– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
They have no fear, they never tire, they are not upset when the soldier next to them gets blown to pieces. Their morale doesn’t suffer by having to do, again and again, the jobs known in the military as the Three Ds - dull, dirty and dangerous.
They are military robots and their rapidly increasing numbers and growing sophistication may herald the end of thousands of years of human monopoly on fighting war. “Science fiction is moving to the battlefield. The future is upon us,” as Brookings scholar Peter Singer put it to a conference of experts at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania this month.
Singer just published Wired For War - the Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, a book that traces the rise of the machines and predicts that in future wars they will not only play greater roles in executing missions but also in planning them.
Numbers reflect the explosive growth of robotic systems. The U.S. forces that stormed into Iraq in 2003 had no robots on the ground. There were none in Afghanistan either. Now those two wars are fought with the help of an estimated 12,000 ground-based robots and 7,000 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the technical term for drone, or robotic aircraft.
Ground-based robots in Iraq have saved hundreds of lives in Iraq, defusing improvised explosive devices, which account for more than 40 percent of U.S. casualties. The first armed robot was deployed in Iraq in 2007 and it is as lethal as its acronym is long: Special Weapons Observation Remote Reconnaissance Direct Action System (SWORDS). Its mounted M249 machinegun can hit a target more than 3,000 feet away with pin-point precision.
From the air, the best-known UAV, the Predator, has killed dozens of insurgent leaders - as well as scores of civilians whose death has prompted protests both from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Predators are flown by operators sitting in front of television monitors in cubicles at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, 8,000 miles from Afghanistan and Taliban sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. The cubicle pilots in Nevada run no physical risks whatever, a novelty for men engaged in war.
TECHNOLOGY RUNS AHEAD OF ETHICS
Reducing risk, and casualties, is at the heart of the drive for more and better robots. Ultimately, that means “fully autonomous engagement without human intervention,” according to an Army communication to robot designers. In other words, computer programs, not a remote human operator, would decide when to open fire. What worries some experts is that technology is running ahead of deliberations of ethical and legal questions.
Robotics research and development in the U.S. received a big push from Congress in 2001, when it set two ambitious goals: by 2010, a third of the country’s long-range attack aircraft should be unmanned; and by 2015 one third of America’s ground combat vehicles. Neither goal is likely to be met but the deadline pushed non-technological considerations to the sidelines.
A recent study prepared for the Office of Naval Research by a team from the California Polytechnic State University said that robot ethics had not received the attention it deserved because of a “rush to market” mentality and the “common misconception” that robots will do only what they have been programmed to do.
“Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to the time when computers were simpler and their programs could be written and understood by a single person,” the study says. “Now programs with millions of lines of code are written by teams of programmers, none of whom knows the entire program; hence, no individual can predict the effect of a given command with absolute certainty since portions of programs may interact in unexpected, untested ways.”
That’s what might have happened during an exercise in South Africa in 2007, when a robot anti-aircraft gun sprayed hundreds of rounds of cannon shell around its position, killing nine soldiers and injuring 14.
Beyond isolated accidents, there are deeper problems that have yet to be solved. How do you get a robot to tell an insurgent from an innocent? Can you program the Laws of War and the Rules of Engagement into a robot? Can you imbue a robot with his country’s culture? If something goes wrong, resulting in the death of civilians, who will be held responsible?
The robot’s manufacturer? The designers? Software programmers? The commanding officer in whose unit the robot operates? Or the U.S. president who in some cases authorizes attacks? (Barack Obama has given the green light to a string of Predator strikes into Pakistan).
While the United States has deployed more military robots - on land, in the air and at sea - than any other country, it is not alone in building them. More than 40 countries, including potential adversaries such as China, are working on robotics technology. Which leaves one to wonder how the ability to send large numbers of robots, and fewer soldiers, to war will affect political decisions on force versus diplomacy.
You need to be an optimist to think that political leaders will opt for negotiation over war once combat casualties come home not in flag-decked coffins but in packing crates destined for the robot repair shop.
Robots can aid and assist in combat, therefore relieving or helping certain aspects of a soldiers duty. But, robotics technology will never get to a point to replace soldiers. Mankind as a whole has always used tools and weapons as a means of fighting, and robots are just another level of weaponry that we are using. Robots are programmed to do what the programmer wants it to do. A human programmed it to do it; the concept of AI is of huge debate, but since true AI is near impossible to achieve (at least by current technology), and even pseudo-AI isn't really AI (still only programmed by humans) I don't see any robot replacing a good soldier with the instinct and the intuition to fight in real combat, anytime soon.
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Robot warriors are only as dangerous as the amount of ammunition you give them, so, limit the ammo.
Well, the war has simple goals : either killing people either taking ressources (including land) from people (who actually need it to survive so would risk their lives for it), so when the robots will end fighting each others, if they actually do (hackers gonna be next special ops in such wars) I would bet the remainings of the winning side would attack people.. It takes more than a loss of canned soldiers to give up what is precious, and let’s face it, if you do not want the loser to be able to retaliate u need to do more than destroying robots..
So I do not mean robots will not fight each others one day, but do not expect to make the war like a video game, it will only be a preliminar before u lose some of those u love : being killed by a machine or a human leads to the same path.
Concerning the the costs of infrastructure destruction, power is more important than money for our leaders and i do not mention ideological or religion wars where the money counts only as a way to have weapons and not as a goal.
There have been no world wars since the advent of the A-bomb. When war means mutually assured destruction, people avoid it. At the other end of the spectrum, when war becomes painless for one party, that party will hardly hesitate to use its capability in times of conflict.
On a slightly different note, I believe that after the first few successful robot-enabled bank robberies and/or terrorist attacks, private robots operating in public venues will become highly regulated if not entirely outlawed. (Such regulation may not be entirely successful.) It’s the criminals in our own midst we better start worrying about now, not so much the robot warriors duking it out in the Afghanistan’s caves and other conventional battlefields.
Two words, or rather the name of one author: Isaac Asimov.
Whereas technological progress on how to attack in the battle are largely on track, what is missing is the practical management strategy to win the war. If Iraq war is any guide, the biggest constraints on winning the war are well documented, namely:
1. Willingness of armed personnel to engage in an activity that compromises their stated beliefs. The prime consideration is the feedback available to them via satellite mobile phones to cross check the tune their direct military bosses are singing and that espoused by the media world wide. In historical terms, those engaged in direct battle were either kept in sufficient misinformation about the reason why they were there at all and/or what risk elements they were exposed to or the aftermath of previous actions undertaken by them.This puts commanders in charge in a very difficult situation: how to keep the morale, discipline and overall military aims intact over the time of engagement
thus maximizing the possibilities of winning the war.
2.An even more important aspect is also laid bare why Iraq war could not be contained well within its stated budget and aim spectrum. Reason is the unavailability of sufficient land troops to man the territory won in single battles. This kept on bursting the action plans throughout the war, ultimately effecting the overall results.
3. A cheaper and far more effective method of conducting the war is simply blocking all disadvantageous access of any kind and even at the cost of having to indulge in unethical methodologies, making sure the desired outcomes are not effected in any way. Much different than the practices that were followed in successful campaigns like WW2, currently engaged troops expect to follow ethical practices as a minimum to stay involved: something that looks very good on paper but almost completely impractical when lives are at risk.
4. Lastly, its the justification of going to the war: political realities do not allow conveying to the troops why their services are required, without giving away the aims to be achieved by the governments concerned (did someone say controlling oil assets/trade routes control against winning democracy for Iraqians?)
History tells us that unless a direct advantage can be brought to those directly risking their lives, nothing can be forced in the long run. Enticement has to include a sharp upswing in their fortunes if they succeed. Nothing of that sort would be there, whether the dreaded UAV’s bring home the bacon or it is won by the dint of life risking undertaken by those responsible for manning the won over territory.
And where are that many troops in the first place to do the job? Recruitment lines are getting shorter by the day. But the need is to supply enough armed troops to man the territory, does not matter how one does it.
If robotic weapons are completely autonomous or can act without prior human go-ahead for specific tasks, I think it’s a certainty that we’ll have more cases of “undesired” behavior. When the code base gets large enough, it’s a practical impossibility to test all possible input combinations and map them to output actions. We can’t do it in computer operating systems and we can’t do it in robotic warfare.
We can’t always predict human behavior either so it’s just another exercise in wanting to kill or disable the enemy without taking any casualties on our side and the same will be true of enemy machines. Several sci-fi stories have been written about this “problem” including one story in the venerable Star Trek TV series where whole populations are destroyed based on the “winner” of a computer contest. A system designed to eliminate the costs of infrastructure destruction since it was just too costly to wage the wars conventionally.
Warfare, whether waged by humans or human designed machines, is simply the nature of the most prolific predator ever to evolve on earth and risks to “our” side and the innocents will never be eliminated. Risk versus gain is all that counts.
[...] awareness, THEY will be saying the same thing about the tools they thought they could control. The Great Debate Debate Archive Killer robots and a revolution in warfare | The Great Debate | __________________ When your house is filled with little red dots, don’t count on too many [...]
This is very interesting and all…but why doesn’t anyone ask the question as to why we, as a species, put so much effort into improving the art of war? Why don’t we purse other things (such as: health, welfare, self-improvement, growth - spiritual, emotional & mental) with equal or greater vigor? Is it possible man is destined to destroy himself, his planet and his better nature? Just some final food for thought: but for just a fraction of what we spend on this B.S. we could have decent quality healthcare for every American man, woman & child.
Now the rich nations can be comfortable and immune from critics at home while investing poorer nations.
Their citizens tend to be less inclined to oppose when their dearest is not in harm’s way.
And when we do blow up the unintended, who is there to point to as the culprit, when the faceless activates the Laser-smelling Missile following the invisible beam directed by the plastic aviator?
I suppose it might make negotiation redundant when you can remote-control a negative situation.
If they cannot counter you then you needn’t listen to their arguments!
This computer response system, without a controller person issuing the strike, reminds me of the berserk computer-driven trading schemes which have plagued Wall Street for quite a while now. — Shoot-to-kill decisions should not be made by a programmed robot. — Somebody has been watching too many sci-fi movies.
If the robots were gradually, over time, programmed to destroy only enemy robots, while avoiding any harm to humans, we might finally hope to overcome the very worst inherited characteristic of human beings: the desire (or is it an instinct?) to wage war.
These drones should be used to fight pirates off the coast in Somalia. Very simply, shoot a missile and sink the mother ship and let the pirates make their way home in their dinghies. How many mother ships would have to be sunk before no one would be willing to volunteer to highjack ships??? I predict (3) three.
Respectfully,
Sig Gergens
Cruise missile A is built for defense. Cruise Missile A is stolen by radical sect and used to kill innocents. Both the radical sect, and the country that originally built a weapon to be used to kill, are at fault. To make a “killer” robot and have it go “haywire”, does not displace the fault that a country infact, made a robot for the intent to kill. All because the “robot” was indifferent towards what or who it killed, the blame falls squarely on the one who ordered the robot produced, and ordered the robot to be used. You can also try to court-martial the robot if you want.
What happens when two enemy UAVs encounter each other? What happens in 50 years when those UAVs are actually capable of evading and fighting each other? Is it a declaration of war to kill another countries unmanned drone with their own unmanned drone? Or will it just be laughed off? Jolly good joke, nothing need be done?
The weak point of a robot is the communications system linking it to human users or possibly a large computer stationary system. If we break the link and let robots respond on their own, then we would have many problems. So I see the value of robots as human extensions. It is probably a good investment, too. There are lots of spin-off industries that can emerge from this. People are getting elderly, for instance. We need better robotic mobility devices. There are visually impaired people. Robotics can help us develop equipment to convert graphical information into maybe skin sensation. This is an excellent field to focus our military developments.
I see robot development for warfare by nations no different from IED development by insurgents. Best if nations and people embrace change since there is no turning back as far as technology development is concerned.
“Robot Ethics” is a spurious argument put forth by people who want to imagine robots as radically different from humans and manned vehicles. A Predator is a weapons delivery platform controlled by a human, the same as every other aircraft we operate. Ultimately, there is always a person behind every robotic system the US military operates, and ultimately America is responsible for their actions.
The CalPoly study claiming that robots are unpredictable is an embarrassment to their institution; robots may be complex, but they do everything for a reason, and confusing complex programming with irrational behavior is like believing in alchemy.
What we fail to realize is that automated weapons have been in operation ever since the proximity fuze was designed during World War II. Since then they have gotten dramatically smarter and more capable, but every behavior of a weapon was caused by a human controller, and it is ridiculous to think otherwise.
What if the robots rise against the humans and hook up humans to life support systems and generate an ideal world in our minds? Will this end the global recession, Somali pirating, genocide and starvation in Africa and radical Islamic terror?
This dodges two questions, first “What are the ethics of war?” and two “Do ethics trump ‘winning’?” (I know that winning is poorly defined in most of these wars these days).
I completely disagree that “one engineer cannot know the whole program.” This is false on its face, but its also true that too many people see the ineptitude of someone like Microsoft’s attempt at an operating system or a Blizzard’s attempt at a video game and thing ‘oh these things are so complicated its impossible to get them correct.’ and that isn’t true. If it were true then it would be impossible to drive your car (3.8 million lines of code according to BMW) or fly in a passenger plane (10 million lines of code in the avionics estimated by Airbus). Engineering reliable software is not an art, its a science and its fairly well known.
So that leaves us with the ’so what’ defense? What have robots really changed? Well one they have reduced casualties on the robot operator side so you could argue they have lowered the threshold before someone might engage in a war or war like activities. Second, autonomous robots with lethal action capability will be just as dangerous as mine fields were, and harder to dispose of. And third, they offer a huge loophole when it comes to assassination and other covert operations because if they are widely available how do you prove who was commanding them?
The bottom line is that technology changes warfare. Military technology seems to lag behind civilian technology by 5 - 10 years. The change in computers and capability in the last 10 years has been dramatic, expect dramatic changes in the military’s use of that technology.
The metal sword changed combat. Armor changed combat. Tanks changed combat. Planes changed combat. Computers changed combat. More and more from the moment man picked up a rock and killed his neighbor we have been trying to distance ourselves from the act of killing. Once upon a time it was all hand to hand combat. Today we can sit in our chair far away and send a Predator into combat and engage targets. I doubt that robots will replace boots on the ground anytime soon. Let’s face it a foot soldier is way cheaper than a sophisticated robot that could actually replace him functionally. However, drone fighters and bombers and attack helicopters are near. It is a large investment to train pilots and taking the human out of the plane ups its ability to maneuver. Drone combat ships are also near. If we can control the cruise missiles that blasted Bagdad from a base in Omaha, planes and ships should be a breeze. Rescue vehicles are being tested now that will be charged with removing the wounded and the dead. As for your morals, war has few. Those civilians killed by the Predator strikes were not done by some AI. That fire order came from a person. It is the nature of the battle we face in places like the Middle East that the combatants will be mingled with non-combatants. If the non-combatants do not leave the areas where combatants congregate they take the risk of being caught up in the fire. And that occurs whether it is a Predator or infantry doing the firing. In my opinion our society’s moral expectations have exceeded our militaries capabilities. Robots will not fix this inequity.