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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/27/drone-pilots-ethics-robots-kill-church-of-england-raf
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| Why teach drone pilots about ethics when it’s robots that will kill us? | Why teach drone pilots about ethics when it’s robots that will kill us? |
| (25 days later) | |
| Killing comes in degrees of intimacy. At one extreme there is the example of Freddie Oversteegen, a hero of the Dutch resistance, who as a 14-year-old-girl used to pick up German soldiers and collaborators in bars, lure them into the woods, and once in a secluded spot shoot them dead. Long after the war, she told an interviewer that when seeing a man she had just shot fall, “you want to help them to get up”. At the far extreme, perhaps, were the crew of Enola Gay, who killed 80,000 civilians with one bomb, dropped on Hiroshima from miles above. | Killing comes in degrees of intimacy. At one extreme there is the example of Freddie Oversteegen, a hero of the Dutch resistance, who as a 14-year-old-girl used to pick up German soldiers and collaborators in bars, lure them into the woods, and once in a secluded spot shoot them dead. Long after the war, she told an interviewer that when seeing a man she had just shot fall, “you want to help them to get up”. At the far extreme, perhaps, were the crew of Enola Gay, who killed 80,000 civilians with one bomb, dropped on Hiroshima from miles above. |
| Drone pilots are even safer and further from their victims than high-altitude bombers. They go to work at an airbase and never physically leave it. In the evenings, they go home to their families, like any other commuter, after deciding which strangers halfway round the world to kill. | Drone pilots are even safer and further from their victims than high-altitude bombers. They go to work at an airbase and never physically leave it. In the evenings, they go home to their families, like any other commuter, after deciding which strangers halfway round the world to kill. |
| But what is the psychological effect of such a job? Neither the crew of Enola Gay nor Oversteegen thought they had acted wrongly. Both were buoyed by patriotism and widely admired for their courage. Drone pilots, however, have been less studied. The wars they fight are much less obviously just – if they are just at all. | But what is the psychological effect of such a job? Neither the crew of Enola Gay nor Oversteegen thought they had acted wrongly. Both were buoyed by patriotism and widely admired for their courage. Drone pilots, however, have been less studied. The wars they fight are much less obviously just – if they are just at all. |
| The Church of England has just announced a programme to help RAF chaplains offer pastoral care and support to drone pilots. The unusual thing is that they are to study ethics and philosophy in this training. Traditionally, chaplaincy work has been much more practical: about the business of surviving and maintaining morale. Frontline soldiers don’t really have time to worry about the ethics of their trade while they’re at work. | The Church of England has just announced a programme to help RAF chaplains offer pastoral care and support to drone pilots. The unusual thing is that they are to study ethics and philosophy in this training. Traditionally, chaplaincy work has been much more practical: about the business of surviving and maintaining morale. Frontline soldiers don’t really have time to worry about the ethics of their trade while they’re at work. |
| Google's march to the business of war must be stopped | Lucy Suchman, Lilly Irani and Peter Asaro | |
| Quite probably, traditional empathy and common sense is all that’s needed in the job at present – or it would be, were it not for the worry that computers will soon be able to direct killing without any human operators in the loop at all. Soldiers typically hand off most of their moral responsibilities to their superiors. “Theirs is not to reason why/ Theirs is but to do or die” – as the poem goes. While there has been – since 1945 – a clear understanding that soldiers should not obey illegal orders, decisions for the most part are made by their human superiors. | Quite probably, traditional empathy and common sense is all that’s needed in the job at present – or it would be, were it not for the worry that computers will soon be able to direct killing without any human operators in the loop at all. Soldiers typically hand off most of their moral responsibilities to their superiors. “Theirs is not to reason why/ Theirs is but to do or die” – as the poem goes. While there has been – since 1945 – a clear understanding that soldiers should not obey illegal orders, decisions for the most part are made by their human superiors. |
| What happens when these decisions are made by computer? In some cases they already are, and have to be. Anti-missile defences could not possibly react fast enough to incoming attacks if they were slowed down by humans in the loop. By the time a human realises what decision has been made, it has already been acted on. | What happens when these decisions are made by computer? In some cases they already are, and have to be. Anti-missile defences could not possibly react fast enough to incoming attacks if they were slowed down by humans in the loop. By the time a human realises what decision has been made, it has already been acted on. |
| For the most part, armies are keen to maintain that there will always be humans in charge when lethal decisions are taken. This is only partly window dressing. One automated system is dangerous only to its enemies; two are dangerous to each other, and out of anyone’s control. We have seen what happens on stock markets when automatic trading programs fall into a destructive pattern and cause “flash crashes”. In October 2016 the pound lost 6% of its value, with blame in part put down to algorithmic trading. If two hi-tech armies were in a standoff where hair-trigger algorithms faced each other on both sides, the potential for disaster might seem unlimited. | For the most part, armies are keen to maintain that there will always be humans in charge when lethal decisions are taken. This is only partly window dressing. One automated system is dangerous only to its enemies; two are dangerous to each other, and out of anyone’s control. We have seen what happens on stock markets when automatic trading programs fall into a destructive pattern and cause “flash crashes”. In October 2016 the pound lost 6% of its value, with blame in part put down to algorithmic trading. If two hi-tech armies were in a standoff where hair-trigger algorithms faced each other on both sides, the potential for disaster might seem unlimited. |
| Nuclear war has been averted on at least one occasion by a heroic Russian officer overriding the judgment of computers that there was an incoming missile attack from the US. But he had 25 minutes to decide. Battlefield time is measured in seconds. | Nuclear war has been averted on at least one occasion by a heroic Russian officer overriding the judgment of computers that there was an incoming missile attack from the US. But he had 25 minutes to decide. Battlefield time is measured in seconds. |
| Nerve gas in Salisbury, drones in Syria: is there a moral difference? | Simon Jenkins | |
| These developments will not happen by themselves. Humans will decide to deploy such systems and so whether to render themselves obsolete and perhaps extinct. There’s little sign that we will draw back from the brink, despite warnings from computer scientists that this automation is a revolution in warfare comparable to the invention of gunpowder or nuclear weapons. | These developments will not happen by themselves. Humans will decide to deploy such systems and so whether to render themselves obsolete and perhaps extinct. There’s little sign that we will draw back from the brink, despite warnings from computer scientists that this automation is a revolution in warfare comparable to the invention of gunpowder or nuclear weapons. |
| So the drone pilots are not really the most dangerous users of military technology. What’s more, theirs is not even the profession most traumatised by what is seen on screens. Think instead of the underpaid and under-supported human moderators employed by Facebook and Google to watch and react to hours of video footage of cruelty or atrocity ranging from child abuse images to murder and filmed in far more detail than a drone operator will ever see. What they see cannot be justified by appeals to patriotism. They cannot reach, let alone punish, the perpetrators. | So the drone pilots are not really the most dangerous users of military technology. What’s more, theirs is not even the profession most traumatised by what is seen on screens. Think instead of the underpaid and under-supported human moderators employed by Facebook and Google to watch and react to hours of video footage of cruelty or atrocity ranging from child abuse images to murder and filmed in far more detail than a drone operator will ever see. What they see cannot be justified by appeals to patriotism. They cannot reach, let alone punish, the perpetrators. |
| If I were directing emotional and ethical support at anyone, it would be to unarmed moderators and not our own armed forces. | If I were directing emotional and ethical support at anyone, it would be to unarmed moderators and not our own armed forces. |
| • Andrew Brown writes on religion | • Andrew Brown writes on religion |
| Ethics | Ethics |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Drones (military) | Drones (military) |
| Royal Air Force | Royal Air Force |
| Anglicanism | Anglicanism |
| Robots | Robots |
| Artificial intelligence (AI) | Artificial intelligence (AI) |
| Christianity | Christianity |
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