Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Remote Control War

    Robots that kill in movies have not come to far from the future. The question is how will the robots not only change warfare but mankind itself. In Indiana Springs, Nevada a group of ordinary men go to war to fight insurgents in Afghanistan and on boarders of Pakistan, luckily they are remote control warriors. In other words people go to a station in Indiana Springs and control robots to kill their enemy across boarders for war purposes. Since the war in Iraq there has been an increase of 7000 wars robots in air and 12,000 robots on ground used in combat, 43 other countries like Canada also use these remote controlled machines. The robots save soldiers lives but the problem is robots can become autonomous with lethal weapons. The question is if robots are killing human beings is it ethical and what are the new rules of engagements?  Other question will rise in the future...what will robots do in the future when they can decide on there own? Western countries have the upper hand in this case but other countries will start developing soon enough. Robots are future suicide bombers? No body on your side is killed but opposing casualties are?

     War has always been between two or more opposing countries sending out casualties to protect and serve for their country. I have never been a big fan of war to begin with...I appreciate the tradition and what we learn from it but taking it to a whole other level is transforming the definition of ethics. I don't think it is right to send out robots to fight in war in order to protect your own people and eliminate the opposition. In some cases these robots have not only killed the enemy but the poor civilians around them. I actually watched the documentary on this Remote Control War and Jody Williams a Noble Peace Prize Winner claimed that it was not ethical to have controlled machines similar to video games in order to kill others. I agree with her because it isn't fair and god knows how many innocent people will be killed. I think soon enough there will be autonomous robots that will soon kill any person in there way. My final opinion is that the robots used for carrying wounded soldiers like the "The Bear" and those robots used for going over land mines and finding trip wires is very useful. In this sense it is ethical since it is saving soldiers lives and not killing other people. We don't need robot planes or machines to kill others cause if we continue this path, who knows what world wide war could come ahead of us?    
 






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