On the moral responsibility of military robots

Ethics Inf Technol (2013) 15:99107 DOI 10.1007/s10676-012-9301-2

ORIGINAL PAPER

On the moral responsibility of military robots

Thomas Hellstrm

Published online: 9 September 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This article discusses mechanisms and principles for assignment of moral responsibility to intelligent robots, with special focus on military robots. We introduce the concept autonomous power as a new concept, and use it to identify the type of robots that call for moral considerations. It is furthermore argued that autonomous power, and in particular the ability to learn, is decisive for assignment of moral responsibility to robots. As technological development will lead to robots with increasing autonomous power, we should be prepared for a future when people blame robots for their actions. It is important to, already today, investigate the mechanisms that control human behavior in this respect. The results may be used when designing future military robots, to control unwanted tendencies to assign responsibility to the robots. Independent of the responsibility issue, the moral quality of robots behavior should be seen as one of many performance measures by which we evaluate robots. How to design ethics based control systems should be carefully investigated already now. From a consequentialist view, it would indeed be highly immoral to develop robots capable of performing acts involving life and death, without including some kind of moral framework.

Keywords Moral responsibility Robots

Military robots Autonomy Robot ethics

Introduction

This article discusses possible mechanisms and principles for assignment of moral responsibility to intelligent robots. Special focus is on military robots, which are being massively introduced by a large number of armies around the world.1 The military robots will become more and more autonomous and lethal, and responsibility issues must be discussed as well as extended to match the new reality. The article is organized as follows. Section 2 gives an overview of existing battleeld robots. In Sect. 3, these robots are classied based on autonomous power, a new concept introduced as an extension of the autonomy concept. This helps to identify the kind of robots that should come into question when discussing responsibility. Section 4 analyzes in what way moral responsibility may be applicable to robots, and how it relates to autonomous power. Assignments of moral responsibility in hypothetical war scenarios...