[Synapse elist] Warbots

[mari velonaki]

Hello everyone,

At the moment, robots are nowhere near human like intelligence.
Ethical responsibility now lies with those who deploy them -
managers/politicians - and with those who are directed to operate them -
workers/soldiers.

If some degree of "intelligence" is achieved (and it could be argued
that this has happened), there may be a parallel with the use of
other entities as agents for humans - examples: dolphins trained to
deliver mines to enemy ships, working dogs of various sorts, etc. I
would argue that ethical responsibility still lies with the human
trainer/deployer.

The problem reported in the news article seems to be an example of
unreliability - ultimately a human failure because humans created the
hardware and software in the robot.

**IF** 'human intelligence' is ever achieved by a machine (and this
is a very big if) then that machine would need to have the full set
of human attributes, and presumably it could then be held responsible
for committing a crime.

mari


Quoting Vicki <vickisowry at internode.on.net>:

> Hello all
>
> Whilst not engaging with the issues raised so far, I thought the
> following
> story raises some interesting questions.. What happens when the holy
> grail
> of robotic autonomy is achieved and deployed towards political and
> militaristic ends... Or, put another way: can robots commit war crimes?
>
> Cheers
> Vicki

  Dr Mari Velonaki
  Media art & Interface design

  Centre for Social Robotics
  Australian Centre for Field Robotics
  ARC Centre of Excellence in Autonomous Systems
  The Rose Street Building  J04
  The University of Sydney  2006, Australia
  www.acfr.usyd.edu.au
  Ph:  +61-2-9351-5847     Fax:  +61-2-9351-7474




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