General purpose robots must not be used to destroy us
Boston Dynamics (BDI), the maker of the Spot industrial robotic dog, recently penned a letter to the robotics community vowing not to use their robots for war and urged the broader robotics community to join them in their refusal to weaponize their technology.
The fear that BDI will weaponize their technology is a valid one, given that, for many years, BDI has entered into contracts with the Department of Defense, competed in DARPA competitions, and partnered with international defense agencies. Moreover, Boston Dynamics is not the only game in town, and the industry is moving forward with or without them — at the recent AUSA defense show, one exhibitor showcased a hardened robot dog clearly inspired by BDI’s Spot.
Hypocrisy aside, I agree with Boston Dynamics’ recent letter, in principle. In fact, I would even like to add to it. It is true that we should not create robotic weapons — weapons are bad! — and in addition to not creating these weapons, we should furthermore prohibit the design of submarines and aircraft carriers. It would be deeply intolerable if weapons such as these were to fall into the wrong hands. Likewise, we must not manufacture tanks and artillery; nor may we build rifles or mortars; and of course we should prohibit the forging of swords and maces, too! Let us dismantle our arms, sing to the heavens for rain and good harvest, and invite our adversaries to hold our hands and drink kombucha as we usher in a new era of world peace.
A pleasant dream, for sure, but thoughtful people know well that the world doesn’t work like that. But over the last few decades, the software and robotics communities have often indulged in such naïvety, renouncing ties to the defense industry and vowing to take no hand in designing engines of war — as if to state that, by merely declining to build these technologies, they might engineer a more peaceful world. In reality, their behavior is even sillier — firms are continuing to create technologies which can be weaponized, but ex-post-facto absolving themselves of any responsibility by declaring that their technology may only be used for prosocial purposes: as if one could create a cannon which fires only chia seeds.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to create technology which cannot be weaponized, nor is it possible to will peace into existence by refusing to build arms. Just a few months ago in January, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the West “not to cause panic” as a hundred thousand Russian troops amassed at his nation’s doorstep. Russia invaded shortly after, of course, and now, several months later, many of Ukraine’s beautiful cities are destroyed, over a million citizens have fled the country, and tens of thousands are dead. The best time to prepare for war is before the enemy stands outside the gates — but Boston Dynamics and their supporters must still have their eyes closed, as the firm and its supporters would have us repeat Zelenskyy’s mistake once again.
A new age of warfare is upon us, whether we choose to close our eyes to it or not — and it is defined by the ability to destroy high-value assets with much more affordable high-tech munitions. In 2020, Azerbaijan effectively used cheap drones to destroy tanks and anti-aircraft batteries in its conflict with Armenia, decisively winning the conflict after less than two months; and in the ongoing war in Ukraine, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used inexpensive drones to perform reconnaissance, launch missiles, drop grenades, and direct fire against targets. These technologies can be inexpensive yet highly effective because they rely on powerful software, instead of leveraging heavy-industrial, resource-intensive hardware as did the weapons of days bygone. America must rise to the occasion and develop new countermeasures to protect our cities and heartland from these emerging threats, and the software and robotics communities must lead this effort.
Much more valuable than property and matériel, however, is the lives of our men and women in uniform, and BDI’s letter raises many questions concerning them. For all the talk of inclusion in America today, one cannot help but wonder if Boston Dynamics considered the input of Ukrainian mothers when drafting their “ethical approach”. Did they ask if she would prefer her son to step in the meat grinder — to be senselessly vaporized or maimed by a stray artillery shell — or have a robot in his place? It is plain to see that where intelligent metal robots cannot step into the breach, fleshy men will inevitably go instead: does Boston Dynamics not care about the lives of American soldiers? I wonder who among them would enlist to face a robot-equipped adversary, reciting their nice letter and preaching the good ethics to their brothers-at-arms.
Most Americans have lived their lives in remarkable peace, unmolested by the terrors of war: but we must not now be lulled into a silly stupor as our foes array against us. We can rest relieved knowing that the feared Russian war machine was merely a Potemkin army all along, a corrupt, rotted, and ineffective farce. But I fear we will find a much more capable foe in the Chinese.
The Chinese Communist Party, whose tanks pulverized students demonstrating for democracy and powerwashed their entrails into the sewers, whose vast panopticon oppression apparatus disappears dissenters and censors critics at tremendous scale, whose agents rape the wives and harvest the organs of their minority Uighur population in modern-day concentration camps, now slowly turns its terrible cannon upon the citizens of Taiwan. For many years, China’s colonial ambition in Taiwan has been held at bay by a great technology imbalance in the West’s favor. But in recent years, a stronger China has emerged, working hard to narrow the gap with a portfolio of strategic investments in technology and defense and partnerships with regional nations. American technology experts must redouble our efforts to maintain our technological superiority, not diminish it.
As an American, I know resentment and mistrust of the military runs deep, and I understand the sentiment that our money is better spent on programs here at home. But just as there is a potential for American technology to be a force for good, as we see now in Ukraine, there is also the potential for great danger if we cede the vanguard of advanced weapons, robotic or otherwise, to our adversaries.
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt wisely counseled Americans to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” and his words ring true today as they did then. All Americans, especially our brightest in the software and robotics community, must prepare today to lead the battlefields of tomorrow: the consequence of losing our edge in this domain would likely be grim.
Adam Circle is a software engineer at Pickle Robot Company. The opinions expressed here are his own and are not representative of the opinions of his employer.
