Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Ethics, and the Military: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract

Defense and security organizations depend upon science and technology to meet operational needs, predict and counter threats, and meet increasingly complex demands of modern warfare. Artificial intelligence and robotics could provide solutions to a wide range of military gaps and deficiencies. At the same time, the unique and rapidly evolving nature of AI and robotics challenges existing polices, regulations, and values, and introduces complex ethical issues that might impede their development, evaluation, and use by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Early consideration of potential ethical issues raised by military use of emerging AI and robotics technologies in development is critical to their effective implementation. This article presents an ethics assessment framework for emerging AI and robotics technologies. It is designed to help technology developers, policymakers, decision makers, and other stakeholders identify and broadly consider potential ethical issues that might arise with the military use and integration of emerging AI and robotics technologies of interest. We also provide a contextual environment for our framework, as well as an example of how our framework can be applied to a specific technology. Finally, we briefly identify and address several pervasive issues that arose during our research.

La industria 4.0 y sus aplicaciones en el ámbito militar

“…General José María Córdova ISSN 1900-6586 (impreso), 2500-7645 (en línea) el uso indebido de la IA por piratas informáticos, cárteles, mercado negro y otros agentes que atentan contra la seguridad nacional (Wasilow & Thorpe, 2019).…”

Towards an effective transnational regulation of AI

“…Then something like a reasonably ethical programmer standard might emerge. Programmers may be expected to use existing codes as checklists of issues (Wasilow and Thorpe 2019 , 38). A longer term, more comprehensive solution is suggested below.…”

Intelligent Covert Satellite Communication for Military Robot Swarm

“…Generally, a robot swarm consisting of hundreds and thousands of small robots can support some complex tasks based on the collaborations among its robot members. Additionally, due to its characteristics of intelligence, maneuverability, flexibility and high survivability, the robot swarm has been applied to various military scenarios [3], [4]. Typical applications include front operations, emergency management, intelligence collection and enemy reconnaissance.…”