Video: Opinion | Should We Let Robots Kill People?

Pentagon policy does not explicitly forbid automating the kill chain or building lethal autonomous weapon systems. This creates room for autonomous drones to make life-and-death decisions on the battlefield. Military and bureaucratic processes are described as inherently conservative, so unproven technology is not simply deployed without safeguards. Weapon systems must be reliable and avoid malfunctions and hallucinations. New technology is expected to undergo training, testing, and evaluation to build trust in safety and effectiveness. The moral line for allowing robots to kill people is framed as something determined during the process, though the specific differentiation is not fully provided.

"So if you look at the actual policy, the more important thing is what it doesn't say. It doesn't say you're not allowed to automate the kill chain. It doesn't say that you're not allowed to build a military system that is capable of basically being a lethal, autonomous weapon. So you're allowed to do that? You are not not allowed to do that."

"I think what the point is that people also have to appreciate that bureaucracies by nature, and military bureaucracies in particular, are inherently conservative. And I think that it's a fundamental misunderstanding. And I'm not saying that you're guilty of this, but I think that many are. It is a misunderstanding of our defense institution that they're just going to take a bunch of unproven technology and then willy-nilly kind of throw it onto the battlefield and see what happens."

"You don't want a weapon system that malfunctions. You don't want a drone or an autonomous system that hallucinates. So there is a process that all new technology has to go through. And in the process of that training and testing, you're going to build trust that those systems are safe to use and effective to use."

"And where in that process do you determine where the moral line is for letting robots kill people? So to take a specific point of differentiation, how I would answer your question would be very different in a defens"

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