By Sharon Weinberger March 28, 2008 | 2:35:00 PM Categories: Drones
Another group has joined the ranks of concerned citizens, academics and ethicists who want to save our society from blood-thirsty homicidal armed drones that are preparing to gun down our puppies and children. New Scientist reports on the latest entrant to the autonomous armed-drone mania:
London-based charity Landmine Action wants autonomous robots capable of killing people banned under the same kind of treaty that has outlawed land mines in over 150 countries.
Machine-gun wielding military robots are currently remotely controlled by soldiers. But the US Department of Defense wants them in future to work without supervision, meaning they would have to make their own decisions about when to pull the trigger. Noel Sharkey, a roboticist at Sheffield University, UK, raised the profile of these plans when he condemned them earlier this month.
The article goes on to note: "Such robots are technologically similar to the latest generation of cluster bombs, against which Landmine Action and others are already campaigning."
No, they are not similar: cluster bombs exist, and so do landmines; there is good reason for having a healthy debate about the need for restrictions, or possibly even bans, on these systems. Autonomous armed robots, on the other hand, do not exist.
I don't want to give these people too hard a time, because their hearts are in the right place. But their minds, I fear, are enveloped in tinfoil. Noah has previously written about the "hooey and scare-mongering" related to killer robots, not to mention the oddly panicked calls by academics to ban them.
There's nothing wrong with looking ahead to the future, and it's certainly not inconceivable that militaries could, someday, consider such a system. But to argue as if this is in the here or now, or even in the next decade, is just plain silly. The Pentagon has not only never advocated taking the man-out-the-loop of targeting decisions for drones or robots, its current policies and procedures would prohibit such a move (some might argue that international law already prohibits autonomous armed drones). For example, there's a Pentagon briefing, available here, that describes the processes (often strenuous) that go into targeting decisions.
Unless and until those policies are drastically altered, it's safe to say we are safe from renegade Terminators.
