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Don't be a dupe/dope:Never mind that the right wants to see more ground wars and lots more dead Americans, we never again have to fight a war that way.
A look at how technology including killer robots and drones will be used in air, water and ground campaigns in future conflicts.
Video/Transcript
Lateline - ABC
More than 100 artificial intelligence entrepreneurs led by Tesla's Elon Musk in August urged the U.N. to enforce a global ban on fully automated weapons, echoing calls from activists who have warned the machines will put civilians at enormous risk. A U.N. disarmament grouping known as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will on Monday begin five days of talks on the issue in Geneva. But anything resembling a ban, or even a treaty, remains far off, said the Indian ambassador on disarmament, Amandeep Gill, who is chairing the meeting. "It would be very easy to just legislate a ban but I think ... rushing ahead in a very complex subject is not wise," he told reporters. "We are just at the starting line."
The mock killer robot was displayed in London in April 2013 during the launching of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, which calls for the ban of lethal robot weapons that would be able to select and attack targets without any human intervention.
He said the discussion, which will also include civil society and technology companies, will be partly focused on understanding the types of weapons in the pipeline. Proponents of a ban, including the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots pressure group, insist that human beings must ultimately be responsible for the final decision to kill or destroy. They argue that any weapons system that delegates the decision on an individual strike to an algorithm is by definition illegal, because computers cannot be held accountable under international humanitarian law. Gill said there was agreement that "human beings have to remain responsible for decisions that involve life and death." But, he added, there are varying opinions on the mechanics through which "human control" must govern deadly weapons.
Machines 'can't apply the law'
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is mandated to safeguard the laws of conflict, has not called for a ban, but has underscored the need to place limits on autonomous weapons. "Our bottom line is that machines can't apply the law and you can't transfer responsibility for legal decisions to machines," Neil Davison of the ICRC's arms unit told AFP. He highlighted the problematic nature of weapons that involve major variables in terms of the timing or location of an attack — for example, something that is deployed for multiple hours and programmed to strike whenever it detects an enemy target. "Where you have a degree of unpredictability or uncertainty in what's going to happen when you activate this weapons system, then you are going to start to have problems for legal compliance," he said.
Flawed meeting?
Next week's U.N. meeting will also feature wide-ranging talks on artificial intelligence, triggering criticism that the CCW was drowning itself in discussions about new technologies instead of zeroing in on the urgent issue. "There is a risk in going too broad at this moment," said Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, who is the coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. "The need is to focus on lethal autonomous weapons," she told AFP. The open letter co-signed by Musk as well as Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google's DeepMind, warned that killer robots could become "weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways." "Once this Pandora's box is opened, it will be hard to close," they said.
UN to Host Talks on Use of 'Killer Robots'
Humans took a backseat during a base exercise on Friday, in which robots cleared obstacles for manned tanks and fighting vehicles. U.S. and British troops participated in the Robotic Complex Breach Concept demonstration, during which several remote-controlled vehicles performed a task usually carried out by soldiers. "We did a robotic breach today, which has never been done before. This is a historic moment," said 1st Lt. Cody Rothschild, an officer with the 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, currently on rotation in Europe. "This is a great step forward for the Army, and for robotics." The rotational armor brigade was the main armor element during the exercise. It provided suppressing fire with M1A2 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, while remote-controlled U.K. Terrier engineering vehicles cleared a simulated minefield and bridged a tank trench.
Spc. Brandon Burton fits a chemical warfare detection device to an unmanned aerial system during the Robotic Complex Breach Concept demonstration April 6 at Grafenwoehr, Germany.
Breaching enemy obstacles is one of the most dangerous tasks on a battlefield, said British Warrant Officer Robert Kemp. "Any breach like this will have enemy weapons trained in on the area," Kemp said. "Roboticizing breach operations takes away the risk of life and makes clearing enemy obstacles much safer." This is great news for the engineers who would otherwise be on the front lines of an assault. "It keeps us safe from being out there like sitting ducks," said Pvt. Jonathon Ramirez, an engineer with 2ABCT. "As an engineer, this means a lot to me," said 1st Lt. Felix Derosin, a platoon leader with the 2ABCT. "The casualty rate for a breach is expected to be 50 percent. Being able to take our guys away from that, and have some robots go in there, is a very positive thing for us. In the future, this can save engineers' lives."
The Terriers were controlled by British soldiers several hundred feet away, inside U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Besides the Terriers, the troops used other roboticized systems, such as an unmanned M113 armored personnel carrier, to deliver walls of thick, white smoke to help cloak the breaching operation. The drill also employed several models of drones, including the Puma Unmanned Aerial System to gather intelligence and the Instant Eye UAS to search for possible chemical weapons. Although troops have been using unmanned vehicles -- especially drones -- for decades, the use of the robotic systems at the demonstration was new to most of the troops involved. "When I first came in, I didn't expect to be seeing robots doing (combat operations) like this. Being able to see it, eyes on, shows me what the future is going to be like, and it's pretty good," Derosin said.
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