[LINK] Killer robots and military ethics

[Craig Sanders]

On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 04:32:00PM +1000, Roger Clarke wrote:
> At 15:43 +1000 18/7/13, Craig Sanders wrote:
> >  ... robot weapons do what they're programmed to do ...
> 
> A refinement (not a correction, because I'm sure that Craig is well 
> aware of this!):
> 
> What a programmer intends a device to do is not necessarily what it does.

yep, as you say there are bugs, logic errors, un-envisaged situations, and
un-intended or poorly-thought-out consequences and more.

(and that's before you take into consideration hardware faults like grit
in the camera or, worse, deliberately engineered plausible-deniability
"faults")

being a tech geek, i assumed all that was implicit in "what they're
programmed to do". forgot that this list's membership isn't entirely
geeks who would recognise the traditional large dose of irony in that
phrase.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>