Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Robots with guns

Scientists are seriously discussing giving robots guns. They want to program robots to be soldiers in battlefields.

While I think it's good to have an ethical discussion about the possibility of making these choices, I think we're nowhere near having battlefield robots. It's not even on the horizon. Robots can only be programmed with simple, unambiguous tasks. Ethical rules won't work. How on earth do they expect to be able to program a computer to distinguish a civilian from a combatant if our soldiers have trouble figuring it out?

Fundamentally, even the best AI follows a simple set of rules. Any enemy would be able to eventually figure out the rules, and get the robots to not fire upon them. If the robots are programmed to not fire upon unarmed people, they would simply throw down their weapons when the robot approaches. And use cell phones to trigger detonators to destroy the robot, because you can't shoot people for carrying a cell phone. If you set aside mosques and schools as safe zones that it's unethical to shoot at, soldiers will take up positions in mosques and schools, and fire away at robots unable to shoot back.

War is hell. It's a morass of chaos and violence - the worst possible circumstance to try to use a robot. While the idea of a robotic mule to carry equipment, supplies and even wounded soldiers makes sense, giving robots autonomy and weapons is just dumb.

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