Remotely piloted drones are already reshaping the way that wars are fought. What happens when the humans are cut out of the loop entirely?

Join Schwartz Reisman postdoctoral fellow Benjamin Wald as he facilitates a biweekly discussion of issues in AI by using fiction—films, TV shows, short stories—to deepen our ability imagine possible futures that already confront us.

In this session, we look at Peter Watts’ short story, “Malak.” Rather than the usual fear about evil killer robots, this story wonders what happens if an autonomous weapon is more ethical than we are, and learns that we are systematically unwilling to live up to codes of ethics we have programmed into it and that we claim to uphold. We’ll consider the ethics of using autonomous drones, the ethics we should program into such drones, and what thinking about such weapons might teach us about our own relationship to the ethics of war.

Media Club meetings are free and open to the public. A zoom link will be sent to registered participants shortly before the start of the event. 

Primary reading: “Malak,” by Peter Watts

• Optional secondary reading: “Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why a Ban Won't Work and How the Laws of War Can”, by Kenneth Anderson and Matthew C. Waxman

• The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto is a multidisciplinary research and solutions hub investigating the social effects of powerful emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.