UN Debates if Terminator Robots Should Be Allowed on the Battle Field
Starting today, from May 13th-16th, the United Nations in Geneva will have it’s first debate ever on the question “should autonomous killer robots be used in the battled fields by armies?”. One of the definitions of autonomous is existing or capable of existing independently. So autonomous killer robots are robots that can pick and chose a target and kill it by making decisions without any human intervention. The debates will be between two robotics experts by the names of Prof Ronald Arkin and Prof Noel Sharkey. The debate is taking place as part of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons .
This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. There are numerous non combat autonomous robots in existence today. Right now there are humanoid robots that have the capabilities of carrying on a conversations with human beings. There are cars that can drive their selves with the human driver being a passenger in a robotic vehicle. There are humanoid robots that can walk around, with impressive motor function skills. There are robot replicas of animals being able to walk around and run on it’s own and a lot more. Below are videos in chronological order of each mentioned robot.
The Samsung SGR-A1 sentry gun. Currently deployed along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the SGR-A1 is considered partially autonomous and is capable of tracking multiple moving targets.
The Taranis unmanned combat air vehicle by BAE Systems. Currently only a demonstration model, the Taranis can fly intercontinental missions and is considered autonomous.
The X-47B unmanned air combat vehicle by Northrop Grumman. Currently only a demonstration model, the X-47B can also fly intercontinental missions and is deemed autonomous.
Also DARPA’s Legged Squad Support System walks around carrying heavy cargo for the U.S military. A leaked document from NASA in conjunction with 37 other organizations, corporations and governmental bodies such as CIA, DARPA, FBI, National Research Council and more, called “Future Strategic Issues/Future Warefare [Circa 2025]” goes into detail how they want autonomous combat robots to be used and deployed by the year 2025. It speaks of intercontinental autonomous drones as well as a bunch of other crazy stuff like micro-sized robotic technology they call “smart dust” to be used as a weapon as it is dispersed in aerosol form.
It is unconfirmed if the document is authentic but the the Taranis unmanned combat intercontinental air vehicle by BAE Systems and the U.S military announcing they want to replace a percentage of human soldiers by next year makes one wonder if this leaked document is more than a hoax. The U.S wants to deploy autonomous drones to sit on the ocean floor in pods. The Council on Foreign Relations from the U.S supports this by stating it is important for people to accept weaponized autonomous systems as a reality.
As of right now the only robot used in warfare are predator drones but they involve a human picking and killing the targets. If these autonomous or artificial intelligent robots take the place of human soldiers there are several problems. The capability of a robot picking and choosing a target to kill would pose a fundamental challenge to the protection of civilians and to compliance with international human rights and humanitarian law.
According to Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: “Allowing life or death decisions to be made by machines crosses a fundamental moral line. Autonomous robots would lack human judgment and the ability to understand context. These qualities are necessary to make complex ethical choices on a dynamic battlefield, to distinguish adequately between soldiers and civilians, and to evaluate the proportionality of an attack. As a result, fully autonomous weapons would not meet the requirements of the laws of war.”
“Replacing human troops with machines could make the decision to go to war easier, which would shift the burden of armed conflict further onto civilians. The use of fully autonomous weapons would create an accountability gap as there is no clarity on who would be legally responsible for a robot’s actions: the commander, programmer, manufacturer, or robot itself? Without accountability, these parties would have less incentive to ensure robots did not endanger civilians and victims would be left unsatisfied that someone was punished for the harm they experienced.” ~ SOURCE Mines Action Canada
(MAC) is co-founder of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. MAC has worked on banning landmines, cluster bombs and explosive remnants of war and are now trying to ban autonomous killer robots through the campaign. MAC‘s Erin Hunt urged the Government of Canada to ”take action now to ensure that international law is strengthened and future-proofed against these technological developments” in a press release from the campaign.
Other articles you might be interested in:
- US Army Talking About Replacing Soldiers with Robots by 2015
- Robot Army of 2013! Terminators May Be Real?
- ‘Terminator’-Style Cube Robots Swarm And Self-Assemble
- CFR Says, “Accept Autonomous Weaponized Spy Drones in Ocean as Reality”
Follow Frankie Gotz:
Facebook.com/FrankieGotz
@FrankieGotz
Youtube.com/FrankieGotz
If you have news tips or would like Frankie to break a story on the C.A.N please e-mail him at [email protected]
FOLLOW THE CANADIAN AWARENESS NETWORK ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING ➜ Here
