And now this, the robots, the claws. The claws weren't
like other weapons. They were alive, from any practical
standpoint, whether the Governments wanted to admit it or not.
They were not machines. They were living things, spinning,
creeping, shaking themselves up suddenly from the gray ash
and darting towards a man, climbing up him, rushing for his
throat. And that was what they had been designed to do.
Their job.

    They did their job well. Especially lately, with the new designs
coming up. Now they repaired themselves. They were on their
own. Radiation tabs protected the UN troops, but if a man lost
his tab he was fair game for the claws, no matter what his uniform.

    Down  below the surface automatic machinery stamped them
out. Human beings stayed a long way off. It was too risky;
nobody wanted to be around them. They were left to themselves.
And they seemed to be doing all right. The new designs were
faster, more complex. More efficient. - Second Variety

You may remember this science fiction short story or the movie Screamers
loosely based on it. Well it seems as though we are not too far from this.

"The general concern about many new and emerging
technologies is that they create severe inequalities
among those who have access to them and those who don't,"
says Andrew Light, Director of the Center for Global
Ethics at George Mason University. He adds that this puts
an added responsibility on richer countries. "The burden
of proof is on those who are proponents of the
technologies in question to demonstrate that those
inequalities between people who have the technology and
don't have the technology will not lead to excessively
harmful consequences."

For Light, remote warfare is likely to be it\u2019s own
Pandora's box. If a country like the United States can be
aggressive without suffering casualties (normally an
important deterrent to war), it may negotiate less,
attack more often and kill in greater numbers.

"The number one ethical problem with letting robots do
the fighting or increasing the capacity of robotic
warfare is that it will increase the likelihood of using
lethal measures on the battlefield," predicts Light.

At the very least. And who knows where it may end.

C