Should Killer Robots be Banned?
You can’t say that civilization don’t advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
-Will Rogers
Humans have been using machines to kill each other for centuries and these machines have become ever more advanced and lethal. In more recent decades there has been considerable focus on developing autonomous weapons. That is, weapons that can locate and engage the enemy on their own without being directly controlled by human beings. The crude seeking torpedoes of World War II are an example of an early version of such a killer machine. Once fired, the torpedo would be guided by acoustic sensors to its target and then explode—it was a crude, suicidal mechanical shark. Of course, this weapon had very limited autonomy since humans decided when to fire it and at what target.
Thanks to advances in technology, far greater autonomy is now possible. One peaceful example of this is the famous self-driving cars. While some see them as privacy killing robots, they are not designed to harm people—quite the opposite, in fact. However, it is easy to see how the technology used to guide a car safely around people, animals and other vehicles could be used to guide an armed machine to its targets.
Not surprisingly, some people are rather concerned about the possibility of killer robots, or with less hyperbole, autonomous weapon systems. Recently there has been a push to ban such weapons by international treaty. While people are no doubt afraid of killer machines roaming about due to science fiction stories and movies, there are legitimate moral, legal and practical grounds for such a ban.
One concern is that while autonomous weapons might be capable of seeking out and engaging targets, they would lack the capability to make the legal and moral decisions needed to operate within the rules of war. As a specific example, there is the concern that a killer robot will not be able to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants as reliably as a human being. As such, autonomous weapon systems could be far more likely than human combatants to kill noncombatants due to improper classification.
One obvious reply is that while there are missions in which the ability to make such distinctions would be important, there are others where it would not be required on the part of the autonomous weapon. If a robot infantry unit were engaged in combat within a populated city, then it would certainly need to be able to make such a distinction. However, just a human bomber crew sent on a mission to destroy a factory would not be required to make such distinctions, an autonomous bomber would not need to have this ability. As such, this concern only has merit in cases in which such distinctions must be made and could be reasonably made by a human in the same situation. Thus, a sweeping ban on autonomous weapons would not be warranted by this concern.
A second obvious reply is that this is a technical problem that could be solved to a degree that would make an autonomous weapon at least as reliable as an average human soldier in making the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. It seems likely that this could be done given that the objective is a human level of reliability. After all, humans in combat do make mistakes in this matter so the bar is not terribly high. As such, banning such weapons would seem to be premature—it would need to be shown that such weapons could not make this distinction as well as an average human in the same situation.
A second concern is based on the view that the decision to kill should be made by a human being and not by a machine. Such a view could be based on an abstract view about the moral right to make killing decisions or perhaps on the view that humans would be more merciful than machines.
One obvious reply is that autonomous weapons are still just weapons. Human leaders will, presumably, decide when they are deployed and give them their missions. This is analogous to a human firing a seeking missile—the weapon tracks and destroys the intended target, but the decision that someone should die was made by a human. Presumably humans would be designing the decision making software for the machines and they could program in a form of digital mercy—if desired.
There is, of course, the science fiction concern that the killer machines will become completely autonomous and fight their own wars (as in Terminator and “Second Variety”). The concern about rogue systems is worth considering, but is certainly a tenuous basis for a ban on autonomous weapons.
Another obvious reply is that while a machine would probably lack mercy, they would also lack anger and hate. As such, they might actually be less awful about killing than humans.
A third concern is based on the fact that autonomous machines are just machines without will or choice (which might also be true of humans). As such, wicked or irresponsible leaders could acquire autonomous weapons that will simply do what they are ordered to do, even if that involves slaughtering children.
The obvious, but depressing, reply to this is that such leaders seem to never want for people to do bidding, however awful that bidding might be. Even a cursory look at the history of war and terrorism shows that this is a terrible truth. As such, autonomous weapons do not seem to pose a special danger in this regard: anyone who could get an army of killer robots would almost certainly be able to get an army of killer humans.
There is, of course, a legitimate concern that autonomous weapons could be hacked and used by terrorists or other bad people. However, this would be the same as such people getting access to non-autonomous weapons and using them to hurt and kill people.
In general, the moral motivation of the people who oppose autonomous weapons is laudable. They presumable wish to cut down on death and suffering. However, this goal seems to be better served by the development of autonomous weapons. Some reasons for this are as follows.
First, since autonomous weapons are not crewed, their damage or destruction will not result in harm or death to people. If a manned fighter plane is destroyed, that is likely to result in harm or death to a person. However, if a robot fighter plane is shot down, no one dies. If both sides are using autonomous weapons, then the causality count would presumably be lower than in a conflict where the weapons are all manned. To use an analogy, automating war could be analogous to automating dangerous factory work.
Second, autonomous weapons can advance the existing trend in precision weapons. Just as “dumb” bombs that were dropped in massive raids gave way to laser guided bombs, autonomous weapons could provide an even greater level of precision. This would be, in part, due to the fact that there is no human crew at risk and hence the safety of the crew would no longer be a concern. For example, rather than having a manned aircraft drop a missile on target while jetting by at a high altitude, an autonomous craft could approach the target closely at a lower speed in order to ensure that the missile hits the right target.
Thus, while the proposal to ban such weapons is no doubt motivated by the best of intentions, the ban itself would not be morally justified.
For Profit College, Again
While state support for United States public higher education dropped 25% from 2000 to 2010, for profit colleges have enjoyed an ever larger slice of public funds. Part of this is due to the increase in enrollment for the for-profit schools: in 1990 only 2% of undergraduate college students were enrolled in such schools, but in 2008-2009 it increased to 11.8%.
However, the for-profit schools get a disproportionate amount of state money in the form of federal money. While having 10% of the students in higher education, they received almost 25% of the Pell Grant money and 25% of the federal student loans.
The for-profit schools are also beneficiaries of the GI Bill: in 2010-2011 $1 billion of the $4.4 billion disbursed by the Department of Veterans Affairs went to just eight such schools. Overall, 37% of the GI Bill money went to for-profit schools.
As such, the for-profit schools are receiving state funds that are disproportionate to their actual enrollments at a time when public schools are having their state support cut. To use the rhetoric of the Tea Party and Republicans, this would seem to be socialism: the state just dumping taxpayer money to benefit a few takers. Moving away from the rhetoric, it does seem to be a point of concern that state money is being moved away from public institutions so as to enable for-profit institutions to profit. Shockingly enough, the Republicans (and most Democrats) are not outraged by this “socialism.”
This state money is the main revenue stream for the for-profits, so they are truly state-supported businesses. They are also successful at making money in this manner: they enjoy an average profit margin of 19%. This enables them to engage in advertising and thus gain more students who enable them to tap ever more into that sweet taxpayer largesse.
The obvious reply is to contend that the for-profit colleges earn these profits while state schools flounder in financial woes. This, it might be claimed, is proof that the for-profit approach is superior to the inherently inferior public approach. However, there are two replies to this.
The first, and most blindingly obvious, is that the for-profit colleges get most of their revenue from the state, thus their success depends on siphoning off taxpayer money into their coffers.
The second is that the for-profit schools often turn out to be disasters for their students, especially when compared to public schools.
While student debt is a serious problem, it is far worse for those who attend for-profit schools. 54% of the students who graduate with a BA from a for-profit school end up with over $30,000 in debt. In contrast, only 12% of public college graduates end up in that dire situation.
The for-profit schools also do poorly in actually placing students in jobs—the public schools do much better. As such, it is hardly a surprise that although students who attended for-profit colleges make up a fraction of the total college student population, they made up 48% of those who defaulted on student loans in 2010.
Given their rhetoric regarding government spending, socialism and people “taking” from the government, one would think that the Republicans would be leading a charge against the for-profit schools. After all, these schools are receiving large sums of public money and doing a poor job. As a faculty member at a public university I can attest to the Republican obsession with making public institutions prove that they are providing a return on the state money they get. I serve on various committees that exist primarily to collect and process assessment data to prove to the state legislature and governor that we are getting results for every penny we receive and our funding is tied to this data. Also not surprisingly, there is also a push to have private sector companies provide expensive tests at the taxpayers’ expense to, somewhat ironically, make sure the taxpayers’ money is being well spent.
However, this does not seem to be the case. Instead, the push by Republicans (and many Democrats) is for even more for-profit education that is funded by the taxpayer. This indicates that the opposition is to “socialism” of the sort where public money goes to public colleges. The “socialism” that involves redistributing wealth from the taxpayers to the problematic for-profit colleges is apparently just fine.
Political Impact of the Shutdown
One point of concern among the pundits and politicians is the political impact of the shutdown on upcoming elections. In a sense, this involves looking at the handling of the shutdown as moves in the larger game of political maneuvering. In the specific scenario of the shutdown, there seem to be four main goals. The first is to achieve specific objectives (for example, defunding or delaying Obamacare). The second is to keep the other side from achieving its specific objectives. The third is to score positive political points for one’s side. The fourth is to make the other side accumulate negative points.
While achieving the first two goals can impact the second two goals, there is actually no need to achieve or prevent the achievement of actual objectives (such as delaying Obamacare). After all, positive and negative points can be gained or inflicted by the means of various rhetorical devices as well as the classic tactic of simply lying about the facts.
The Republicans apparently initially set out to defund or delay Obamacare and have been using the shutdown and threat of default to try to force the Democrats to yield to their demands. Interestingly, the Republicans do not seem to actually know what they want, which makes achieving these unknown goals rather problematic. However, they do seem clear in one goal: they want to shut down the government. Some Republicans, such as Michelle Bachmann, seem to think that the shutdown was itself a desirable goal. If so, that could be considered a “win” for her and people who think that way.
The Democrats do seem to be clear about what they want-they want the Republicans to accept the legal reality of the situation: Obamacare is a law and it has been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. They also want the shutdown to end, but refuse to yield to the Republican threats and coercion. Naturally, the Republicans have tried to spin the story so that the Democrats are to blame for not negotiating the matter.
On the face of it, the Republicans certainly seem to deserve the blame. To use an analogy to baseball, it is as if the game has been legitimately won by the Red Sox, but the Yankees want to negotiate the matter. When the Red Sox refuse, the Yankees say they will burn down the stadium unless the Red Sox negotiate. True to their word, the Yankees then start burning things, all the while blaming the Red Sox for the fire. In the case of the shutdown, Obamacare won-it was passed, ruled constitutional and set to go into effect. The Republicans then decided they did not like the result and set out to burn things down, all the while blaming the Democrats. That said, politics is mostly about perception and not so much about the reality. So, a rather important matter is how the voters perceive the situation.
Not surprisingly, no one is looking particularly good to the voters. Congress started off with an abysmal approval rating, so it is hardly a shock they still look bad to the voters. However, the shutdown has also spilled over onto the parties and the president.
As of October 14, 2013 74% of Americans disapprove of the manner in which the Republicans in Congress are handling the situation. To be honest, I am somewhat surprised that the number is that low-I would expect a higher disapproval given that congress seems to be handling the matter exceptionally poorly. Last week it was 70% and at the start of the shutdown it was 63%, thus indicating that the longer the shutdown continues, the more disgruntled Americans will become. This does give the Republicans some reason to end the shutdown, assuming they are concerned about public opinion.
While the Democrats are suffering from a 61% disapproval rating, they are still better off than the Republicans. Also, the Democrats seem to be suffering less of an impact: at the start of the shutdown they had a 56% disapproval rating. As such, the Democrats are “winning” in terms of being perceived as somewhat less bad than the Republicans. While this might not seem like much of an advantage, the fact that we have what amounts to a two party lock on politics, the side that is doing less bad is thus the winner.
An obvious counter is that given the clever gerrymandering of congressional districts, the parties do not need to worry as much about disapproval. After all, if a district is rigged to be mostly Democratic or Republican, the dominate party is all but assured of victory. However, the once unified Republicans (who followed Reagan’s eleventh commandment) have become divided into factions, thanks to the Tea Party Republicans.
The Tea Party members have shown considerable willingness to go after their fellow Republicans for not being “conservative” (or, apparently, crazy) enough and this has created a situation in which moderate Republicans face the greatest challenge from their own Tea Party faction and not from the Democrats. This has played a significant role in the shutdown, which seems to have been largely orchestrated by the Tea Party faction. In contrast, the moderate Republicans would seem to prefer to have avoided the shutdown. Of course, how this plays out depends a great deal on what the voters think about the situation.
As it stands, 47% of Republican voters approve of the way their party is handling the matter, while 47% disapprove. In terms of how this will impact upcoming elections, much depends on the approval or disapproval of the voters in those cleverly gerrymandered districts. If the majority of Republican voters in a specific district favor what has happened, then this will bode well for the incumbent. It seems likely that Tea Party voters would tend to approve of this situation, thus it seems unlikely that the Tea Party incumbents will not be re-elected. However, the more moderate Republicans who have more moderate Republican constituents could run into problems-they might end up losing to a Democrat as punishment for riding the Tea Party tiger too far. Alternatively, if a moderate Republican decides to jump off the tiger, they might be punished by the Tea Party members in their district and end up being defeated in the primary. Then again, the voters might forget about all this by the time the elections come around.
The Democrats are doing better internally: about 60% of Democrats approve of how the Democrats are handling the situation. Not surprisingly, the Democrats are hoping to cash in on this division in the Republican party in the next election cycle. If the Tea Party comes off looking bad to the general population of voters and the once moderate Republicans continue to ride the Tea Party tiger, then the Democrats might come out ahead. This might see the beginning of the decline of the influence of the Tea Party and the more moderate Republicans might decide to abandon their more radical fellows. After all, if people get that the Tea Party folks are fine with shutting down the government and taking us to the brink of ruin, people might start rethinking the matter. However, the Tea Party folks might rather like what grows from what they have sown and their influence might grow stronger. Much depends on whether the voters can see the Tea Party for what it is-and whether or not they like what they see.
As a final point, Obama is doing the best of the lot: his disapproval in this matter is at 53%. His disapproval rating increased by three points since the start of the shutdown. As such, Obama seems to be winning in approval in that he is losing the least.
On Having Less Government
In my college days, I embraced the philosophy of anarchism. As I saw it then, the state was the main cause of human suffering through oppression, war, violation of natural rights and its other ills. While individual criminals and small criminal groups could do bad things, they could not match the capacity for evil of the full state. Despite the wildness of youth, I mainly accepted the relative mildness of Thoreau’s anarchism. I did not advocate violence and hope that social change could come about by evolution rather than bloody revolution. I also did not drink the Marxist Kool Aid—I saw it as just another dubious religion with a problematic metaphysics.
While much of my commitment to anarchism was philosophical, honesty compels me to admit that some (or perhaps most) came from my rebellious nature and the insolence of youth. Since I did not like being bossed around by authorities (which I discerned to often be immoral and more often incompetent), anarchism provided a nice theoretical framework for my youthful rejection of authority. Oddly enough, I was not a chaotic individual: even then, I was a person of strict discipline (thanks, perhaps, to running) and very orderly. As such, I was not against order, but against immoral, irrational and ineffective authority.
Because of my youthful experimentation with anarchism, I have considerable sympathy for the Tea Party folks and the Republican politicians who honestly believe that “the government that governs least, governs best.” Those that are merely trying to hang on to the Tea stained tiger, well, they get no sympathy from me.
When these folks cry out that taxes are too high, that the state regulates too much, and that the state is violating our rights, I feel that old spark of anarchism flare up in my soul. However, when I look at the facts of what they are complaining about, that spark typically dies. As a former anarchist, I cannot get outraged that people are not allowed to pollute the environment as much as they would like. I cannot get mad that there have been some feeble attempts to put in regulations regarding what wrecked the economy. I also certainly do not see passing restrictive laws regarding women’s reproductive rights as “small government.”
That said, I do like the idea of smaller government—in the same sense that I like the idea of keeping myself lean. As a runner, I know that extra pounds of fat slow me down. As someone who knows a bit about health, I know that extra pounds of fat are unhealthy. By analogy, the same can be said to be true of the state: having unnecessary spending, programs and agencies makes the government larger, more expensive and more intrusive than it needs to be. This fat should be trimmed away.
The trimming should, of course, not slice into the necessary parts—the vital organs, the muscles and the bones. To simply cut away at the government for the sake of making it small would be analogous to starving oneself (or cutting) just to get smaller, without any consideration of what impact it would have on health. Obviously, that would be both unwise and dangerous.
In the case of the body, it is fairly clear what is essential and when damage starts to occur. In the case of the government, there is considerable debate over what is essential and what should be sliced away. This is hardly surprising: the body is a matter of objective anatomy and physiology without political ideology at play. In the case of government, ideology and values are in conflict and one person’s essential program is another’s fat. That said, it is still possible to rationally assess programs, policies and such. Sadly, reason now cries herself to sleep each night: her sister, persuasion, gets all the dates now.
Thanks to the Republican’s government shutdown, the United States is getting a small taste of what smaller government is like. In an interesting coincidence, about the same time I learned that Michelle Bachmann was excited about the shutdown and saw it as achieving exactly what she wanted, I was reading an article in National Geographic about the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Much like the United States, the DRC enjoys incredible natural wealth—it has valuable mineral resources that are critical to modern electronics. Unfortunately for the people, they have a government that seems to be little more than a corrupt shadow of a proper state. While the government of the DRC is a long way from the condition of the United States’ government, it does provide an example of what it is like to have a small government that does not interfere much (because it cannot) in such matters as “business” and the environment. The DRC is, to be blunt, close to hell on earth.
The situation in the DRC does provide us with a cautionary example of what can happen when the government is too weak and too small. I am not claiming that the United States will quickly descend into the situation of the DRC, but this sort of small government hell should be considered by those who believe in the small government heaven.
In my own case, it is exactly these sorts of real world situations that helped lead me away from anarchism. Though I still believe that governments can be rather evil and that government should be limited in the scope of its interference, I also believe that the state has an important role in maintaining order, safety and rights. The challenge is, obviously enough, a matter of balance: avoiding the excess that leads to totalitarianism while also avoiding the deficiency that leads to chaos.
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