An Israeli robot drags a critically injured Palestinian suicide bomber whose bomb exploded prematurely.
Tomorrow is the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) conference “Technology in Wartime”.
This conference will explore how computer technology is used during war -- both for the purposes of combat/defense, as well as for human rights interventions into war-torn regions. Topics will include high tech weapons systems, cyberwarfare, autonomous aircraft, mobile robots, internet surveillance, anonymous communication, and privacy-enhancing technologies that aid human rights workers documenting conditions in war-torn countries and help soldiers communicate their experiences in blogs and e-mail.
Our goal will be to consider the ethical implications of wartime technologies and how these technologies are likely to affect civilization in years to come. Ultimately we want to engage a pressing question of our time: What should socially-responsible computer professionals do in a time of high tech warfare?
I wish I could go, but they say they'll be broadcasting live video.
A couple of the most interesting-looking talks:
- Ronald Arkin – Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture [! I love hybrid deliberative/reactive robot architectures!]
- When Robots Commit War Crimes: Autonomous Weapons and Human Responsibility