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The Terminators: Drone Strikes Prompt MoD to Ponder Ethics of Killer Robots
Analysis of unmanned aircraft in combat urges Britain to establish policy on 'acceptable machine behaviour'
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.
A ‘harvester terminator’ in the Warner Bros film Terminator Salvation. The report warns of a ‘journey towards a Terminator-like reality’. (Image: Shooting Star/eyevine) 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 technologyThe 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.
Richard Norton-Taylor
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34 Comments so far
Show AllThe State is already an unmanned killing machine
Yeah, let's do it the old fashion way, and use strategic bombing with B-52's in massive area destruction.
So the author thinks there are morals or ethics in war? Not on this planet pal.
Yes, there are actually ethics and morals during war. To be sure they're observed in the breach of them usually, and when a nation is desperate enough they'll violate anything usually. (although, the nation most consider to be the most evil nation state ever did not use chemical weapons against other nation's soldiers. A strange thing to be sure...)
If there were no morals or ethics at all in war, then there wouldn't be agreements on POWs, or bans on things like dumdum bullets or using chemical weapons on civilians. In some ways, the attempts at making war more 'humane' are a folly. War should be a horrific act that we ought not to desire, it shouldn't be humane at all, and should be so terrible that we would seek to do nearly anything to avoid it. But...
Germany did not use poison gas because it is an unpredictable weapon. It could as easily kill ones own troops.
The Germans were about six months to a year from making an Atomic bomb. They would have use it, too.
Effective war is control homicide, the brutality of which aims for victory.
Actually, there is evidence that Hitler himself banned the use of chemical weapons and it had nothing to do with the effectiveness of the weaponry. - After all, he did get blinded by mustard gas in October of 1918.
The Germans were nowhere near building any sort of atomic bomb. Of course if you have evidence that they were indeed building one, you might wish to bring it to light. As the advancing yank forces did bring some people over from Nevada to look for the evidence in 1944 and they couldn't find any. Hitler actually stopped any weapons research that wouldn't deliver results in 6 months back in 1942.
As Sun Tsu argued, the most effective wars are ones that never get fought at all. The war we practice is just slaughtering everyone until you run out of ammo....
>>As Sun Tsu argued, the most effective wars are ones that never get fought at all. The war we practice is just slaughtering everyone until you run out of ammo<<
Or until Sun Tzu's descendants refuse to loan you any more money to build bombs used for killing innocents.
So "insurgents" "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'"?
Of course. They're casting themselves. We should have known it was somehow their fault. Those naughty, naughty insurgents.
If it looks like a duck...
Sure let's eliminate government. ALL OF IT.
You get killed and your property taken away by someone else, that is your own business.
What, other than remote killing, is the objective of anti-personnel devices so popular with the Al Qaida? Drone aircraft are a more advanced form of the same thing, a device that kills without subjecting the person operating, or planting, the device to personal risk.
None of this is very pretty. The Pakistanis are angry in part because they like to be able to afford asylum to people like Osama (not to be confused with Obama) and they don't like the U.S.'s intruding on their shameful harboring of terrorists.
You think Horace is one of your "goo-goo" democrats, don't you?
This is going to be great. I'm off to get a deck chair and some cans.
I agree absolutely, Horace (someone slap me, I'm hallucinating again).
The difference between drones and Improvised Explosive Devices is purely technological. Western forces are morally identical to the people they condemn as terrorists.
Thing is, people creating IEDs often feel they have no other choice but to use force, and they're often right about it, so there is imo a rather large difference. Most terrorism happens, afaik, when people simply have no choice in making themselves heard against much higher forms of organised violence. So actually the West is way, way below insurgents, on the same (or worse, morally) level than Al Qaeda - considering how much of the greatest things civilisation has invented and how much energy, resources, knowledge goes into making war on really, really poor countries. Western civilisation can do so much, and uses it for doing so much evil, I think it's betraying its promises and the people who built it. Or maybe it's just true to them, which is much worse.
I don't know, but imo using so much wealth and knowledge for control and destruction is much more evil than people creating IEDs to blow up immediate enemies.
Yeah, I wasn't sure about that "identical", but it's nice to hear Horace making the comparison.
Still not sure that's what he meant. Or meant to mean.
Asimov worked this all out in his science fiction writings. Ie what are the rules for robots to follow?
Maybe more pertinent is Hal from the movie "2001". Can robots save us from ourselves? Unless we have already been taken over by the pod people.
there is an old line...
I've seen that movie, too...
Terminator 2 is one of the all-time greats...
if we all know the horrors that lie down this road, why do we give credence to the dialogue justifying?
the reasons in favor of robotic death machines, no matter how logical they may sound, are fallacious...
the future, if left to these people, is nothing but exponential toxicity and violent control...
we must battle for another future...not against these machines, but against those who pursue their production...
how many drones are required to patrol the thousands of square miles of an evacuated hot zone, including the deserted cities of millions? none...
like building a network of drones to patrol Mars...what's the point?
profit...
Frankly, I don't see much here to warrant all the moralistic sound and fury about pondering "the ethics of killer robots..... to establish policy on 'acceptable machine behaviour'" in the age of drone warfare.
What is morally acceptable for a human pilot/bombadier in an aircraft is moral for a drone and the human beings on the ground in control of that robotic device. What is morally unacceptable (or criminal) for a human pilot/bombadier in an aircraft above the target is immoral and illegal when carried out by a remote control robotic device from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
What is supposed to be so bloody complicated about this newfangled moral conundrum? Seems very simple to me.
Bill from Saginaw
"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"
Why would any on accept such statements without utter derision?
Of course they are combatants and could be targeted. Along with any so called Diplomatic persons(Valerie Plame).
No "AmerIcan" should feel safe overseas, unless surrounded by their military. They should be shot at every opportunity merely on the suspicion of being a CIA agent.
If you accept the standard of killing "Suspected Insurgents"
This is not the world I wish to live in.
spinel -
That was exactly my reaction to these two bizarre inquiries couched as questions of ethics or morality. Derision.
Of course the drone operator "pilot" who punches out after his or her shift, walking across the WalMart parking lot, is fair game for those who have been on the receiving end of a Hellfire strike on the other side of the world from a drone. Generals (and "officials") hunkered down in command headquarters bunkers are always "remote warriors.....fighting from the barracks." They are also fair game (in fact, high value targets) too. The practical problem is simply the technological hurdle of reprisal.
Of course the intended psychological effect upon remote operators dispensing death from devices called Reapers and Predators, thousands of miles away seated comfortably fondling joysticks in front of computer screens, is fully understood. The whole point of the exercise is to insulate and desensitize these remote hi tech warriors from the moral dimension of killing people on command, in conformity with the applicable rules of engagement, as dutiful human cogs in the war machine. Make it game-like, surreal, just another bug splat. All in a day's work.
I'm glad to see the Brits are at least mulling over moral/ethical issues involving drones. They just aren't asking the important questions yet.
Bill from Saginaw
[ a legitimate target ]
That is a strange thing, if you judge by the standards of what the west is willing to do than a 'legitimate target', is anyone, or thing, capable of supporting your enemies. That includes, civilian concentrations like cities, towns, villages and hamlets or farms; structures like dams, factories, electrical plants, bridges, sewage treatment plants, schools (complete with schoolchildren of course), hospitals, morgues, houses, apartment buildings, office buildings (including any tall ones made of steel and concrete), port facilities, etc; it includes all farm animals, from horses to chickens and everything else, any human of any age (although for the anti-choice crowd, the armies never kill fetus') or condition.
Hmmmmnnn have I missed anything?
what are the ethics of killer robotic policemen?
if a man killing remotely in the name of the military is a legitimate target (for who? the little brother of the young girl just senselessly slaughtered in the foreign street by Mr. RC Macho?), the man doing the same for my local police would be a legitimate target for...
these things are not just for 'others', you know...
they are for you and I, as well...
"Reaper is operated by RAF personnel based at Creech in Nevada"
Sounds like a terror cell is operating out of Nevada. Foreign fighters are trained in the US and send death from above to far away lands via remote detonators.
All drone attacks are cowardly, state sponsored terrorism.
"Do we fully understand the psychological effects on remote operators of conducting war at a distance?" How disconnected does a person have to be to make this argument or even care when there is not even remotely (pun) a similar concern for the psychological effects on the real people being blown to pieces by these remote operators? Even Orwell couldn't imagine how screwy this was going to get. Oh, and stay tuned for the Christian crusaders doing God's work to rid the world of anyone not prostrating to Jesus' war machine. After all, it's more important to understand the psychological effects on our Hero warriors and those poor CEOs at home when they are forced to separate these barbarians from their bodies in order to take their stuff. Our heroes would feel much better if those brown people would just give up their stuff without a fight.
The drones are operated from remote sites including upper New York state. Those who operate them are part of the killing machine as are all who work in the military industries - contractors, sub contractors in big cities and small towns across the US. Include also, the colleges and universities where the technology is researched.
Also complicit are ALL who support the dem/repub party. It is the Congress that finances all of this. It is the voter who enables the Congress.
The bottom line is that there is no ethical way to kill another human. Drones and other remote robotics are the weapons of choice of only the most cowardly nations on earth. Think about that when you attend the parades and celebrations and flag waving ceremonies.
Well, the big corporations run the state and the military.
The corporations run the Courts which gave them all the rights of citizens with money as free speech.
All that is left is to give robots the rights of corporations too and then hope that they turn on their controllers.
Only the robots can save us now... Vote Robot.
I think everyone has been voting robotically since at least the death of JFK.
These days, money kills.
Until we put money in jail for murder, why would money not kill? Money has no conscience. It doesn't share our blood. Money will never fall in love with its human enemy and produce children, as humans might do.
Money votes. In fact, money decides our elections. It's we, the people, that don't decide the elections. The President is always pro-money, as is the Congress. A society that isn't pro-money is usually invaded by money. In this way, money always tries to reach its societal nirvana, worldwide monopoly.
I would laugh, if it were not so sick and sad.
To the US and its satellites, any person or group that objects to the occupation of their country by the US automatically becomes classified as a "terrorist or terrorist group" and are liable to death, arrest, torture, disappearance.
The Holy Qur'an forbids war except in self defense. It forbids war on women, children, the elderly. Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, now Libya, and the list keeps growing. All of these people are facing an enormously powerful enemy that has invaded their country, that indiscriminately kills women, children, the elderly, that destroys towns and villages, and now can strike without warning from high altitude drones.
Instead of calling them "terrorists" could they not be considered "Freedom Fighters" battling against enormous odds to rid their country of a vicious invader? Wouldn't you do the same thing if the coin were reversed?
We do not create terrorists, we create freedom fighters. The more we invade, the more friends, wives, lovers, children we kill, the more freedom fighters we create.
Our Ministry of Propaganda calls them terrorists and we believe them, to our everlasting shame.
This is just an aside: None of these things are even remotely robots. How did we get the point of calling all of these remotely controlled pieces of machinery, robots? The terminator robots refereed to in this piece are truly autonomous robots; acquiring targets for destruction...in fictional movie land. Today I was watching NHK news and they referred to a remote controlled vehicle that was trying to look inside the nuclear reactor, as a "robot"... not. The device couldn't even get into the room because there was stuff on the floor. Maybe they should use that over hyped Honda robot that is all over YouTube, it can walk! Put a gun in that thing and you have something coming a little closer to an actual robot for war.
That's because they use the word in the technical sense and you use it in the sci-fi movie sense :-D
This madness makes suicide bombers look respectable.
If we use killing machines others can use killing machines. This is MADNESS.
If we DON'T use killing machines, others can use killing machines anyway. This is reality. Once this kind of technology is out of the bottle, SOMEONE is going to use it, whether we do or not.