Robots As Weapons

This article is about the ethical issues on the field of lethal autonomous weapon systems, or killer robots. These machines could roam a battlefield, on the ground or in the air, picking their own targets and then shredding them with cannon fire, or blowing them up with missiles, without any human intervention. It is said that this technology is 20 plus years away but there are similar systems from a German automated system for defending bases in Afghanistan, and a robot by South Korea in the demilitarized zone. These systems rely on a human approving the computer’s actions, but at a speed which excludes the possibility of consideration. There is as little as half a second in which to press or not to press the lethal button. Half a second is just inside the norm of reaction times, but military aircraft are routinely built to be so maneuverable that the human nervous system cannot react quickly enough to make the constant corrections necessary to keep them in the air. It is said that in some way this is an ethical advantage because machines cannot feel hate and they cannot lie. Robots are autonomous but they cannot be morally responsible as humans. 

Reference:

The Guardian. (2015, April). The Guardian view on robots as weapons: the human factor. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/guardian-view-on-killer-robots-lethal-autonomous-weapons-systems