The focus of this blog has been legal and policy issues regarding the civilian operation of drones. However, it is easy to forget that just a few short years ago, if you asked the person on the street the first thing to come mind if they heard the word “drone”, the vast majority would have responded “military”or some variant thereof.
Military usage of drones has increased (and will continue to), but due to the fact that civilian application of drone technology has increased greatly, more and more people envision civilian applications of drones when the term is mentioned.
Military use of drone technology raises unique issues. The moral and ethical concerns of utilizing autonomous systems for military purposes was recently the subject of an article in NATO Review Magazine.
The term “autonomous” is often used rather loosely and is routinely used to describe what is more accurately described as “remotely operated” or “remotely piloted”. Truly autonomous drones are “advanced drones programmed with algorithms for countless human-defined courses of action to meet emerging challenges”. In other words, artificial intelligence.
As the authors note, while the general rules of the Law of Armed Conflict will apply, autonomous drones may potentially be operating their weapon systems during an attack without any human involvement. As the article notes, the law requires a reasonable commander acting in good faith to make certain discretionary decisions in the heat of the moment.
Among the concerns noted is whether we as a society are prepared to delegate life-and-death decisions to a nonhuman system. However, while magnified when used for military applications, many of the moral and ethical concerns apply to civilian usage as well. For example, what collision avoidance systems will be employed in autonomous vehicles and how will the system decide between various alternative course of action, each of which may cause injury or death to humans?
Moral and ethical concerns surrounding the implementation of artificial intelligence are not limited to the military, but will become more and more of an issue for society as artificial intelligence technology continues to develop. The legal and ethical issues raised by technology, particularly in the area of artificial intelligence, will intensify as we move forward as a society.
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