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back to article Work for the military? Don't be evil, says ethicist

Engineers should refuse to work on killer robots, says Australian ethicist Dr Robert Sparrow. Sparrow's definition of a killer robot includes the Predator drone, a weapon he finds objectionable because “Military robots are making it easier for governments to start wars, thinking that they won't incur any casualties on their …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ...or more importantly learn to whack ethicists on crack

    If the philosophers could make everything in the world right and eliminate all evil, we wouldn't need drones or robots or other devices that save many human lives while taking out the trash.

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  2. TkH11

    Morality

    I don't have any such concerns over the morality, working on MoD projects has provided me with some of my best experience and taught me a lot about how to design, develop systems properly.

    Admittedly, the systems I've developed aren't really designed to kill people. If I wasn't doing it, somebody else is going to do it, all that will happen, in the event many of us engineers turn down the work, the salaries will increase according to the supply and demand principle and somebody is eventually going to take the job, so the job still gets done and the weapon systems are still developed; so the way I see it, by adopting an 'ethical' standpoint it doesn't achieve anything and you just miss out on some valuable and great career building experiences.

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  3. naive

    Maybe the army will make computers useful

    If the predictions in "the singularity is near" from Raymond Kurzweil are true, then this could be an useful development. Once billions start pouring into the development of powerful robots that can take unassisted combat decisions, other applications will benefit from this too. Maybe new computer products will then be devices that can do something more then just display square tiles in all colours and send messages. If intelligent drones and Terminator type robots can be built in sufficient quantities, advanced societies finally can win guerrilla wars in under developed countries and provide enough policing capacity to keep our cities safe.

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  4. CmdrX3
    Mushroom

    Give me robots any day

    I would rather it was robots getting killed in war than our troops. It may not reduce deaths on the enemy front, but it sure as hell reduces them on ours. As General Patton once very wisely said.

    "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his"

    Now I'm not exactly a lover of war, but if we are going to be in one, then I'm damn sure I want to make sure we are on the winning side of it.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Give me robots any day

      We don't have "any" real wars, and these devices aren't intended for them.

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  5. Joe Pineapples
    Terminator

    As a famous robot sniper

    One shot from me saved the planet from the nasy Volgans.

    That is all.

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    1. Joe Pineapples
      Reply Icon

      Re: As a famous robot sniper

      Oh, and I stopped Mek-Quake

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  6. Sailfish

    Si vis pacem, para bellum

    "If you wish for peace, prepare for war"

    No less true today than it was in Medieval Ages.

    Philosophers today are weenies.

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  7. Trollslayer
    Flame

    For someone so mart he seems pretty dumb

    Let me give you an opposing exmaple from Libya.

    Gaddafi had an awful lot of air defences particularly missiles and these needed to be taken out to prevent aircrew casualties so the aircrew could take out the reinforced ammo dumps, thus reducing the mercenaries ability to slaughter civilians.

    A drone was sent ot take out an anti-aircraft missile site and theoperators found it was in a built up area and a couple of kids were playing beside it.

    Since drones have a long flying time - no crew or related arour weight - they put it in a parking orbit for ten mibutes, keeping an eye on the target .

    Kids went ot play somewhere else then the operators brought the drone back in, fired a small missile and took that site out without ANY casualties.

    But hey, let this guy sit in his ivory tower instead. As with many 'experts' he isn't one.

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  8. Glen Turner 666

    Drones are fine

    I've worked for a military contractor. Basically, you end up trusting that the government will use your tools well, just as people in the military trust that the government will put them in harm's way for a worthwhile cause. It's impossible to say in advance if you yourself might agree about some future conflict-- when my weapons were used in East Timor against a group of military thugs who were killing people for fun I couldn't have been happier.

    Some projects obviously carry more ethical issues than others, and all the firms I worked for were open in their acknowledgement of that and were supportive of individual's decisions not to work on particular projects on ethical grounds. This was not only generosity, it was a government requirement for the access to projects in the secret and above classifications, so as to minmise the risk of betrayal.

    The ethical question about drones is simple enough: in a just war is it wrong for a just participant to use that weapon. You can certainly make that case for nuclear weapons, for some types of land mines, and for some finishings of small bombs (making them look like toys, etc). I can't see that you can make the case for drones.

    This isn;t to say that drones have no ethical issues. But that the issues are far more subtle than those presented by the ethicist. For example, automatic tracking and fire raises the potential for firing on civilians, and yet allows the drone to engage an enemy under cover.

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