Stop the war bots before they decide to kill us all, Australian bioethicist warns

Vatic Note: Is this something we have to worry about now or in the future? Well, this link was included on the page of the article to show how this could well be a danger in the hands of psychos or those who are proven to be unreliable in the ethics dept. Then this link shows that they are already being put to use in a limited capacity. However, the drones that are robotic, are a different story, as we have read numerous times. They have erred many times, been hacked by the enemy and ended up killing civilians and school houses full of children. Another good point made in the arguement is "Diplomacy by other means" will become the choice of first resort instead of last resort, why? (Or I should say in the past when we had humans running our gov instead of robots: another good argument for shelving them)?

Because war would then be too easy with no risk for the offender, aggressor. It could then easily move to first choice for profit reasons, revenge reasons, or power reasons.  These decisions should be made now before it becomes too late and too many civilians are harmed or die as a result of lack of such decisions.   Remember, we are already faced with serious violations of war ethics as it is now when costs are high.   The only reason this time in our history that war ethics no longer apply is because those leading the effort have no value for human life and see those fighting as nothing more than robots, cattle, expendable fodder for their war/profit marches to controlling resources.  In otherwords, psychos will do the same whether robots are an issue or not. 

Stop the war bots before they decide to kill us all, Australian bioethicist warns
http://www.news.com.au/technology/australian-bioethicist-warns-of-robopocalypse/story-e6frfro0-1225934861279
By Helen Davidson, From: news.com.au, October 06, 2010
Provided to Vatic Project by Gypsy Flame, Australia

The International Committee for Robot Arms Control hopes autonomous war robots stay on the big screen.

AN Australian lecturer has warned of dangers to humanity if we continue further developing military robots.

Dr Robert Sparrow, senior lecturer for the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University, says that unmanned weapons systems encourage war and can give the "illusion of a god-like power".

Dr Sparrow is part of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), a group dedicated to halting the development of robot weapons.

Their online mission statement states: "Machines should not be allowed to make the decision to kill people."

The committee held an "Expert Workshop" conference last month in Berlin to discuss the issues surrounding armed tele-operated and autonomous robot systems.