War will become more ethical.
The shareholders can’t afford it otherwise.
The battlefield of the near future will still be the rich versus the aggrieved poor in asymmetrical brawls, it's just that the rich will be using more robots instead of live canon-fodder.
When it comes time to put a robot on trial for war crimes, it will start as Chain-of-Command precedent... until the military guys work out that it should be a corporate law issue. The robot was made by a corporation that was ultimately responsible for the behavioural programming.
The first few military tribunals go against the manufacturing giants and it makes everybody feel better. It appears that justice has been done because something has been held responsible - but no actual humans had the finger pointed at them.
But making the robot the fall-guy is easy until it starts to hurt the profits of the manufacturing company. Shareholders go up in arms and apply such pressure that the robots are programmed so that they almost never open fire, even when they are in immanent danger of total destruction. They just stomp about, shouting, “Stop that. Stop that right now. You are making me very angry and I will be forced to stomp around and shout some more.” The insurgents, while making mincemeat of the robots, eventually become so pissed off with all the stomping and the shouting, that they just leave in disgust and the fighting is over.
I have seen it and it will come to pass.
No doubt! Its quite a vicious cycle. Oddly enough, the theme is currently (somewhat) being explored by the folks at Penny Arcade. I don't need to link you there do I?
ReplyDeleteI was going to give them the time of day, but the first thing I saw, was them talking about Dungeons and Dragons. And 3,2,1 I'm outta there.
ReplyDelete