…And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
—Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold
Abstract
Telerobotically operated and semiautonomous machines have become a major component in the arsenals of industrial nations around the world. By the year 2015 the United States military plans to have one-third of their combat aircraft and ground vehicles robotically controlled. Although there are many reasons for the use of robots on the battlefield, perhaps one of the most interesting assertions are that these machines, if properly designed and used, will result in a more just and ethical implementation of warfare. This paper will focus on these claims by looking at what has been discovered about the capability of humans to behave ethically on the battlefield, and then comparing those findings with the claims made by robotics researchers that their machines are able to behave more ethically on the battlefield than human soldiers. Throughout the paper we will explore the philosophical critique of this claim and also look at how the robots of today are impacting our ability to fight wars in a just manner.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See, for a complete overview of this technology Singer (2009).
Singer (2009, p. 125).
SPAWAR is the acronym for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center—Pacific, located in San Diego California, USA.
The Center for Ethics in Science and Technology. RoboWarfare. Is the world a better place when robots fight our wars for us? A public forum with some information archived at: http://www.ethicscenter.net/event/robowarfare-world-better-place-when-robots-fight-our-wars-us.
Storrs Hall (2007, pp. 339–442).
Arkin (2007, p. 7).
Lin et al. (2008).
See, Hickman (1990) for a more detailed argument.
Idem, p. 111.
Sullins (2009a, p. 209).
Idem, p. 210.
Sullins (2009b & forthcoming).
Walzer (1977).
Idem, p. 305.
Surgeon General’s Office (2006, pp. 34–43).
Idem, p. 34.
Ibid.
Idem, p 35.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Idem, p. 36.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Idem, p. 37.
Idem, pp. 38–39.
MacFarquhar (2009).
Cox (2006).
Surgeon General’s Office (2006).
Pike (2009).
Ibid.
Ibid.
For more detailed analysis see: Sullins (2009b) and Sullins, forthcoming.
See, Singer (2009), for more detailed case studies.
Sullins (2009b, p. 21 & forthcoming).
Sullins (2009b, p. 19).
Mir (2009).
Saber (2009).
Human Rights Watch (2009).
Ibid.
Silverstein ( 2009 ).
Some CIA drone operators have even expressed concern themselves that they are being asked to fly missions that may seem politically expedient but are actually hurting the U.S. effort to subdue the influence of Taliban forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan, see Porter (June 3, 2010).
For a more complete analysis please see, Sullins.
Singer (2009) devotes an entire chapter to this subject (Ch 6).
Singer (2009, p. 125).
Ibid.
Shachtman (2007).
Wallach and Allen (2009, p. 71).
Ibid.
Idem, p. 42.
Lin et al. (2008, p. 53).
New York Times (November, 2008).
Arkin (2009).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Idem, p. 23.
Bar-Cohen and Hansen (2009, p. 153).
Storrs Hall (2007, p. 344).
Idem, p. 346.
Kurzweil (2006, p. 389).
Storrs Hall (2007, p. 355).
Arkin (2007).
Lin et al. (2008, p. 37).
This was quoted in: Simonite (2009).
Lin et al. (2008, pp. 37–38).
For a more complete analysis of this process see Sullins (2007).
Sparrow (2007).
Idem, p. 71.
Sullins (2006).
Supra, p. 73.
Ibid.
Beavers (2009).
Ibid.
Mitri et al. (2009).
Abbreviations
- AI:
-
Artificial intelligence
- LOW:
-
Law of war
- ROE:
-
Rules of engagement
References
Anderson, M., Anderson, S. L., & Armen, C. (2004). Towards machine ethics. Association for Artificial Intelligence.
Arkin, R. (2007). Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture, U.S. Army Research Office Technical Report GIT-GVU-07-11. Retrieved from: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/online-publications/formalizationv35.pdf.
Arkin, R. (2009). Governing lethal behavior in autonomous robots. Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis.
Bar-Cohen, Y., & Hanson, D. (2009). The coming robot revolution: Expectations and fears about emerging intelligent, humanlike machines. New York: Springer.
Beavers, A. F. (2009). Between angels and animals: The question of robot ethics, or is Kantian moral agency desirable? In Association for practical and professional ethics, eighteenth annual meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 5–8. Retrieved from: http://faculty.evansville.edu/tb2/PDFs/Robot%20Ethics%20-%20APPE.pdf.
Cox, A. M. (2006). The youtube war. Time Magazine, July 19. Retrieved from: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1216501,00.html.
Dean, C. (2008). A soldier, taking orders from its ethical judgment center. The New York Times, November 24. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/science/25robots.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1.
Ditz, J. (2009a). US Drone strike kills eight civilians in South Waziristan women, children killed in series of explosions set off by air strike. Antiwar.com April 19. Retrieved from: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/04/19/us-drone-strike-kills-up-to-eight-in-south-waziristan/.
Ditz, J. (2009b). Dozens of civilians, no militant leaders, killed in US drone strike on Pakistan funeral. TTP insists only five members lost. Antiwar.com April 19. Retrieved from: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/24/at-least-35-civilians-killed-in-us-drone-strike-on-funeral/.
Dyer, W. L. (2009). Keep Autonomous Systems Under Manual Control (for now): A Veteran’s Reflection. American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, Vol. 8, Issue 2 Spring 2009. Retrieved from: http://www.apaonline.org/documents/publications/v08n2_Computers.pdf.
Floridi, L., & Sanders, J. W. (2004). On the morality of artificial agents. Minds and Machines, 14.3, 349–379.
Hickman, L. A. (1990). John Dewy’s pragmatic technology. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Human Rights Watch (2009). Israel: Misuse of drones killed civilians in Gaza. Israel should release camera footage of deadly attacks. June 30. Retrieved from: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/30/israel-misuse-drones-killed-civilians-gaza.
Kurzweil, R. (2006). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. New York: Penguin.
Lin, P., Bekey, G., & Abney, K. (2008). Autonomous military robotics: Risk, ethics, and design, funded by US Department of Defense/Office of Naval Research. Retrieved from: http://ethics.calpoly.edu/ONR_report.pdf.
MacFarquhar, N. (2009). Inquiry finds Gaza war crimes from both sides. The New York Times, September 15. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/middleeast/16gaza.html?_r=1&th&emc=th.
Mir, A. (2009). 60 drone hits kill 14 al-Qaeda men, 687 civilians. The International News, April 10, 2009. Retrieved from: http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21440.
Mitri, S., Floreano, D., & Keller, L. (2009). The evolution of information suppression in communicating robots with conflicting interests. PNAS, 106(37), 15786–15790.
Pike, J. (2009). Coming to the battlefield: Stone-cold robot killers. The Washington Post, January 4, p. B03. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202191.html.
Porter, G. (2010). CIA Drone operators oppose strikes as helping al Qaeda. IPS. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51706. Accessed June 17, 2010.
Saber, S. (2009). Afghan official claims 15 civilians killed in US strike in heart. Rawa News, February 18. Retrieved from: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/02/18/afghan-official-claims-15-civilians-killed-in-us-strike-in-herat.html.
Schachtman, N. (2007). Robot cannon kills 9, wounds 14. Wired Magazine, October 18. Retrieved from: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/.
Silverstein, K. (2009). Is secrecy on drone attacks hiding civilian casualties? Harpers Magazine, June 12. Retrieved from: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005193.
Simonite, P. (2009). Plan to teach military robots the rules of war. New Scientist, June 18. Retrieved from: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17332-plan-to-teach-military-robots-the-rules-of-war.html.
Singer, P. W. (2009). Wired for war. New York: Penguin Press HC.
Sparrow, R. (2007). Killer robots. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 24(1), 62–77. Retrieved from:www.sevenhorizons.org/docs/SparrowKillerRobots.pdf.
Storrs Hall, J. (2007). Beyond AI: Creating the conscience of the machine. New York: Prometheus Books.
Sullins, J. (2006). When is a robot a moral agent? International Journal of Information Ethics, 6, 12. Retrieved from: http://www.i-r-i-e.net/inhalt/006/006_Sullins.pdf.
Sullins, J. (2007). Friends by design: A design philosophy for personal robotics technology. In P. Kroes, P. E. Vermaas, A. Light & S. A. Moore (eds). Philosophy and Design, (pp. 143–157). Springer.
Sullins, J. (2009a). Artificial moral agency in technoethics. In R. Luppicini & R. Adell (Eds.), Handbook of research on technoethics. New York: IGI Global.
Sullins, J. (2009b). Telerobotic Weapons Systems and the Ethical Conduct of War. American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, Vol. 8, Issue 2 Spring 2009. Retrieved from: http://www.apaonline.org/documents/publications/v08n2_Computers.pdf.
Surgeon General’s Office (2006). Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT) IV Operation Iraqi Freedom 05–07, Final Report, November 17. Retrieved from: http://www.house.gov/delahunt/ptsd.pdf.
Wallach, W., & Allen, C. (2009). Moral machines: Teaching robots right from wrong. New York: Oxford University Press.
Walzer, M. (1977). Just and unjust wars (4th ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all those who read early drafts of this work and provided helpful comments. I would also like to thank Noam Cook whom, many years ago, drew my attention to the poem by Matthew Arnold that begins this paper and inspired my initial forays into the topic of automated weaponry.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sullins, J.P. RoboWarfare: can robots be more ethical than humans on the battlefield?. Ethics Inf Technol 12, 263–275 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9241-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9241-7