Machines that Think by New Scientist

Author:New Scientist
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2017-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

The right to dignity

The idea is deeply divisive, however. For many, the prospect of a computer chip having the power of life or death over someone is discomforting. According to Christof Heyns, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, it could contravene humanitarian law and the human right to dignity.

‘Humans need to be quite closely involved in the decision for it not to violate your human dignity,’ says Heyns. He notes that a robot’s targets don’t have the option of an appeal to humanity the way they might if a person was behind the weapon. It would be like being exterminated, he says. Remote-controlled drones already give little opportunity to make such appeals. But they at least have a human operator, however distant, who can make ethical judgements. ‘The hope that this is possible is at least not completely absent,’ says Heyns. ‘And hope is part of a dignified life.’

Ultimately, Heyns is wary of what he calls the ‘depersonalization of force’. In a 2013 report to the UN, he warned that ‘tireless war machines, ready for deployment at the push of a button’ could lead to a future of permanent conflict. If governments don’t have to put boots on the ground, going to war could become too easy. Even in scenarios where machines fight machines, significant collateral damage could destroy a nation’s infrastructure. And as casualty numbers will be lower, wars could go on for longer, preventing post-war reconstruction.

Noel Sharkey, an AI and robotics researcher at the University of Sheffield, UK, and a leading member of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, has been trying to bring the issue to international attention for nearly a decade. A key driver of his dogged campaigning is his awareness of the shortcomings of current technology. While Arkin has an eye on next-generation technology, Sharkey is concerned with the present. ‘I could make you a killer robot within weeks that detects human body signatures and fires at them,’ he says. ‘The problem is being able to discriminate between a civilian and a combatant.’

Bottling that ability is hard. Aralia Systems is a UK-based firm that provides image-analysing software for security applications. It can highlight suspicious activity in CCTV footage, for example. In 2015 the system flagged up the activity of a group of people who were later found to have been scoping out a public area for a suitable place to plant a bomb. The individuals were apprehended and successfully prosecuted, says Wright. But the company’s co-founder, Glynn Wright, readily admits that making snap decisions in busy urban environments is a long way off.

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