Developing Killing Machines

By SAM URETSKY

“Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The 21st century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle. The discovery of a new scientific truth will be more important than the squabbles of diplomats. Even the newspapers of our own day are beginning to treat scientific discoveries and the creation of fresh philosophical concepts as news. The newspapers of the 21st century will give a mere ‘stick’ in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis.” Nikola Tesla as told to George Sylvester Viereck. Liberty magazine. February 1937

The human race obviously dislikes war, and is prepared to destroy the planet to end warfare. In 1891, Alfred Nobel commented on his dynamite factories: “Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.”

The machine gun was once thought to be the hellish killing device that would end war. The early Maxim guns could fire 600 rounds a minute, and on Oct. 16, 1915, the New York Times headlined “NEW MAXIM GUN TESTED.; American Rapid-Fire Piece Has a Range of Two Miles.” As a machine to end all ways, this gun failed. In fact it didn’t even end World War I, which continued until Nov. 11, 1918.

In his surrender speech after WW II, Emperor Hirohito said “… the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.” That, of course was the first atomic bomb, which seems fairly primitive by current standards.

In 1969, John Lennon had a good idea, which he reduced to “Give peace a chance.” The song was widely sung, but the suggestion never tried.

On Aug. 9, 2021, the Wall Street Journal offered something of an update on the peace process under the headline “Russia’s New Jet Fighter Aims to Rival US in Air—and on Geopolitical Map.” Right now, the United States has air superiority by virtue of the F-35, manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp. According to Lockheed, the F-35 offers a “combination of Very Low Observable stealth, advanced sensors, information fusion and network connectivity – all packaged within in a supersonic, long range, highly maneuverable fighter.” Of course the WSJ notes that Russia is developing a fighter plane known as the Checkmate to compete with the F-35 for about $90 million less per plane. Buy Checkmate, the affordable Armageddon.

But there’s more – robots are coming if they’re not already here.  These are not the robotic arms that build cars or load blast furnaces, these are Decepticons and Terminators, and there’s nobody sitting at a terminal giving instructions. These are autonomous military robots with their own artificial intelligence. Last June, the first (virtual) Military Robotics and Autonomous Systems USA conference was held “With a renewed focus on maintaining overmatch against near-peer adversaries, the US DoD is investing heavily in land robotics of all sizes to increase Warfighter lethality and remove the soldier from dangerous situations.” Of course all the robots would be programmed with Asimov’s laws for robots:

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

But while advocates of autonomous military robots claim that these laws would help prevent collateral damage or injury to humans, no one has explained what happens when the robots have destroyed all the other robots.  So far, no one has fully solved the problem of the ethical principles to be programmed into autonomous automobiles.

But in September 2020 the United Nations held a Convention on Conventional Weapons dealing with lethal autonomous weapons systems. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots advised that the only credible and logical outcome to the talks is to launch negotiations of new international treaty to ban fully-autonomous weapons and retain meaningful human control over the use of force.

Of the proposals made during the conference, nobody seems to have suggested “Give Peace a Chance.”

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2021

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