
The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems. MoD officials have never before
grappled so frankly with the ethics of the use of drones. The report was
ordered by Britain 's defence
chiefs, and coincides with continuing controversy about drones' use in Afghanistan ,
and growing Pakistani anger at CIA drone attacks against suspected insurgents
on the Afghan borders. It states that "the recent extensive use of
unmanned aircraft over Pakistan
and Yemen
may already herald a new era". Referring to descriptions of "killer
drones" in Afghanistan ,
it notes that "feelings are likely to run high as armed systems acquire
more autonomy". The insurgents "gain every time a mistake is
made", enabling them to cast themselves "in the role of underdog and
the west as a cowardly bully that is unwilling to risk his own troops, but is
happy to kill remotely", the report adds. Pakistan
last week demanded that the US
stop drone strikes and the CIA drastically cut its officers there. David Cameron
said in December that British drones had killed 124 insurgents in Afghanistan
since June 2008, hailing them as a "classic example of a modern weapon
which is necessary for today's war". The drones, known as Reapers, have to
date fired 167 missiles and bombs in Afghanistan .
The report was drawn up last month by the ministry's
internal thinktank, the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), based
in Shrivenham, Wiltshire, which is part of MoD central staff. The centre's
reports are sent to the most senior officers in all three branches of the armed
forces and influence policy and strategy. The concept of "fighting from
barracks" or the "remote warrior" raises such questions as whether a person operating the drones – sometimes
from thousands of miles away and "walking the streets of his home town
after a shift" – is a legitimate target as a combatant. "Do we fully
understand the psychological effects on remote operators of conducting war at a
distance?" ask the officials. There is one school of thought, they note,
that suggests that for war to be moral, as opposed to just legal, "it must
link the killing of enemies with an element of self-sacrifice, or at least risk
to oneself. The role of the human in the loop has, before now, been a legal
requirement which we now see being eroded," the MoD report warns.
It asks: "What is the role of the human from a moral and ethical
standpoint in automatic systems? … To a robotic system, a school bus and a tank
are the same – merely algorithms in a programme … the robot has no sense of
ends, ways and means, no need to know why it is engaging a target." Chris
Cole, a campaigner who runs the Drone Wars UK website, which monitors the
development of unmanned weapons systems, welcomed the MoD study while calling
for a halt to the use of drones by British forces." There needs to be an
open and public discussion about the implications of remote warfare, and it may
be that a parliamentary select committee inquiry would be the appropriate forum
to begin this discussion," he said. The report notes that the MoD
"currently has no intention to develop systems that operate without human
intervention in the weapon command and control chain". However, the MoD,
like the Pentagon, is keen to develop more and more sophisticated "automated"
weapons, it admits.
The report also identifies advantages of an unmanned weapons
system, such as preventing the potential loss of aircrew lives, which mean it
"is thus in itself morally justified". It adds: "Robots cannot
be emotive, cannot hate. A robot cannot be driven by anger to carry out illegal
actions such as those at My Lai [the massacre by US troops of hundreds of
unarmed civilians in South
Vietnam in March 1968]. "In theory,
therefore," says the MoD study, "autonomy should enable more ethical
and legal warfare. However, we must be sure that clear accountability for
robotic thought exists, and this raises a number of difficult debates. Is a
programmer guilty of a war crime if a system error leads to an illegal act?
Where is the intent required for an accident to become a crime?"
The US-manufactured General Atomics Reaper is currently the
RAF's only armed unmanned aircraft. It can carry up to four Hellfire
missiles, two 230kg (500lb) bombs, and 12 Paveway II guided bombs. It can fly for more
than 18 hours, has a range of 3,600 miles, and can operate at up to 15,000 metres
(50,000ft).
The Reaper is operated by RAF personnel based at Creech in Nevada . It is controlled via a satellite datalink. Earlier this year,
David Cameron promised to increase the number of RAF Reapers in Afghanistan
from four to nine, at an estimated cost of £135m.The MoD is also funding the
development by BAE Systems of a long-range unmanned aircraft, called Taranis,
designed to fly at "jet speeds" between continents while controlled
from anywhere in the world using satellite communications.
[It’s nice to see that it’s not just me and my wild
imagination that can foresee problems ahead. An "incremental and
involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality" indeed. I couldn’t
have said it better myself – even if I already have. At least they can't say that they haven't been officially warned now!]
4 comments:
*tremednous facepalm*
Oh we, as a species, are just asking for it, aren't we?
Not teachers, medics or other useful, helpful stuff...
let's use the robots to kill each other!
It seems to be the way of things. Any new invention gets made into a weapon, a sex toy or we race with it....
I don't agree with the fully autonomous attacking weapons platform. But you have to admit that in this Xbox/Play station gaming era, young peoples skills may be better equipped to use and control the likes unmanned drone type equipment.
The X-box generation are truly designed for this shit - or have the builders of these systems designed them knowing that their are millions of people out there who can use this kit as second nature... [grin]
Post a Comment