Comment Paper 4

Comment Paper 4

            When debating the ethics involving autonomous or non-autonomous lethal weapons a factor that often goes unobserved is the person controlling or “supervising” these machines and it affects this has on both the user and the product.  Journalist Azmat Khan points out in his article written about the effects of prolonged drone operation, “the six-month study of of nearly 1,500 service members in Nevada and California is the first to quantify stress levels in military drone operators,”.   Therefore we know very little about the effects of controlled weaponry on the person who operates it.  While reading these articles, I found the most disturbing aspect to be the desensitization that can occur when carrying out a lethal plan from afar, which is the case for many.  Author Rachel Martin claims in her survey that only about 30% of drone operators experience “burnout”.  However it is more alarming that 70% of these operators are not affected by what they are doing.  It may seem brash to say, but it is probably true for many that it would be morally and ethically more traumatizing to murder someone with your own hands than to sit in a room and press a button. 

The human element, which most consider to be a weakness in combat, is what I believe can be an armies biggest strength.  Although our humanity; emotions such as greed, anger, or sadness; is usually what leads us into war it is also what tends to push us towards a resolution.  Because with humanity we also encompass sympathy, compassion, and sorrow.  When a machine that is lethal lacks all those things, it becomes more dangerous than any human army.  Even when a person possibly supervises its actions, those emotions often become muted.  Thus wars will start, but they will not end.  This also poses the point of “If we can get it, then who else can?”  In the cases of developed countries, wars will continue to escalate as each offender continues to up the ante.  The use of lethal robots leaves us with a never-ending battle scenario.  Although robotics leads us to believe that we are saving lives in combat, the “loop” is becoming so big that people will eventually be sacrificed, as has happened with drones, and many of whom are not soldiers.  Arkin argues that the lack of emotion in robots is an advantage because there is a lack of fear of hysteria in robots, and I see his argument when assessing robots that are utilized for non lethal prospects; however without intuition and a conscious when does anyone or anything really have the ability to comprehend right and wrong?  And how does the use of remote controlled robots affect the psyche of the user in question and their ability to determine what is morally ethical and what is not?