Recruiting Robots for Combat

[Jan Klimkowski]

"A lot of people fear artificial intelligence. I will stand my artificial intelligence against your human any day of the week and tell you that my A.I. will pay more attention to the rules of engagement and create fewer ethical lapses than a human force."
That is from John Arquilla, executive director of the Information Operations Center at the Naval Postgraduate School. "Dr. Arquilla," reports The New York Times, "argues that weapons systems controlled by software will not act out of anger and malice and, in certain cases, can already make better decisions on the battlefield than humans."

Yup - I can imagine the software programme here, just like the drones: "Our intelligence is infallible. These ragheads are bad. Exterminate."

Of course when Dr Strangelove's AI exterminates innocent men, women and children, I'm sure Arquilla will blame the intelligence.

Not his sacred and infallible robots.

Of course, the military love robots because they'll always obey orders, and will never suffer human doubt, musing: "you know what, that order sucks and I'm not doing it. I'm not going to exterminate everyone in that village in order to save it."

And no robot could ever write:

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.