Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Abstract

Technological advancements in autonomy promise a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), where autonomous weapons will co-mingle with human military members and non combatant populations. Because of this, the college classroom provides an excellent laboratory for integrative learning be- tween engineering disciplines and the humanities. Our project, the Ethics of Ground Lethal AutonomousWeapons (GLAWS) demonstrated that students could successfully integrate the engineering skills required to improve small, autonomous robots to perform on a simulated battlefield, which brought out corresponding discussions of philosophical concepts such as exist in the ethics of war, including just war theory, as well as larger issues in agency and responsibility.