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While there are possibilities for more humane warfare using drone armies, the downsides are way, way worse. By example, there is a long and well documented his
by crpatino 11y ago
While there are possibilities for more humane warfare using drone armies, the downsides are way, way worse.
By example, there is a long and well documented history of human rights violations against civilian population from human armies, and those violations come as often as not from the high command's orders as for the volition of individual units.
Even worse than that, there is also the well documented history of the Cold War, where nuclear war and MAD was only spared because there were individual low level officers that exercised a humane criteria and knowingly disobeyed protocol. If robots would have been in charge of nuclear defense systems during those years, we probably would not been here discussing this.
- xixi77 11y ago"By example, there is a long and well documented history of human rights violations against civilian population from human armies, and those violations come as often as not from the high command's orders as for the volition of individual units." -- doesn't this suggest that robots (who would not disobey their orders) are likely to be much better than humans at reducing human rights violations?
- peterwaller 11y agoI think you missed this part of the comment: > and those violations come as often as not from the high command's orders as for the volition of individual units.
- xixi77 11y agowell reducing them by half wouldn't be a bad thing either :) although of course it's more complicated than that, I just wanted to point out that the direction of the effect is rather unclear at this point.
- crpatino 11y agoIt seems to suggest so, but you have to take also into account all the violations that never occur because some honorable human soldier choose to disobey direct orders from their not so honorable superiors. Or the much more extensive and systematic violations that ruthless but pragmatic commanders never order in the first place because they are aware on the effect that would have on the morale of the troops.
- xixi77 11y agoYou are right, and of course in most cases we won't know of such cases, so there is no way to judge how many there might be. On the other hand, robots would also complicate things for the not-honorable superiors -- for one, they'll lose an option to give verbal orders and then claim no knowledge and blame subordinates when things come out -- they would now need to alter electronic records. But my point is just that the effect of higher robot involvement is far from clear.