What Is the Moral Problem with Killer Robots?

Abstract

An autonomous weapon system (AWS) is a weapons system that, “once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator” (US Department of Defense directive 3000.09, November 21, 2012). Militaries around the world are investing substantial amounts of money and effort into the development of AWS. But the technology has its vocal opponents, too. This chapter argues against the idea that a targeting decision made by an AWS is always morally flawed simply because it is a targeting decision made by an AWS. It scrutinizes four arguments in favor of this idea and argues that none of them is convincing. It also presents an argument in favor of developing autonomous weapons technology further. The aim of this chapter is to dispel one worry about AWS, to keep this worry from drawing attention away from the genuinely important issues that AWS give rise to.