Tag: Warfare

Lethal autonomous robots are coming [Article]

Nicholas Carr picks up Christof Heyns’ report on Lethal Autonomous Robots (LAR) to the UN Human Rights Council. 

LAR’s are “weapon systems that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further human intervention,” have not yet been deployed in wars or other conflicts, but the technology to produce them is very much in reach. It’s just a matter of taking the human decision-maker out of the hurly-burly of the immediate “kill loop” and leaving the firing decision to algorithms. 

The question is will people take notice before this technology takes off big time. 

Railing against Drone Warfare [article]

Rev. Dr. Paul F M Zahl argues against the US’s increased use of drones in warfare from a moral perspective:

Our use of drones are out of “proportion” because it uses the most advanced technology in the world to assassinate people who can basically only throw the equivalent of sticks and stones back at you. Moreover, it gives these people no chance to surrender. It is like capital punishment without an arrest, a charge, a trial, or a right of appeal.

Our use of drones is not humane, because it totally objectifies the enemy by making them into a picture on a screen. There is not the faintest possibility, in the conduct of drone warfare by means of remote control, that you can regard the enemy as a fellow human citizen of the planet.

Internet Nationalism, & a common-sense approach [Article]

Bruce Schneier, writing in the MIT Technology Review warns of the danger that is growing in the name of Internet Nationalism, & reminds us what it really covers up:
But remember: none of this is cyberwar. It’s all espionage, something that’s been going on between countries ever since countries were invented. What moves public opinion is less the facts and more the rhetoric, and the rhetoric of war is what we’re hearing.
He calls for a more sensible approach:
We need to damp down the rhetoric and—more importantly—stop believing the propaganda from those who profit from this Internet nationalism.  Those who are beating the drums of cyberwar don’t have the best interests of society, or the Internet, at heart.