Robots In War: Issues Of Risk And Ethics

Abstract

War robots clearly hold tremendous advantages--from saving the lives of our own soldiers, to safely defusing roadside bombs, to operating in inaccessible and dangerous environments such as mountainside caves and underwater. Without emotions and other liabilities on the battlefield, they could conduct warfare more ethically and effectively than human soldiers who are susceptible to overreactions, anger, vengeance, fatigue, low morale, and so on. But the use of robots, especially autonomous ones, raises a host of ethical and risk issues. This paper offers a survey of such emerging issues in this new but rapidly advancing area of technology.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA541977

Entities

People

  • George Bekey
  • Keith Abney
  • Patrick Lin

Organizations

  • United States Naval Academy

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Autonomous Systems
  • Autonomous Weapons
  • Casualties
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Improvised Explosive Devices
  • Iraqi-War
  • National Security
  • New York
  • United States Naval Academy
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Unmanned Systems
  • Unmanned Vehicles
  • Warfare
  • Weapons

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Autonomous Systems
  • AI & ML - DoD AI Strategy
  • Autonomy