Should countries be able to send AWS to War?

By: Jacob Martinez

In this week's reading Autonomous weapons systems, killer robots and human dignity by Amanda Sharkey, she explains how the Human Rights Watch banned nations from using autonomous weapons systems (AWS). From my own knowledge, AWS can be seen as helpful but is also very dangerous. While it is helpful because it reduces people from getting injured and having to go to war, it is dangerous because then we wont know if these systems can become hacked or even worse.

When I think about AWS, I think about the crazy movies that depict robots taking over the world. I think that when I see these movies and think about what happens, I get worried and would hope that does not happen to us. Along with that I believe that some countries would just be able to produce more and more robots to where no one can control the bots that were created. As stated from the article, “points out that eliminating human involvement would remove the opportunity for compassion, which can provide a means for reducing the amount of civilian deaths. In addition, the use of AWS could make going to war more likely, since politicians could instigate conflict without risking their nation’s human soldiers”.

After reading this report, it makes a ton of sense that if we decided to use AWS there would possibly be more war. From my point of view, I think that if I knew there were no human beings going to war, no one would have any compassion towards our nations fighting with each other. Along with that the article describes how having these systems creates this lack of accountability. If countries are to use AWS and send them off to war, there is no way where these systems can tell who to punish and who should not be punished. Innocent people could be harmed because it is not in the robots programming to investigate if a person should be punished.

Later in the report, they state that these fully autonomous weapons goes against human rights. They talked about this because it goes against human rights and that robots should be take part in fighting for the country. It may make everything easier and decrease the casualty rate, but it does not support the respect of humans. The article also makes another great point that “allowing a machine to make determinations about when to take life away would vitiate the importance attached to such decisions and degrade human dignity’.”

Overall, after reading this article, I agree that AWS should not be able to partake in war for plenty of reasons. I think that having them fight degrades humanity itself as they do not have feelings. They are not able to determine who is innocent or possibly what innocence looks like. However, before reading this article I did feel as if AWS should be able to fight since it reduces human causality, makes it easier for the bots to fight, and countries will be able to create these robots in a matter of time.