Should The Government Avoid Robots Ethical?

In July 2015, 21.5 million people were affected by a mass breach of the government’s computer system resulting in the leaking of social security numbers, finger prints, and financial history (Hirschfield Davis, 2015). Our government is supposed to keep its citizens’ information and military secrets secure, but apparently this is not the first time. Michael Daniel, the White House cybersecurity coordinator stated, “This incident that we are talking about today is unfortunately not without precedent” (Hirschfield Davis, 2015). If it is possible to hack our government’s computer system, how difficult would it be to also hack autonomous military robots? In 2013, computer scientists, with permission, hacked into a JEEP with the ability to change the speed, disable the breaks, and track the car’s location. If hackers had the ability to take over our weapons with this type of technology, the whole idea would completely backfire. The technology necessary to do this is also completely wireless, and the JEEP was hacked at a distance of ten miles …show more content…
Who is to blame for death and destruction caused by an unmanned robot? It is hard to pin the blame on somebody when the cause isn’t even a somebody, but a what. Bonnie Docherty, a lecturer at Harvard Law School stated, “No accountability means no deterrence of future crimes, no retribution for victims, no social condemnation of the responsible party.” It does not make sense to punish a robot because it has no sense of right and wrong. It is dehumanizing for enemies, and our soldiers, to be killed by something that cannot be punished. If an autonomous robot were to malfunction and kill innocent civilians, it is inhumane to not bring justice to the families affected. Also, if a death occurs involving a robot, should a news article be named “robot kills worker” or “person killed in robot accident”?