In the heat of battle, their minds clouded by fear, anger or vengefulness, even the best-trained soldiers can act in ways that violate the Geneva Conventions or battlefield rules of engagement. Now some researchers propose that robots could do better.

“My research speculation is that intelligent robots can behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans currently can,” said Ronald Arkin, a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology who is designing software for battlefield robots under contract with the U.S. Army. “That’s the case I assemble.”

Robot drones, mine detectors and sensing devices are already common on the battlefield but are controlled by humans. Many of the drones in Iraq and Afghanistan are operated from a command post in Nevada. Arkin is talking about robots operating truly autonomously, on their own.

He and others say that the technology to assemble deadly autonomous robots is inexpensive and proliferating and that the advent of these robots on the battlefield

is only a matter of day.

That means, they say, that it is moment for citizens to start talking about whether that technology is something they want to embrace.

“The fundamental thing is not to be blind to it,” Arkin said.

Noel Sharkey, a computer scientist at the University of Sheffield in England wrote last year in the journal Innovative Technology for Computer Professionals that “this is not a ‘Terminator’-style science fiction but grim reality.”

Sharkey said that South Korea and Israel were among countries already deploying armed robot border guards. In an interview, he said there was “a headlong rush” to develop battlefield robots that construct their own decisions about when to attack.

“We don’t want to get to the point where we should have had that discussion 20 years ago,” said Colin Allen, a philosopher at Indiana University and a co-author of “Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From…

Original post by dhiram