Ethical-robot advocacy lowers moral barriers to deploying lethal robots.

Evidence

This is a typical “Trojan horse” type of procedure: in the name of the eventual prospect of ethical killer robots, you win the acceptance of the development of killer robots pure and simple, even though, as their supporters themselves know full well, public opinion still is massively opposed to them. By presenting the process of automatization as itself automatic and ineluctable, and by generously proposing in advance to moderate its excesses, Arkin and his associates are masking the fact that they themselves are the extremely active agents of that very process, effectively promoting it by providing the justifications that will be needed for it to prosper. The more widespread the legend of the ethical robot becomes, the faster the moral barriers to the deployment of killer robots give way. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 669 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

To justify his work, he writes, “My personal hope would be that they will never be needed in the present or the future. But man’s tendency toward war seems overwhelming and inevitable.” Alas, if we cannot avoid war, at least let us use our technical abilities to try to make it more ethical, for indeed if we could manage that, it would be “a significant humanitarian achievement.” To be sure … but in what respect could those prospective robot warriors “be more humane on the battlefield than humans”? For a whole series of reasons, in particular thanks to their “precision,” but above all because they can be programmed to respect the law. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 654 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

According to this view of military morality, to kill while exposing one’s own life is bad; to take lives without ever endangering one’s own is good. That first principle of drone necroethics is, paradoxically, vitalist. And it is in accordance with this logic that the drone can be said to be a “humanitarian” weapon: the humanitarian imperative is to save lives. And the drone does indeed save our lives. It is therefore a humanitarian technology. QED. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Empathy discourse is repurposed to legitimize mechanized killing; Ethical-robot rhetoric is a Trojan horse that lowers moral barriers to killer robots — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 669; Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453 (+5 more)

Related

• Ethical-robot rhetoric is a Trojan horse that lowers moral barriers to killer robots (similarity 0.92)
• Roboticist Ronald Arkin argues lethal robots could be more humane than human soldiers (similarity 0.89)
• Empathy discourse is repurposed to legitimize mechanized killing (similarity 0.87)
• The discourse of ethical drones strategically lowers the cost of using them. (similarity 0.87)
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.83)
• Drones fuse killing and caring into an integrated humilitarian power (similarity 0.83)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties (similarity 0.82)
• Jus in bello norms applied to drones convert combat ethics into necroethics (similarity 0.82)
• Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war (similarity 0.81)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.80)
• Feigned empathy with victims legitimizes drone homicide publicly (similarity 0.80)
• Remote killing of humans drew less moral outrage than remote hunting of animals (similarity 0.79)
• Human emotions protect civilians by restraining lethal military force (similarity 0.79)
• Drone design produces a strong moral buffering effect on operators (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Ethical-robot rhetoric is a Trojan horse that lowers moral barriers to killer robots #corroborates (0.95) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 669
• Roboticist Ronald Arkin argues lethal robots could be more humane than human soldiers #exemplifies (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 654
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good #expands (0.40) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453
• Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war #expands (0.35)
• Moral denunciation constrains behavior more effectively than merely procedural rules #complicates (0.30) — , The Rod and the Child, 2517