Friday, August 31, 2007
News

Ghosts in the machine

A Georgia Tech scientist works to equip robot soldiers with a conscience

Acting Secretary of the Army Preston “Pete” Geren (left) and U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker introduce an airborne observation robot before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Stephanie Ramage

Over the next two months, Georgia Tech scientist Ron Arkin will visit several U.S. military installations to talk about the armed services’ use of robots. But Arkin’s interest in military applications extends beyond simply helping out on the battlefield; he foresees a day when robots serve not just as a valuable tool for soldiers, but their conscience as well.

For the past 25 years, much of Arkin’s work has been funded by the Department of Defense. At the moment, he’s involved in a two-part project: conducting an opinion survey to determine how people of varying backgrounds and positions feel about using robots capable of lethal force in warfare; and “developing robotic architecture capable of imbedding the rules of engagement or combat into a robot’s behavior so it abides by the laws of war” as established by the Geneva Convention.

On the morning he talks with The Sunday Paper, Arkin’s thinking about a recent study by an army mental health team in which about 10 percent of the soldiers surveyed reported mistreating noncombatants or damaging their property when it wasn’t necessary. Less than half of the soldiers and Marines said they would report a team member for unethical behavior. And only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of the Marines agreed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

Arkin thinks robots might be more ethical.

“My belief is that robotic soldiers won’t look like humanoids, but they will be capable of being more humane than some soldiers are,” he says. He’s quick to point out that he’s worked extensively with soldiers and finds that most are “consummate professionals,” but events like those at Haditha and Abu Ghraib affect the morale of the whole military, especially those soldiers who believe in conducting themselves ethically. Arkin believes that robots programmed with ethics could dramatically reduce such shameful occurrences.

How? “First, if they saw an unethical action about to take place, they would warn the soldiers that what they were about to do violated the rules of engagement,” he says. “Second, they would be able to report it. And third, knowing that an agent is watching you may make a soldier have second thoughts about committing such atrocities.”

The military already relies on some robots, like the SWORDS robot, a fighting machine equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers that can be remote-controlled. It also uses a Predator drone robot that identified a Taliban gathering in a cemetery in Afghanistan in 2001.

“The military did the right thing in that instance,” says Arkin. “The [military] did not use the robot to open fire—we shouldn’t kill noncombatants in a cemetery. The rules are similar to those involving mosques. But the robot did get a photo of the Taliban muster.”

In three years’ time, the number of robots used by the U.S. military will substantially increase. A congressional mandate requires the military to convert at least a third of all its “deep strike” flights—fighter planes—into unmanned, robotic flights by 2010. By 2015, a third of all Army ground vehicles should also be unmanned. To this end, according to the national defense industry’s trade magazine, National Defense, the Army plans to invest $127 billion in the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program over the next decade.

Arkin, who has worked for FCS in the past through a variety of what he calls “feeder programs” and currently works on projects for the Navy’s Intelligent Autonomy Program and the Army Research Office, does not foresee a future in which entire robot armies will do battle with each other. Instead, he believes that armed divisions will consist of robots and soldiers working together on a common mission.

“What we are talking about is force multiplication,” says Arkin. “With robotics systems, we can use fewer soldiers. That’s the vision I see—not the absence of humans. Being able to use fewer humans and expand the force is one of the reasons why the military is so interested in robotics.”

Combat today moves at lightning speed, far faster than was the case in World War II, Korea or Vietnam. Under such rapid-fire conditions, soldiers don’t have time to quibble over ethical questions. Robots programmed to take up those issues quickly and make a determination won’t relieve humans of their ethical responsibilities on the battlefield, but may provide an extra layer of ethical guidance while reducing the human cost of military actions.

“That can help preserve who we are as a nation, so we don’t throw away our ethical backbone for the sake of combat,” says Arkin. “Why didn’t we allow our robot to open fire on the Taliban soldiers at the cemetery? Because Coalition forces hold themselves to a higher ethical standard, and we have the technology to continue to do so, to have dispassionate eyes on the battlefield.” SP

To participate in Arkin’s survey, please visit www.cc.gatech.edu/projects/robotsurvey/mrl.html.