Uninhabited Systems in the Civilian Realm: Some Ethical Concerns [Commentary]

In his editorial introduction to an IEEE Technology and Society Magazine Special Section on Lethal Robots (Spring 2009), Keith Miller quite rightly wrote that while we were not paying attention, uninhabited systems (a.k.a. unmanned systems) have become ubiquitous weapons in the military realm. This has much to do with the fact that in 2000, the U.S. Congress quietly set two major goals in an attempt to integrate uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) into the military force structure. The first goal mandated that by 2010 one third of U.S. operational deep strike aircraft be uninhabited, and the second mandated that by 2015 one third of the U.S. Army's operational ground combat vehicles also be uninhabited. In 2006, the U.S. Congress then called for the United States Department of Defense to establish policy that would identify a preference for uninhabited vehicles in new weapons acquisitions and address the need for the joint development of uninhabited systems and associated components. While some of these congressional mandates have since been relaxed due to economic pressures, the debate concerning the ethics of uninhabited systems has struggled to keep pace with the rise of the technology.