Abstract
The development of autonomous, robotic weaponry is progressing rapidly. Many observers agree that banning the initiation of lethal activity by autonomous weapons is a worthy goal. Some disagree with this goal, on the grounds that robots may equal and exceed the ethical conduct of human soldiers on the battlefield. Those who seek arms-control agreements limiting the use of military robots face practical difficulties. One such difficulty concerns defining the notion of an autonomous action by a robot. Another challenge concerns how to verify and monitor the capabilities of rapidly changing technologies. In this article we describe concepts from our previous work about autonomy and ethics for robots and apply them to military robots and robot arms control. We conclude with a proposal for a first step toward limiting the deployment of autonomous weapons capable of initiating lethal force.
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Notes
The U.S. Army Science Board (2002) describes a scale of ten levels of autonomous behavior beyond Manual—Remote Control (0). At the lowest level is Simple Automation (1) followed by Automated Tasks and Functions (2), Scripted Missions (3), Semi-Automated Missions/Simple Decision Making (4), Complex Missions Specific Reasoning (5), Dynamically Mission Adaptable (6), Synergistic Multi-Mission Reasoning (7), Human-Like Autonomy in a Mixed Team (8), Autonomous Teams with Unmanned Leader/Mission Manager (9), Autonomous—Conglomerate (10). Most of the levels of autonomous behavior are based upon projected future technological capabilities. The discussion in this paper is directed at the development of systems capability of initiating lethal force at level (4) and level (5).
Arkin does propose that a human supervisor could override the ethical governor.
The U.S. military will wish to permit autonomous defensive systems such as anti-ballistic missile systems (e.g., Patriot) and ship defense systems (e.g., Phalanx).
We are grateful to Jürgen Altmann and an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
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Wallach, W., Allen, C. Framing robot arms control. Ethics Inf Technol 15, 125–135 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-012-9303-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-012-9303-0