Drones Pros And Cons Research Paper
Understanding Drones: What makes them Good or Bad
Joe D. Priest
Park University
Abstract
Drones have been a debate topic for years but the subject matter has become more important recently due to the deployment of military drones around the world. This paper will analyze arguments of both proponents and opponents of the usage of drones in both the civilian and military sectors of life and present interpretations of both sides on key arguments. By looking at arguments presented on articles from popular news sources such as CNN (Cable News Network), BBC (British Broadcast Corporation), and news blogs, we can form a better understanding of the applications, and functions of today’s drones and how they …show more content…
may be used for both good and bad purposes.
Understanding Drones: What Makes Them Good or Bad In the last few years, unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly referred to as drones) have become a popular topic of debate. Drones are used to break up terrorist networks, kill with precision, keep troops alive, save money, monitor citizens, shrink involvement, and help countries maintain the edge of technology in today’s warfare. They also are said to create more terrorists than they destroy, kill innocents, attack low value targets, lack sufficient legal oversight, remove people from the horrors of war, and are very unpopular in countries where the strikes occur. Drones are both good and bad and have arguments that are valid to support and oppose the usage of them in modern warfare. Determining a conclusion on the usage of drones requires a detailed look at both party’s arguments and comparing the pros and cons of each. In 1989, the Austrian Empire launched 200 pilotless balloons armed with bombs and sent them soaring towards the rebels in Venice. The idea was to have them fly towards the city and explode upon impact. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) described here are brainless and rely heavily upon pure luck and some cardinal direction. Today’s UAV’s are smart, fast, and extremely accurate. General Atomic’s Predator drone is a remotely piloted reconnaissance/strike plane that, with the assistance of advanced sensors and camera’s, has the ability to select ground targets as small as a penny. While AI primarily guides this system, many of its features are including the sensors and various other mechanical features. Research fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky, at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute has been working on AI for the drones known as Seed AI. The idea is that the programs will be able to optimize and program themselves and adapt to changing environments. The application of these technologies is both dangerous and exciting due to the results that could possibly come from it. With successful application, these drones can be one hundred percent accurate in assessing targets and precise in all cases. On the other hand, if they aren’t applied correctly, many people could lose their lives and suffer immensely from death or injury.
Since the beginning of use, drones have killed upwards of 3,500 militants of whom some were commanders, or highly skilled members of the terrorist network. Drones are hailed as being a driving force in lowering terrorism in the world and decimating networks that house terrorists. President Barrack Obama said that:
“dozens of highly skilled al Queda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, US transit systems, European cities, and our troops in Afghanistan.” (Pro/Con, Pg. 16)
With the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud by the hands of a drone, the international community praised the drones for their precision. Aerial drones have the advantage of being able to identify high-value targets without the involvement of ground forces. This allows them to identify key areas of terrorist network and break them up. With the hope of decimating future operations or eliminating the ability of the terrorists to communicate through key members, the hosts of the drone operators hope to dilute terrorist’s networks. This also works to instill fear within the terrorist networks. Members who hear about drone strikes become afraid of being killed by an enemy that isn’t human and is extremely precise. The hope is that terrorists wont bother to join these causes because they have the possibility of being killed before they can identify a threat or attempt to combat it. However, opponents of this stance say that drones are ineffective at identifying correct targets and lack the ability to properly distinguish between enemy combatants and civilians. This sort of targeting ambiguity is said to have led to the creation of countless new terrorists out of the tragedies that have arisen from wrongful targeting. If a missile from a drone strikes a civilian target on accident it will cause members of the community to become enraged at the drones country and make them more susceptible to joining a terrorist organization against them. Yemen was a country that was used as an example of how drones are causing unrest. Jeremy Scahill said, “people who are aggrieved by attacks on their homes that forced them to go out and fight.” This may seem like a broad assumption but data from the Arabian Peninsula shows that the number of Al Qaeda grew tremendously from 2009 to 2012 when the drone strikes recommenced after a seven-year halt. This growth was attributed to the strikes and the civil unrest that ensued in the area after multiple civilian families were killed. There are two cases of terrorism that were claimed to have been performed due to the drones including the “Times Square Bomber” and the “Underwear Bomber.” In both cases, terrorists claimed to have performed their actions because of the United State’s use of drones within their countries. These proclamations have caused opponents of drones to speak out against the use of drones in fear of the effect that they have on creating new terrorists.
A main goal of using AI within drones is to cut back on cost.
With billions of dollars being spent on the military budget and only one percent of that going toward the drone program, it’s easy to see why the government is interested in drones. Drones have a large success ratio and are cheap, effective, and ensure the pilots safety. Compared to F-35 and F-16 flights, the drones only constitute 15% of the overall cost of flights for these aircraft. While these numbers are great, they can be even further reduced with the introduction of AI. The programs that are being worked on for the drones are set to take over for pilots meaning that the overhead for drone flights will be even less. The biggest question that’s raised by this addition is, are the drones smart enough? With human life as the gambling chip, the test of drones with AI is something that can’t be solidly agreed upon. If a drone pilot makes a mistake, that person can be tried and given a sentence but if the drones AI made the decision, than who’s to blame? This ambiguity has led to major halts in the implementation of AI within the drones. Eight to seventeen percent of drone strike casualties are civilians. This means that almost 1,047 civilians were killed in Pakistan at the hands of drones. This is a high number and considering it’s on a lower scale of deployment, this number could be even higher. Drones are a relatively new technology and their deployment is limited due to the subject matters sensitivity internationally and locally. Research at Stanford University and New York University concluded that people who lived in the drone areas experienced horrors that were more far reaching than just the strikes. Town’s people within these areas must conduct themselves normally within their community; buying fruit, going to school, and work and all with the constant buzzing of drones overheard. Civilians in these areas live in fear that they could be killed by a drone attack at any moment, which disrupts
focus on things within their community. A tribal sheik in Yemen Mullah Zabara says, “we consider the drones terrorism. The drones are flying day and night, freighting women and children, disturbing sleeping people. This is terrorism.” Drones are known for being precise and are measured against traditional weapons like bombs or mortars, to which they are very conservative. The statistic that was mentioned earlier cited that eight to seventeen percent of civilian deaths were caused by drones but compared to other weapons this is a small figure. In World War II, 40-60% of casualties were civilians, in Korea and the Balkans it raised to 70%. While 17% percent isn’t perfect, the decrease in civilian deaths can be attributed to the level of precision that drones exhibit. Collateral damage is also minimized by the use of drones. Because the drones can strike specific areas with great accuracy, they cut down on the amount of civilian structures that are injured or destroyed during bombings.
International law under the United Nations, states that a nation has the right to self-defense once it has been attacked. In countries where they are unable to control their own borders, they can agree to allow the United States to use drones within their territory. Under that same law, if they identify somebody who can be a potential threat or has acted aggressively toward the state, they can strike them without positively identifying them as aggressors. These countries include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, all of who have agreed to allow the US to perform drone strikes within their countries. The drones have also been used in immediate self-defense of the country. In cases where there is an “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation” they can use drones to prevent possible mishaps. The caveat to this law is under the international humanitarian law, which states the targeted individual must be directly participating in hostilities with the United States. Looking at the list of targets that the United States has killed in the past suggests that we’ve violated this law quiet a few times. The CIA has targeted individuals based on the fact that they’ve been associated with militant groups, which is not sufficient evidence to condemn them. Under international law, these killings would be considered war crimes because people are being killed without the proper proof of involvement. If AI were introduced into the drone program, one of its main aims would be to solidify rules of engagement. By programming a set of rules that are irrefutable, the drones would make decisions that would perfectly conform to international and domestic law. This all goes back to making advances in sensors and creating sufficient decisions structures for the AI to be able to judge the situations and act accordingly.
The war on terrorism is a war that has been waged across many countries, all over the world. The United States has not been fighting a specific enemy with a military force, and centralized command for sometime. To fight a terrorist group, is to fight a loose collection of fighters that don’t want to reveal themselves and are spread out over many countries. This dispersion and gorilla fighting requires that the United States take a more complex route in combating them. This can lead to a very expensive war. A major advantage of using drones is their ability to fight with cheap deployment. If there is an area of interest, the drones can be deployed relative to that area and fly to it while the base remains in operation miles away. This distance and easy deployment means that they can save huge amounts of money on waging wars. The Afghanistan war that started with 9/11 has dragged on for 12 years and has cost the United States more money than any other modern war. With the usage of drones, the countries that utilize them can cut back on lose of life and money spent on combating international terrorist units. The AI that would control these drones would only require an initial investment and subsequent updates after that but would still run relatively cheap. If a large fleet of drones was controlled by a central area and all of the drones were equipped with their own onboard AI, then deployment would be easy and require a minimum staff.
The efficiency of drones comes with the drawbacks of secretive natures, lack of legal oversight, and accountability of political figures. Due to the drone’s ability to operate internationally and with little surveillance, they cannot be held accountable for the actions as well as a soldier can. The drones fly around large areas and can strike in an instant, which means that the operations are fully controlled by the government. Whistle blowing is difficult to conduct when the pilots aren’t anywhere near the vehicle. In the United States, the CIA has been in control of 80% of drone strikes all of which have been classified as secret wars. The nature of these attacks are generally classified which means if something happened that could have been considered wrong then there would not be a release of the information. The CIA has not released anything about their drone programs to the public and has not given details about the programs to congress. The Executive branch without the consent of congress, which means there is a lack of accountability, can operate the drones. Since many of the killings have been reported as “unlawful,” congress has sought to gain more information about them but has not released any information about them. This lack of transparency allows people to feel that the there being mislead and lied to about the actions of the government. The introduction of AI in this matter could be a fix all. By allowing an on board computer to make decisions on an objective base, the public would be assured that the drone operated exactly as it should. If the programming was objective and couldn’t be overridden by a pilot then the public would be assured of its actions. Many believe that adding AI to the drones will cause them to be more susceptible to secrecy. If the drones are completely controlled by the AI, then they could be altered or programmed differently for specific missions without the documentation. This problem has lead researchers to look at creating a locked AI for drones to avoid tampering that would allow the drones to conduct illegal operations.
Congressionally, there are rules set in place for drone strikes. Each drone strike is subject to review from congress and must be submitted and reviewed before it can happen. A few months before the drone strike of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, a package was submitted by the Obama administration with information regarding the five criteria that had been met in order to justify a strike on him. The five criteria are, 1) Near certainty that the terrorist target is present 2) Near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed 3) An assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of the operation 4) An assessment that the relevant governmental authorities in the country have been notified of the strike 5) An assessment that no other reasonable alternatives exist to effectively address the threat. These five laws help to ensure that the drones are making effective decisions that are ethical. AI is being created to incorporate these laws to ensure that drones will exercise restraint in these situations and use their best judgment. Intelligence committees and congress are informed of every drone strike that has ever occurred which ensures accountability. The psychological effects of war are deep and long lasting and those involved as well as those it touches are negatively influenced by it. A major concern for the drone project is that pilots of them will be psychologically affected by the strikes. Keith Shurtleff, a US army chaplain, said that soldiers are “physically and psychologically removed from the horrors of battle and see the enemy not as humans but as blips on a screen, there is a danger of losing the deterrent to that its horrors normally provide.” The pilots essentially become video game players at that point, which dehumanize the act of violence. This level of removal will mean that pilots will be more willing to engage in questionable acts during a war since they will see the enemy on a screen rather than in real life. Others say that this is a good thing. By removing the aspect of killing somebody, you’re protecting the soldiers from getting PTSD. The soldiers can than accurately engage the enemy without the problems that normally come with killing somebody. This will in turn help drive down cases of PTSD in the Department of Defense. The addition of an AI element to the drone would eliminate both problems. With AI controlling the drones, there wouldn’t be a danger of PTSD to anybody and there would be a moral removal.
Support for drone strikes has been high within the United States. 61% of Americans support drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia and support has been cross party. Both Republicans and Democrats support it with an average of 60% of both parties voting in favor of it. This sort of support is due to the drone’s ability to keep American soldiers out of harm and still fight wars that need to be waged. Another Gallup poll found that 57% of Americans support drone strikes in any area that supports Al Qaeda. These figures are reflective of the advantages of removal and effectiveness. Other countries, especially those affected by the drones, do not share that support. In the countries where the drones are making strikes, the opposition is overwhelming, as citizens do not wish to have drones hovering over their homes with the possibility of striking at any time.
The usage of drones on the battlefield will continue to evolve over time and become more complex to adapt to the situations of the world. As AI rises to meet these challenges, the usages of drones will no doubt become more complex and new issues will arise leading to the need of further innovation. While this technology goes through it’s innovation, there will continue to be those who oppose and support it with dynamic opinions that will help sculpt the future of drones.
References
ProCon.org (2014). Should the United States Continue It’s Use of Drone Strikes Abroad? Retrieved July 1, 2014. From Pros and Cons Org: http://drones.procon.org/
Frankie Gotz (May 16, 2013). Justification of the Use of Drones-Good and Bad (Big Brother Surveillance). Retrieved June 20, 2014 from the Canadian Awareness: http://canadianawareness.org/2013/05/justification-of-the-use-of-drones-good-and-bad-big-bro/
Shawn Helton(October 09, 2013). Artificial Intelligence and Death by Drones: the Future of Warfare will be ‘Decided by Drones’ not Humans. Retrieved on June 15, 2014 from Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/artificial-intelligence-and-death-by-drones-the-future-of-warfare-will-be-decided-by-drones-not-humans/5353699
Chenda Ngak (May 17, 2013). Drone Technology Myths, Fact and Future Feats. Retrieved from June 17, 2014 CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-technology-myths-facts-and-future-feats/ Fatima Bhojani (May 21, 2014). For Good or Bad, Intelligent, Swarming Nanobots Are the Next Frontier of Drones. Retrieved on July 2, 2014 on Motherboard site: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-the-us-military-is-funding-tiny-autonomous-flying-robots
Kelsey Atherton (March 7, 2014). Flying Robots 101: Everything You Need to Know About Drones. Retrieved on June 13, 2014 from Popular Science site: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/drone-any-other-name
Brian Stelter (June 25, 2014). CNN to study drone use for reporting. Retrieved on July 1, 2014 from CNN Money site: http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/23/media/drones-news-research/
BBC (January 31, 2014). Drones: What are they and how do they work? Retrieved on July 12, 2014 on BBC News: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-10713898
Joe D. Priest
Park University
Abstract
Drones have been a debate topic for years but the subject matter has become more important recently due to the deployment of military drones around the world. This paper will analyze arguments of both proponents and opponents of the usage of drones in both the civilian and military sectors of life and present interpretations of both sides on key arguments. By looking at arguments presented on articles from popular news sources such as CNN (Cable News Network), BBC (British Broadcast Corporation), and news blogs, we can form a better understanding of the applications, and functions of today’s drones and how they …show more content…
may be used for both good and bad purposes.
Understanding Drones: What Makes Them Good or Bad In the last few years, unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly referred to as drones) have become a popular topic of debate. Drones are used to break up terrorist networks, kill with precision, keep troops alive, save money, monitor citizens, shrink involvement, and help countries maintain the edge of technology in today’s warfare. They also are said to create more terrorists than they destroy, kill innocents, attack low value targets, lack sufficient legal oversight, remove people from the horrors of war, and are very unpopular in countries where the strikes occur. Drones are both good and bad and have arguments that are valid to support and oppose the usage of them in modern warfare. Determining a conclusion on the usage of drones requires a detailed look at both party’s arguments and comparing the pros and cons of each. In 1989, the Austrian Empire launched 200 pilotless balloons armed with bombs and sent them soaring towards the rebels in Venice. The idea was to have them fly towards the city and explode upon impact. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) described here are brainless and rely heavily upon pure luck and some cardinal direction. Today’s UAV’s are smart, fast, and extremely accurate. General Atomic’s Predator drone is a remotely piloted reconnaissance/strike plane that, with the assistance of advanced sensors and camera’s, has the ability to select ground targets as small as a penny. While AI primarily guides this system, many of its features are including the sensors and various other mechanical features. Research fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky, at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute has been working on AI for the drones known as Seed AI. The idea is that the programs will be able to optimize and program themselves and adapt to changing environments. The application of these technologies is both dangerous and exciting due to the results that could possibly come from it. With successful application, these drones can be one hundred percent accurate in assessing targets and precise in all cases. On the other hand, if they aren’t applied correctly, many people could lose their lives and suffer immensely from death or injury.
Since the beginning of use, drones have killed upwards of 3,500 militants of whom some were commanders, or highly skilled members of the terrorist network. Drones are hailed as being a driving force in lowering terrorism in the world and decimating networks that house terrorists. President Barrack Obama said that:
“dozens of highly skilled al Queda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, US transit systems, European cities, and our troops in Afghanistan.” (Pro/Con, Pg. 16)
With the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud by the hands of a drone, the international community praised the drones for their precision. Aerial drones have the advantage of being able to identify high-value targets without the involvement of ground forces. This allows them to identify key areas of terrorist network and break them up. With the hope of decimating future operations or eliminating the ability of the terrorists to communicate through key members, the hosts of the drone operators hope to dilute terrorist’s networks. This also works to instill fear within the terrorist networks. Members who hear about drone strikes become afraid of being killed by an enemy that isn’t human and is extremely precise. The hope is that terrorists wont bother to join these causes because they have the possibility of being killed before they can identify a threat or attempt to combat it. However, opponents of this stance say that drones are ineffective at identifying correct targets and lack the ability to properly distinguish between enemy combatants and civilians. This sort of targeting ambiguity is said to have led to the creation of countless new terrorists out of the tragedies that have arisen from wrongful targeting. If a missile from a drone strikes a civilian target on accident it will cause members of the community to become enraged at the drones country and make them more susceptible to joining a terrorist organization against them. Yemen was a country that was used as an example of how drones are causing unrest. Jeremy Scahill said, “people who are aggrieved by attacks on their homes that forced them to go out and fight.” This may seem like a broad assumption but data from the Arabian Peninsula shows that the number of Al Qaeda grew tremendously from 2009 to 2012 when the drone strikes recommenced after a seven-year halt. This growth was attributed to the strikes and the civil unrest that ensued in the area after multiple civilian families were killed. There are two cases of terrorism that were claimed to have been performed due to the drones including the “Times Square Bomber” and the “Underwear Bomber.” In both cases, terrorists claimed to have performed their actions because of the United State’s use of drones within their countries. These proclamations have caused opponents of drones to speak out against the use of drones in fear of the effect that they have on creating new terrorists.
A main goal of using AI within drones is to cut back on cost.
With billions of dollars being spent on the military budget and only one percent of that going toward the drone program, it’s easy to see why the government is interested in drones. Drones have a large success ratio and are cheap, effective, and ensure the pilots safety. Compared to F-35 and F-16 flights, the drones only constitute 15% of the overall cost of flights for these aircraft. While these numbers are great, they can be even further reduced with the introduction of AI. The programs that are being worked on for the drones are set to take over for pilots meaning that the overhead for drone flights will be even less. The biggest question that’s raised by this addition is, are the drones smart enough? With human life as the gambling chip, the test of drones with AI is something that can’t be solidly agreed upon. If a drone pilot makes a mistake, that person can be tried and given a sentence but if the drones AI made the decision, than who’s to blame? This ambiguity has led to major halts in the implementation of AI within the drones. Eight to seventeen percent of drone strike casualties are civilians. This means that almost 1,047 civilians were killed in Pakistan at the hands of drones. This is a high number and considering it’s on a lower scale of deployment, this number could be even higher. Drones are a relatively new technology and their deployment is limited due to the subject matters sensitivity internationally and locally. Research at Stanford University and New York University concluded that people who lived in the drone areas experienced horrors that were more far reaching than just the strikes. Town’s people within these areas must conduct themselves normally within their community; buying fruit, going to school, and work and all with the constant buzzing of drones overheard. Civilians in these areas live in fear that they could be killed by a drone attack at any moment, which disrupts
focus on things within their community. A tribal sheik in Yemen Mullah Zabara says, “we consider the drones terrorism. The drones are flying day and night, freighting women and children, disturbing sleeping people. This is terrorism.” Drones are known for being precise and are measured against traditional weapons like bombs or mortars, to which they are very conservative. The statistic that was mentioned earlier cited that eight to seventeen percent of civilian deaths were caused by drones but compared to other weapons this is a small figure. In World War II, 40-60% of casualties were civilians, in Korea and the Balkans it raised to 70%. While 17% percent isn’t perfect, the decrease in civilian deaths can be attributed to the level of precision that drones exhibit. Collateral damage is also minimized by the use of drones. Because the drones can strike specific areas with great accuracy, they cut down on the amount of civilian structures that are injured or destroyed during bombings.
International law under the United Nations, states that a nation has the right to self-defense once it has been attacked. In countries where they are unable to control their own borders, they can agree to allow the United States to use drones within their territory. Under that same law, if they identify somebody who can be a potential threat or has acted aggressively toward the state, they can strike them without positively identifying them as aggressors. These countries include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, all of who have agreed to allow the US to perform drone strikes within their countries. The drones have also been used in immediate self-defense of the country. In cases where there is an “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation” they can use drones to prevent possible mishaps. The caveat to this law is under the international humanitarian law, which states the targeted individual must be directly participating in hostilities with the United States. Looking at the list of targets that the United States has killed in the past suggests that we’ve violated this law quiet a few times. The CIA has targeted individuals based on the fact that they’ve been associated with militant groups, which is not sufficient evidence to condemn them. Under international law, these killings would be considered war crimes because people are being killed without the proper proof of involvement. If AI were introduced into the drone program, one of its main aims would be to solidify rules of engagement. By programming a set of rules that are irrefutable, the drones would make decisions that would perfectly conform to international and domestic law. This all goes back to making advances in sensors and creating sufficient decisions structures for the AI to be able to judge the situations and act accordingly.
The war on terrorism is a war that has been waged across many countries, all over the world. The United States has not been fighting a specific enemy with a military force, and centralized command for sometime. To fight a terrorist group, is to fight a loose collection of fighters that don’t want to reveal themselves and are spread out over many countries. This dispersion and gorilla fighting requires that the United States take a more complex route in combating them. This can lead to a very expensive war. A major advantage of using drones is their ability to fight with cheap deployment. If there is an area of interest, the drones can be deployed relative to that area and fly to it while the base remains in operation miles away. This distance and easy deployment means that they can save huge amounts of money on waging wars. The Afghanistan war that started with 9/11 has dragged on for 12 years and has cost the United States more money than any other modern war. With the usage of drones, the countries that utilize them can cut back on lose of life and money spent on combating international terrorist units. The AI that would control these drones would only require an initial investment and subsequent updates after that but would still run relatively cheap. If a large fleet of drones was controlled by a central area and all of the drones were equipped with their own onboard AI, then deployment would be easy and require a minimum staff.
The efficiency of drones comes with the drawbacks of secretive natures, lack of legal oversight, and accountability of political figures. Due to the drone’s ability to operate internationally and with little surveillance, they cannot be held accountable for the actions as well as a soldier can. The drones fly around large areas and can strike in an instant, which means that the operations are fully controlled by the government. Whistle blowing is difficult to conduct when the pilots aren’t anywhere near the vehicle. In the United States, the CIA has been in control of 80% of drone strikes all of which have been classified as secret wars. The nature of these attacks are generally classified which means if something happened that could have been considered wrong then there would not be a release of the information. The CIA has not released anything about their drone programs to the public and has not given details about the programs to congress. The Executive branch without the consent of congress, which means there is a lack of accountability, can operate the drones. Since many of the killings have been reported as “unlawful,” congress has sought to gain more information about them but has not released any information about them. This lack of transparency allows people to feel that the there being mislead and lied to about the actions of the government. The introduction of AI in this matter could be a fix all. By allowing an on board computer to make decisions on an objective base, the public would be assured that the drone operated exactly as it should. If the programming was objective and couldn’t be overridden by a pilot then the public would be assured of its actions. Many believe that adding AI to the drones will cause them to be more susceptible to secrecy. If the drones are completely controlled by the AI, then they could be altered or programmed differently for specific missions without the documentation. This problem has lead researchers to look at creating a locked AI for drones to avoid tampering that would allow the drones to conduct illegal operations.
Congressionally, there are rules set in place for drone strikes. Each drone strike is subject to review from congress and must be submitted and reviewed before it can happen. A few months before the drone strike of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, a package was submitted by the Obama administration with information regarding the five criteria that had been met in order to justify a strike on him. The five criteria are, 1) Near certainty that the terrorist target is present 2) Near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed 3) An assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of the operation 4) An assessment that the relevant governmental authorities in the country have been notified of the strike 5) An assessment that no other reasonable alternatives exist to effectively address the threat. These five laws help to ensure that the drones are making effective decisions that are ethical. AI is being created to incorporate these laws to ensure that drones will exercise restraint in these situations and use their best judgment. Intelligence committees and congress are informed of every drone strike that has ever occurred which ensures accountability. The psychological effects of war are deep and long lasting and those involved as well as those it touches are negatively influenced by it. A major concern for the drone project is that pilots of them will be psychologically affected by the strikes. Keith Shurtleff, a US army chaplain, said that soldiers are “physically and psychologically removed from the horrors of battle and see the enemy not as humans but as blips on a screen, there is a danger of losing the deterrent to that its horrors normally provide.” The pilots essentially become video game players at that point, which dehumanize the act of violence. This level of removal will mean that pilots will be more willing to engage in questionable acts during a war since they will see the enemy on a screen rather than in real life. Others say that this is a good thing. By removing the aspect of killing somebody, you’re protecting the soldiers from getting PTSD. The soldiers can than accurately engage the enemy without the problems that normally come with killing somebody. This will in turn help drive down cases of PTSD in the Department of Defense. The addition of an AI element to the drone would eliminate both problems. With AI controlling the drones, there wouldn’t be a danger of PTSD to anybody and there would be a moral removal.
Support for drone strikes has been high within the United States. 61% of Americans support drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia and support has been cross party. Both Republicans and Democrats support it with an average of 60% of both parties voting in favor of it. This sort of support is due to the drone’s ability to keep American soldiers out of harm and still fight wars that need to be waged. Another Gallup poll found that 57% of Americans support drone strikes in any area that supports Al Qaeda. These figures are reflective of the advantages of removal and effectiveness. Other countries, especially those affected by the drones, do not share that support. In the countries where the drones are making strikes, the opposition is overwhelming, as citizens do not wish to have drones hovering over their homes with the possibility of striking at any time.
The usage of drones on the battlefield will continue to evolve over time and become more complex to adapt to the situations of the world. As AI rises to meet these challenges, the usages of drones will no doubt become more complex and new issues will arise leading to the need of further innovation. While this technology goes through it’s innovation, there will continue to be those who oppose and support it with dynamic opinions that will help sculpt the future of drones.
References
ProCon.org (2014). Should the United States Continue It’s Use of Drone Strikes Abroad? Retrieved July 1, 2014. From Pros and Cons Org: http://drones.procon.org/
Frankie Gotz (May 16, 2013). Justification of the Use of Drones-Good and Bad (Big Brother Surveillance). Retrieved June 20, 2014 from the Canadian Awareness: http://canadianawareness.org/2013/05/justification-of-the-use-of-drones-good-and-bad-big-bro/
Shawn Helton(October 09, 2013). Artificial Intelligence and Death by Drones: the Future of Warfare will be ‘Decided by Drones’ not Humans. Retrieved on June 15, 2014 from Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/artificial-intelligence-and-death-by-drones-the-future-of-warfare-will-be-decided-by-drones-not-humans/5353699
Chenda Ngak (May 17, 2013). Drone Technology Myths, Fact and Future Feats. Retrieved from June 17, 2014 CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-technology-myths-facts-and-future-feats/ Fatima Bhojani (May 21, 2014). For Good or Bad, Intelligent, Swarming Nanobots Are the Next Frontier of Drones. Retrieved on July 2, 2014 on Motherboard site: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-the-us-military-is-funding-tiny-autonomous-flying-robots
Kelsey Atherton (March 7, 2014). Flying Robots 101: Everything You Need to Know About Drones. Retrieved on June 13, 2014 from Popular Science site: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/drone-any-other-name
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