Ronald ‘Captain Obvious’ Arkin’s Theory: Robots More Ethical Than Humans in Battle
The New York Times has an interesting piece on the morality and use of lethal autonomous robots on the battlefield of the future.
Here are some choice cuts from the article:
He and others say that the technology to make lethal autonomous robots is inexpensive and proliferating, and that the advent of these robots on the battlefield is only a matter of time.
“My research hypothesis is that intelligent robots can behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans currently can,” said Ronald C. Arkin
“this is not a ‘Terminator’-style science fiction but grim reality.”
In a report to the Army last year, Dr. Arkin described some of the potential benefits of autonomous fighting robots. For one thing, they can be designed without an instinct for self-preservation and, as a result, no tendency to lash out in fear. They can be built without anger or recklessness, Dr. Arkin wrote, and they can be made invulnerable to what he called “the psychological problem of ‘scenario fulfillment,’ ” which causes people to absorb new information more easily if it agrees with their pre-existing ideas.
Dr. Arkin said he could imagine a number of ways in which autonomous robot agents might be deployed as “battlefield assistants”