Attack of the Drones: The Worrying Automation of Warfare

By Ian Barry
Staff Columnist

There has been a great deal of media attention focused on the United States drone warfare program recently. About three weeks ago, John Brennan, one of President Barack Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisers and his nominee for director of the CIA, was called before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing. The committee questioned him on, among other things, the administration’s policies on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to conduct strikes against targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. The Obama Administration has greatly expanded the use of unmanned drones against foreign targets and unmanned vehicles now comprise more than a third of the Air Force’s active fleet. Troubling as the use of drones is, I believe it to be indicative of a larger trend that shows no signs of abating anytime soon: the automation of warfare.

The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, or DARPA, can be thought of as the military’s mad science division. They’ve pursued, and are currently pursuing, many seemingly outlandish projects in recent memory – the airplane with a massive laser built into its nose cone, hypersonic aircraft capable of getting to any place on the planet in less than an hour, all-terrain bipedal robots, the infamous millimeter-wave “pain ray” powered strength-enhancing exoskeletons, neurally-controlled prosthetics, and (this is my favorite) a mother satellite that would deploy dozens of orbital robots to dismantle nonfunctional satellites. Among these is a project named “Avatar” for which $7 million has been allotted in DARPA’s 2013 budget. The aim of the project is much the same as James Cameron’s eponymous magnum opus: in the words of the budget proposal, the project will “develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.” They want to do for foot soldiers what drones have done for the Air Force.

To me, this is both exciting and deeply terrifying. Exciting because of the technological advancement a project like this represents, but frightening because of how it could be abused. One of the first worries in my mind is this: if we don’t need to put a soldier’s life on the line, we will be that much more likely to go in shooting. Until relatively recently, every war had to be measured against the human investment: the potential benefit of a conflict, weighed against the potential cost of the lives of the soldiers involved. Robotic soldiers remove the weight from one side of the equation. If there is no risk to one’s own side, where is the weight against entering into a conflict? I’ve never really considered myself a pacifist – utilitarianism does not in principle exclude the possibility that a war could create more happiness than it costs. But it doesn’t seem very likely to me.

Now, the key word with these devices is “semi-autonomous.” Certain aspects of their operation are handled by the computer, and others are handled by remote human operators. But it seems to me that as their AI becomes more advanced, more and more parts of their operation will be handed off to AI control. It is not inconceivable that eventually they will become completely so, autonomous killing machines. And if that happens, the potential abuses will multiply. Electronic subversion, even theft of these soldiers. Where does the blame lie when a robotic soldier malfunctions and kills a bystander? These are questions that, as yet, have no answers.

In any case, what can be done about this? Honestly, I think the most realistic way that creates the best outcome for all to control such a technology is by laws and treaties. Which is one reason the current drone program, which has little in the way of public oversight, is so unsettling.