Military Robots Research Paper

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

struggle between nations. Consequently, this topic has been highly debated for a long time due to potential Human Rights violations. This paper seeks to present how the conversation on autonomous weaponry has changed over the course of time.
In the years of 2016 and 2017, the prospect of military autonomous weaponry is debated around the world. The perspectives on this topic have changed throughout the years, because experts now state that the potential benefits of having such weaponry outweigh the risks. Despite people being unsure whether they can trust this technology to make lethal decisions, the US military expresses they are at an arms race against other nations and this technology must be made despite the potential dangers and ethical implications. In 2016, author Keith Kirkpatrick stated that autonomous weaponry is being made and pushing to ban them is futile at such a stage because “Work on autonomous weapons system has been going on for years, and experts insist expecting militaries to stop developing new weapons systems that might provide an advantage is foolhardy and unrealistic.” (28). This claim is based on bans usually only being as effective as the people that abide by it. Therefore, as technology progresses, the desirability and potential benefit of autonomous weaponry among different nations now seems to outweigh the ethical implications of their creation.
In 2017, author Sara Underwood investigated opinions of different parties involved in debating the autonomy of lethal weapons. Ronald Arkin, professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, expresses “the development of intelligent autonomous military systems that could be precise in hitting targets and, at the same time, reduce civilian casualties and property damage when compared to the performance of human fighters, whose behavior in the theatre of war can be inconsistent and waver between heroic and atrocious.” (17). Despite these potential advantages, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots works hard in trying to achieve a preemptive ban on these weapons. However, experts agree that the production of these weapons is inevitable due to various countries actively researching to better their weaponry. Consequently, we can see that these countries feel they are at an arms race to perfect this technology, disregarding the need for a mutual understanding on what limitations to establish.
Before 2010, the conversations on the autonomy of robots revolved around the establishment of ethical boundaries before actual development. In the year 2009, author Allen wrote regarding this issue where he stated “here is always the prospect that a learning system will acquire knowledge that conflicts directly with its in-built restraints. Whether an individual (ro)bot will “be conflicted” by such knowledge or use it in a way that circumvents restraints we do not know. Of concern is the possibility that a learning system could discover a way to override control mechanisms that function as built-in restraints.” (191). He warns us about the implications of developing robots that may have internal conflict once they start learning. This book states the importance of defining boundaries as avoid undesirable outcomes, especially in the areas of warfare.
During earlier years, the emphasis on preemptive measures and warning for the development of autonomous machines was more prevalent. As early as the year 2006, authors Smith, Allen and Wallach were working on defining the term “machine ethics” and “Artificial Moral Agents” (AMA). They expressed concerns with this rise in technology such as “what are appropriate criteria for determining success in creating an AMA? Who or what should be held responsible if the AMA performs actions that are harmful, destructive, or illegal? And should the project of developing AMAs be put on hold until we can settle the issues of responsibility?” (14) Hence their urgency for establishing a mutually agreed upon code of conduct for the development of such machines.
For the time periods of 2006 and 2009, the conversation regarding the development of autonomous weaponry was focused on establishing preemptive boundaries for the creation of such machines.

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

technology.
The discussion of developing autonomous weapon systems has drastically changed over the years. What used to be an important preemptive approach when debating the matter of how much autonomy should be given to a machine is now a lower order concern to present roboticists. The need for the military to perfect this technology before its potential enemies has pushed researchers to overlook what used to be major ethical concerns in previous years, and to seek not only create autonomous weapons, but weapons that can compete with their enemies. Inevitably, new weaponry slowly proves itself to be better than previous alternatives, but at what cost is a question to be answered only by time.

References
Allen, C. & Wallach, W. (2009). Moral machines: Teaching robots right from wrong. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kirkpatrick, K. (2016). Can we trust autonomous weapons? Communications of The ACM, 59(12), 27-29. doi:10.1145/3005678
Underwood, S. (2017). Potential and peril: The outlook for artificial intelligence-based autonomous weapons. Communications of The ACM, 60(6), 17-19. doi:10.1145/3077231
Wallach, W., Allen, C., & Smit, I. (2006). Why machine ethics? IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 12-17. doi:10.1109/MIS.2006.83