Robots are increasingly being deployed for military purposes, too. Until now, these robots have mainly been remotely controlled, but they are becoming ever more autonomous on the battlefield. The construction of fully autonomous systems which can make the decision to fire of their own accord is not a question of technology these days, but rather of ethics.
It’s no longer just the stuff of fantasy to imagine robots fighting on battlefields around the world. Nowadays, they are already exploring dangerous areas, defusing mines or recovering the wounded like the robotic medic Bear does. The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot developed by Vecna Technologies was conceived to rescue injured soldiers from combat zones without risking the lives of human medics. Work is currently in progress to integrate more autonomous capabilities into the robot. “The current generation of robots is dedicated to specific missions, and most are still remotely controlled,” says Thierry Dupoux, Research and Technology (R&T) Director at French manufacturer Safran Electronics & Defense. With its eRider, the company has developed a transport platform for the military that is reminiscent of a large quad bike. The vehicle can be controlled by a soldier – or move autonomously through the terrain. “We are using a complementary approach, inspired by the auto industry, which entails the rational and gradual introduction of autonomy functions. This approach can be applied to any modern transport, intelligence or combat platform.”
Robots still need firing orders
The trend towards increasingly autonomous combat robots is even viewed critically by military forces themselves, however. Up to this point, no army in the world has deployed robots that can make a decision to shoot on their own. This also applies for the drones that are currently the object of public concern. Robots like the SGR-1 – which is manufactured by a Samsung subsidiary, armed with a machine gun and deployed by South Korea to monitor the border with the North – require an explicit order from a human to fire. The weapons on the Maars military robot developed by QinetiQ are also triggered by remote control. Yet in terms of the technology, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that combat robots will use their weapons entirely independently in the future – the decision as to whether robots should be granted this power is no longer a technical question, but a purely ethical one.
Relevant for the UN Weapons Convention
The annual conference to review the UN Weapons Convention in Geneva at the end of 2016 decided to address the topic of fully autonomous weapons that can select and attack their targets without any significant human intervention. “The governments meeting in Geneva took an important step towards stemming the development of killer robots, but there is no time to lose,” says Steve Goose, Arms Director of Human Rights Watch and Co-founder of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. “Once these weapons exist, there will be no stopping them. The time to act on a pre-emptive ban is now.”
(Picture Credits: Vecna Technologies)