On the moral responsibility of military robots

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.

Robots, law and the retribution gap

“…This one claims that the alleged retribution gap could be plugged if we simply change our attitude toward the manufacture and production of robots with high levels of autonomous power (Hellstrom 2013). We should view the process as being akin to that which takes place in the It is important to realise how this objection differs from those previously considered whilst defending premise (4) of the main argument.…”

“…Sparrow 2007, 64-66). Here I adopt the approach of Hellstrom (2013). He argues that we can distinguish between robots based on their 'autonomous power'.…”

“…In doing so, they can be instrumental reasoners par excellence, but, as Bostrom (2012; The idea that we could ascribe retributive blame to the robots themselves is philosophically interesting -and I will return to it below -but given these problems I suspect it is far more likely that when a robot misbehaves people will look to the human manufacturers and programmers as potential targets for retributive blame. This is certainly the dominant assumption in the existing literature, and the approach recommended by some (Calo 2015;Hellstrom 2013;Chisan Hew 2014). In the case of simple rule-following robots, with a handful of creators, and a limited degree of autonomous power, this might be straightforward enough.…”

Ethical Decision Making in Robots: Autonomy, Trust and Responsibility

“…Perhaps most importantly, it is the capacity that robots have to learn from their mistakes that that allows humans to assign responsibility to them [14]. A robot that learns from its experience and is able to improve its own decisionmaking system is more capable of being afforded responsibility.…”

Recommendations for Future Development of Artificial Agents [Commentary]

“…This prospect underlies many of the concerns about whether or not humans can still be held responsible. Moreover, the idea of increasingly autonomous artificial agents leads to speculation and discussions about the moral rights and moral standing of these agents [13], [34]. This speculation and discussion illustrates how imaginative future visions of technological development can be misleading.…”