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Ethical Governor For Battlefield Robots

An "ethical governor" - a package of hardware and software that tells robots when and how to fire - is being developed by Ronald Arkin, a professor of computer science at Georgia Tech.

He argues not only can robots be programmed to behave more ethically on the battlefield, they may actually be able to respond better than human soldiers.

"Ultimately these systems could have more information to make wiser decisions than a human could make," said Arkin. "Some robots are already stronger, faster and smarter than humans. We want to do better than people, to ultimately save more lives."

SF readers may be reminded of the Bolo autonomous tanks from Keith Laumer's stories. From simpler beginnings, the Bolos evolved to exemplars of military and civic virtue.

From Discovery.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/26/2009)

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