4 ms·

If one of these peasants to taking shots at your robots, and only your robots, is ethical to kill them when no actual human is immediately threatened ?

• omginternets 10y ago
  Is it ethical to keep human soldiers on the battlefield in order to have a pretext to return fire? These are some interesting questions, I have to admit.
  • TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Armed conflict is the ultimate rejection of rules societies normally impose on themselves. When two otherwise evenly matched armies fight each other, one following some arbitrary, self-imposed rules and the other one ignoring them, the latter will have a tactical advantage. Or to change your question - is it ethical to use civilians to maneuver around the killer robots who do not shoot at non-combatants? No, it's not, but it doesn't matter - because if your robots have such limitation, your opponent will surely exploit it to defeat you.
    • omginternets 10y ago
      >Armed conflict is the ultimate rejection of rules societies normally impose on themselves. This is begging the question. The fact that some conflicts are waged with ROE shows that they're still self-imposed rule in at least some wars.
      • TeMPOraL 10y ago
        My point is that ROE are applied only by the side that feels very much sure of its power and ability to win the conflict. When you fight for your very survival, all rules go down the drain.
        • omginternets 10y ago
          Understood, but my point was that this is usually not the case and therefore (mostly) irrelevant.