As of May 3, American unmanned systems had carried out 131 known airstrikes into Pakistan, well over triple the number we did with manned bombers in the opening round of the Kosovo War just a decade ago. By the old standards, this would be viewed as a war.
But why do we not view it as such? Is it because it is being run by the CIA, not by the U.S. military?
P.W. Singer raises a number of uncomfortable issues regarding the growing use of robots in warfare. Well, not only in warfare, but also, for instance:
Does the Second Amendment cover my right to bear (robotic) arms? It sounds like a joke, but where does the line go, and why? A bar owner in Atlanta already started the push to test this, building "Bum Bot," a robot armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker, and aluminum water cannon that he used to scare away homeless people and drug dealers from a parking lot near his business.
Singer's essay is one of the three featured at Slate.
The article is being published in conjunction with "Warring Futures: How Biotech and Robotics Are Transforming Today's Military—and How That Will Change the Rest of Us," a May 24 conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. You can sign up to attend the event here. Read an article by Fred Kaplan about how the nature of war limits the use of technology and by Brad Allenby about why it's futile to resist new military technology.
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