Who is Responsible for Military Robots’ Lethal Actions? Essay

I) Introduction Robotic technology has enabled the US military to use autonomous robots (or unmanned systems, UMS) in modern warfare. In the war with Iraq, the US military sent 12000 ground robots at the end of 2008 (P. W. Singer). One of the most popular robots used in Iraq is the iRobot Packbot, an unmanned ground vehicle, which is capable of detecting and destroying improvised explosive devices. Exploiting robots in warfare can save lives of many human soldiers. Moreover, robots are faster, have longer endurance, high precision and immunity to chemical and biological weapons (Ronald Arkin).In the National Defense Act of 2001 the U.S. Congress, obviously impressed by the potential of robots saving lives on the battlefield, established the requirement for one-third of the ground vehicles and one-third of the deep-strike aircraft in the military to be robotic within the decade. Consequently, in the â€Å"Fiscal Year 2009-2034 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap† of the office of the secretary of defense showed the four categories that will be focused on are reconnaissance and surveillance, target identification and designation, counter-mine and explosive ordnance disposal, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear detection (Stew Magnuson). As for now, most of the robot soldiers in the field are not fully autonomy. They are controlled by human soldier operators. However, the pressure of wars and the superior advantage of robots which can make decisions on their own will shift the interest in developing autonomous robots. In battle field, the time to decide whether or not to take action is too short that it would be impractical that a robot must send a signal to an operator and wait for the permission to fire (Ronald Arkin)... ...gner, A.R., and Duncan, B., â€Å"Responsibility and Lethality for Unmanned Systems: Ethical Pre-Mission Responsibility Advisement†. GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-09-01, GVU Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. Asaro, P. M., â€Å"Robots and Responsibility from a Legal Perspective†. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Roma, Italy. April 2007. Magnuson, S., â€Å" Robo Ethics†. National Defense (Volume 94, Issue 672, Nov 2009), 28-29. Singer, P. W., â€Å"Military Robots and the Laws of War†. New Atlantic: A Journal of Technology & Society (Volume 23, Winter 2009), 25-45. Sparrow, R., â€Å"Building a Better WarBot: Ethical Issues in the Design of Unmanned Systems for Military Applications†. Science and Engineering Ethics (Volume 15, Number 2 / June, 2009), 169-187. Sparrow, R., â€Å"Killer Robots†. Journal of Applied Philosophy , Vol. 24, No. 1, 2006.