Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably one of humanity’s proudest creation of all time. Because of AI existence, we now have self-driving cars, chatbots, speech recognition, a machine that can analyze cancer tissue and so much more! As useful and cool as AI might seem, this powerful creation also comes with high risk. For instance, in the NYT article written by Kelsey Atherton titled “Are Killer Robots the Future of War? Parsing the Facts on Autonomous Weapons”, talks about how AI can cause mass destruction and why we should regulate AI more strictly.
At the beginning of the article, Atherton paints a picture of how war breaks out between two countries simply because an AI soldier misinterpreted a behavior as an attack. He then talks about the history of autonomous weapons and how the system works with examples from American history. After that, he explains the argument of why autonomous machines are dangerous with an example from a Tesla self-driving car and how it accidentally killed its owner. For his conclusion, Atherton ended with a note reminding us to be careful of AI and ensure that we regulate it regularly.
It’s common for an opinion or persuasive writing to use at least one of the three rhetorical appeals, pathos, logos, or ethos since these devices allow writers to persuade their readers better. As an illustration, Atherton throughout his article uses the rhetorical strategies of pathos and logos to warn readers about the dangers of AI and why readers should be afraid of their future.
An example of logos that the article uses is a quote from Robert Work, who is a senior member at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. The quote was “There’s a type of fire-and-forget weapon where the weapon itself decides, ‘O.K., this is what I see happening in the battlefield, and I think I’m going to have to take out this particular tank because I think this tank is the command tank”. Atherton uses this quote as a fact, and a way to explain the logic behind the autonomous weapon thinking as it decides to shoot down the enemy tank and to show why autonomous weapons are dangerous to the society. They are dangerous to society because they can decide who to target and kill without human control. By using quotes from an expert, Atherton is using them as facts and pieces of evidence to back up his argument while attempting to persuade readers into thinking that autonomous weapons are dangerous.
We can see how Atherton uses pathos throughout his article by examining his word choices. To illustrate that, we can look at a few replicated words such as lethal weapons, shooting, killer robots, and attack. What all these words in common are that they all sound violent and dangerous. By using these words, Atherton is trying to illustrate AI as violent and dangerous, meaning you should try to avoid them at all cost.
Although Atherton uses rhetorical appeals being pathos and logos correctly throughout his article, I feel like it wasn’t persuasive enough for readers to be concern about their future. The article seems to focus on providing historical facts rather than trying to persuade readers into believing in his argument.
Works Cited
Kelsey. “Are Killer Robots the Future of War? Parsing the Facts on Autonomous Weapons.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Nov. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/magazine/autonomous-robots-weapons.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Artificial
