Military Robots Research Paper

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Changes in Perspectives on Autonomy of Military Robots The concept of weaponized autonomous robots is heavily debated due to the ethical implications their existence poses. Over the years, the stance on how to approach such a topic has drastically changed with the need to create newer weapons for the military to compete with potential threats from other nations. As this paper will discuss, what used to be a precautionary approach when discussing robot autonomy has now taken a backseat to the rushed development of these weapons. The research of this technology has now produced an arms race, as predicted by writers from the past who warned us about the issues that may rise from creating such weapons before establishing a mutually agreed upon code of conduct. Being that there were no real boundaries on this type of technology in the pre-2010 era, many researchers sought to establish guidelines. But their attempts seemed to have fallen on deaf ears when many experts today agree that such weaponry inevitably under production due to the power …show more content…

They expressed that creating autonomous robots before carefully considering what is right and wrong and reaching a consensus on an acceptable code of conduct may lead to serious consequences in the future. This differs greatly from what is expressed in the more recent years of 2016 and 2017, where the development of autonomous weaponry is already underway, and unintended consequences are perceived as possible inconveniences by some military officials. Before 2010, the argument was that if we cannot clearly define the ethical limitations of these robots, we should not begin to create them. But for 2016-2017, the approach seems to be to address ethics after development, but it must not cease due to nations competing on developing this

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