Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
Things that Robots Should Not Be Allowed to Do
Intelligent robots will have an enormous capacity to do good for mankind,
helping in fields as diverse as medical diagnosis, ecological safety and care
for the aged and the infirm. But some will be developed or will evolve
in ways that lead to maleficience. What capabilities, if any, should we
attempt to inhibit in the robot population? What ethical bounds should
we set for robots? What constraints should we place on the development
of robotics in order to safeguard humanity? The example of robots as
weapons is the most obvious candidate for consideration, though almost
any argument against the creation of “better” weapons is likely to fall on
deaf ears in the corridors of power and scientific funding in most capi-
tal cities. The prevailing attitude, in the U.S.A. at least, is that robots
should be employed to fight wars in ways that do not put the personnel
of their country's armed forces at direct risk. Already
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there are remote
control aircraft that can hit targets with missiles. There are unmanned
drones that survey the battlefield in real time. And there are “smart”
bombs guided by satellites. The military robot dates back to World War
I and advances in technology since then suggest that the world is close
to witnessing conflicts between machines. And what happens when both
sides in a conflict deploy robot armies?
There is a small groundswell of opinion amongst scientists that they
should not allow the robots they develop to be used as killers, but this
minority appears to be having little effect. Erik Baard explains why the
dissenters are so few in number:
Clusters of scientists shut the laboratory door on the military half a
century ago in reaction to the horrors of atomic bombs, and again
decades later in disgust with the Vietnam War. But today such
refuseniks are rare and scattered—in large part, they say, because
so many of their colleagues doing basic research are addicted to
military money. [15]
Baard highlights the $126 billion set aside in the 2004 U.S. House of
Representatives budget for federal research, $8.4 billion more than that
spent in 2003, and he quotes a Pentagon planning paper, “Joint Vi-
sion 2020”, stating that “One third of U.S. combat aircraft will be un-
manned by that year, ...Groundandsea forceswill alsorelyheavily on
robots.” As Baard suggests, with that many dollars chasing and tempting
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In 2005.
