Another Case against
Killer Robots
Robo-Philosophy 2014
Aarhus University
Minao Kukita
School of Information Science
Nagoya University, Japan

Background• Increasing concern about lethal autonomous roboticweapons.
• Two opposing views about their ethical nature.
Autonomous
weapons areinhumane.

It is rather
ethical touse them.

Questions• Is there anything particularly unethical about lethal
autonomous weapons, compared to, for example, drones
or missiles?
• More generally, is there any reason against any
autonomous (or even automatic) killing machines, notonly against autonomous weapons used in war?

Goal
• To articulate a reason against killer robots, including
lethal autonomous weapons.

Drones equal War Crimes

http://upstatedroneaction.org/index.html

Weapons with Greater Autonomy

http://www.hrw.org/node/111291/section/4

Cases for lethal robotic weapons• It is possible to make robots who will observe the Laws ofWar.
• Robots can be more ethical than human because they are
not disturbed by emotions like fear, hatred etc.
• To protect people’s lives is a duty of a nation, and so it is
ethically bad if a nation exposes it’s soldiers to
unnecessary risks by not using robots.

Ronald Arkin

R. ArkinMoral competence can be roughly thought about as theability to learn, reason with, act upon, and talk about thelaws and societal conventions on which humans tend toagree

Algorithmic morals
on the battlefield
M. Scheutz

S. Bringsjord

http://www.kurzweilai.net/can-robots-be-trusted-to-knowright-from-wrong

http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/2014/05/ccwexperts/

Cases against lethal robotic weapons• Robots cannot distinguish noncombatants fromcombatants.
• Robots make war an easy choice for policy makers.
• It is unclear who would be responsible for the crime byrobots.

Cases against lethal robotic weapons• Robots cannot distinguish noncombatants fromcombatants.
• Robots make war an easy choice for policy makers.
• It is unclear who would be responsible for the crime byrobots.
What if these problems are solved?

Situations other than war wherekilling a person might be accepted

SuicideEuthanasia

Death Penalty

Can robots be an executioner?

Cases against lethal robotic weapons(again)• Robots cannot distinguish noncombatants fromcombatants.
• Robots make war an easy choice for policy makers.
• It is unclear who would be responsible for the crime byrobots.

These types of objections do not seemapplicable to the robot executioner

What is a robot?
• Artificial• Possibly autonomous or automatic• Possibly human-like• Labourer

Karel Čapek

Structure of Labour
ProductLabour

Consumer

Pain

Money

Labourer

Employer
Money

Structure of Robot Labour
ProductLabour

Consumer

Pain

Money

Robot

Employer
Money

Structure of War
SecurityFightCitizen

Death
InjuryPsychological stress
Sense of guilty
PTSD
etc.

Money

SoldierNationMoney

Structure of Robot War
SecurityFightCitizen

Death
InjuryPsychological stress
Sense of guilty
PTSD
etc.

Money

Robot

NationMoney

Structure of Execution
Security
Execution

Citizen

Psychological stress
Sense of guilty
PTSD

Money

etc.

Executioner

NationMoney

Structure of Execution by Robot
Security
Execution

Citizen

Psychological stress
Sense of guilty
PTSD

Money

etc.

Robot

NationMoneyWhy is the robot executioner evil?

Why is the robot executioner evil?

Because it creates greater
psychological distance between us
and those executed.

Reflection on theoutcomes
Questioning andrethinking the norms

ActionMorality cycle

Modifying thenorms

Decision making

Reasoning basedon the norms
Cf. Gunkel, The Machine Question, Žižek, Parallax View.

Reflection on theoutcomesIntimate empathy
is crucial here

Questioning andrethinking the norms

ActionMorality cycle

Modifying thenorms

Decision making

Reasoning basedon the norms

Reflection on theoutcomesIntimate empathy
is crucial here

Questioning andrethinking the norms

ActionMorality cycle

Modifying theReplacing
humans with robots may create
Decision makingnorms
greater physical and psychological distancefrom us to the outcome, making it harder tohave intimateReasoning
empathy.basedon the norms

Distance affects our moral thinking• Waldmann, M. R. and J. H. Dieterich (2007) Throwing a bomb on aperson versus throwing a person on a bomb: Intervention myopia
in moral intuitions. Psychological Science, 18(3): 247-53.
• Aguiar, F., P. Brañas-Garza, and L. Miller (2008) Moral distance indictators games. Judgement and Decision Making, 3(4):344–54.
• Aguilar, P., S. Brussino, and J.-M. Fernndez-Dols (2013)
Psychological distance increases uncompromising consequentialism.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3):449–52.
• Costa, A., A. Foucart, S. Hayakawa, M. Aparici, J. Apesteguia, et al.
(2014) Your Morals Depend on Language. PLoS ONE 9(4):e94842.

Weapons and Distance
HandSpear

Club SwordGun
Arrow

Rifle

BomberArtillery

Drone
ICBM

RobotCf. Coeckelburgh, ``Drones, information technology, anddistance: mapping the moral epistemology of remote fighting’’To sum up• Morality should change over time and across the cultures.
Instead of adhering the existing norms, we have torethink them when necessary.
• We should keep a close eye to what our action lead to,and to those affected by our morally significant action.
• Employing robots may get in the way of this process.
• So when we delegate a morally significant task to a robot,
we have to be careful not to let it blind our eyes.

``Mittler zwischen Hirn und Händen muss Hertz sein.’’Fritz Lang, Metropolis (1927)