De hersenen-stop wapens konden de immuniteit van de oorlogsmisdaad verstrekken
Door De Pagina van Lewis |
Een Amerikaanse wetsstudent heeft een analyse van internationale wet betreffende oorlogsmisdaden gepubliceerd die zouden kunnen worden begaan gebruikend toekomst hersenen-interface-gecontroleerde wapensystemen.
Stephen White, die op Cornell de School van de Wet bestudeert, had zijn document Moedige Nieuwe Wereld: Neurowarfare en de Grenzen van Internationale Humanitaire Wet gepubliceerd (pdf) in de huidige kwestie van Cornell het Internationale Dagboek van de Wet. Het document is opgenomen hier en daar op netto technologie. Daarin, maakt het Wit bijzondere verwijzing naar de diverse listen die „van de hersenen-Machine Interface“ door DARPA, de de gek-wetenschapsuitrusting worden nagestreefd van het Pentagoon die van een lang schot houdt.
Een voorbeeld van dergelijke uitrusting is beroemd mening-sonde hoed, bedoeld militair te controleren brainwaves aangezien hij ogen de situatie rond hem en op een bedreigingsteller op zijn vizier werpt alvorens zijn bewuste mening zelfs heeft gerealiseerd er daar gevaar is.
DARPA berekent dit een nuttig snelheidsvoordeel kon soms verstrekken, zoals Witte nota's:
Één van de rechtvaardigingen voor het aanwenden van een hersenen-machine interface is dat de menselijke hersenen beeldberekeningen kunnen tegelijkertijd uitvoeren en punten, zoals doelstellingen kunnen zo erkennen, en hen classificeren in 200 milliseconden, kunnen de een tariefgrootteordes sneller dan computers dergelijke handelingen uitvoeren. In feite, sneller voor komt de beeldverwerking dan het onderwerp bewust kan worden van wat hij of zij… ziet
Het wit verheugt zich op een dag waar zulk een systeem, eerder dan omhoog eenvoudig het markeren van een onbewust-bevlekt gevaar en misschien de opleiding van een wapen op het, eigenlijk brand zonder verdere ado opent. Dat zou fijn zijn als de hersenen van de militair correct een wettig doel hadden bevlekt, maar duidelijk minder zo als in plaats daarvan noncombatant gerookt werd. Dat zou een oorlogsmisdaad zijn. Maar de militair zou schuldig zijn? Alle deed hij of zij was denkt een slechte gedachte, debatteert het Wit, en:
Het anglo-Amerikaanse strafrecht heeft geweigerd om iemand voor zijn of haar slechte gedachten alleen als misdaad te bestempelen… Deze billijkheidszorg wijst op de voorlichting… dat het straffen van slechte gedachten perverse sociale gevolgen zou kunnen hebben… het strafrecht heeft geweigerd om zij te brandmerken die overwegen echt slechte akten maar hen niet uitvoeren.
Een leek zou kunnen debatteren dat in feite bepaalde gebieden van slechte gedachte vaak door het strafrecht worden gestraft; maar wij zullen over dat overslaan. White says that to bust someone for a war crime you need to show that he or she consciously chose to commit it, and presumably he knows what he’s on about.
In summary, a brain-interface guided weapon could circumvent the pilot’s normal volitional processing signals and rely solely on the recognition activity, thereby making it impossible for courts to determine whether a volitional act occurred before weapon targeting… a prosecutor could never definitively prove anything more than the most attenuated guilt for misdirected attacks on protected persons.
According to bonce-boffins cited by White, the conscious mind - especially in situations such as combat, where a lot of subconscious instincts are in play - tends to operate mainly by vetoing actions, rather than by thinking of them itself. The bloodthirsty subconscious tends to work on the “kill ‘em all and let God sort them out” principle, but the more civilised part of the mind can suppress these impulses if it wants to. Under this theory, a human being doesn’t so much exercise free will as “free won’t”.
So what’s to be done? It would be silly to try and prohibit brain-shortout weapons altogether, says White. He reckons that if people had prohibited the smartbomb and the target-seeking weapon, for instance, we’d still be stuck with horrible messy cluster bombs.
Such a prohibition… might create the unintended consequence of hindering research into weapon systems that may prove more accurate than existing weapons…International humanitarian law, therefore… should create incentives to produce maximally predictable and accurate weapons and to clarify the lines of authority in wartime in order to make criminal accountability easier to determine.
But then White suddenly executes a neck-snapping volte face, and starts arguing for wholesale technology suppression.
[This] would likely require prosecution of high-level civilian developers… Many high-level weapon designers have escaped prosecution for design of indiscriminate or disproportionate military systems… For instance, after World War II, the Nazi engineer Wernher von Braun evaded war crimes charges because the United States sought his expertise in designing rockets that were critical for military dominance in the Cold War.Putting engineers on notice of their potential liability may create incentives for them to create less indiscriminate and disproportionate weapons. A view of command responsibility would also create de facto liability for those most responsible for sanctioning the use of such weapons.
Frankly, White seems to have gone off the rails altogether here. So the US should have executed Von Braun because his weapons were used to randomly bombard London? They’d have morally been bound to round up and shoot every boffin at the Manhattan Project, too - the A-bombs produced by Oppenheimer and his crowd were vastly more indiscriminate and deadly than the V-2s.
In any case, the successors to Von Braun’s V-2s did allow the West not to lose the Cold War - which many would say was a good thing in itself, well worth amnestying him. Prosecutors can let people off in exchange for testimony, after all - why not for crucial help in preserving the very legal system they represent?
Furthermore, in the end the ballistic rockets turned into ICBMs accurate enough to take out individual hardened silos, in the process spawning various technologies including integrated circuits and then GPS. GPS is a major part of the precision weaponry that White approves of.
Getting back to brain-machine interfaces, there aren’t that many military applications where milliseconds count so much that you might shortcircuit the human brain - even if you really could. Mostly it just wouldn’t make sense.
For instance, quicksilver brain-directed weapons could conceivably be handy for close quarter gunfighting one day. But if the system is going from subconscious assessment to shooting without further ado, it must be aiming the gun itself as well as firing it - this thing is mainly an automated weapons turret on a robot, now. Why not put the operator and his wired-up brain off the battlefield via remote link, then? At which point the need to be really quick so as to keep him safe has vanished, so you may as well just give him a normal, consciously operated firing switch.
Etc, etc.
The brain-machine legal point is mildly interesting, but realistically brain jumpwire systems are probably never going to be a big deal; not ones with firing authority, anyway. The fact that DARPA is looking at an idea doesn’t mean that it’s likely to come into service - quite the reverse, actually. It could be that the international war-crimes judiciary has rather more serious issues to worry about.
As for “Putting engineers on notice of their potential liability” - oh dear. So, we’ll hang rocket engineers in case they make ICBMs? Why not lock up Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine, while we’re at it. Jets have allowed far more indiscriminate ordnance to be dropped since 1945 than ever was before. Of course, that all means no space programme, no airliners, no silicon chips, no computers. No fertilisers; you might invent nerve gas by accident, so just try to eat less. Actually, moving on back in history, no technology at all - inventing the stone axe would be a crime under potential-liability rules of this sort.
Alternatively, how about putting lawyers on notice of their countervailing liability in cases of stifling progress and so condemning the human race to prolonged and unnecessary death and suffering? ®
See More:Technology USA News WarfareHave Your Say: Brain-plug weapons could provide war crime immunity
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3 Responses to “Brain-plug weapons could provide war crime immunity”
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steve k
Posted: Apr 25th, 2008 at 7:42 am | Link to this
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Lim
Posted: Apr 25th, 2008 at 11:07 am | Link to this
ReplySteve you’re absolutely spot on. You’ve raised some interesting points not covered in the report.
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steve k
Posted: Apr 26th, 2008 at 6:19 pm | Link to this
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This is a very interesting article that has many and varied implications . It is well known that both the U.K. and the U.S. gave immunity too most of the nazi scientists and divided them between both nations under OPERATION PAPERCLIP . And yes they invented many things such as the space program ect , but does that excuse them from their formur crimes and who is wors the monster that created the machine or those that then took over the machine for their own means? It is well known that the west is obsessed with brain interfacing and experimenting just google MK-ULTRA . I doubt that this will ever see the light of day but just the thought that this is being taken seriousely fills me with fear and dread . If this application truly runs on the subconcious then that is extremely dangerous , say the operator has an arquement with his wife before using this equipment , that would be burried in the opperators subconcious and the anger could come out on the first female that the operator would see and she would more than likely be blown too shreds without the operator even consciousely knowing what had happened before its too late! . WE SHOULD NOT MESS WITH THE MIND AS WE DONT EVEN KNOW EXACTLY HOW IT WORKS EVEN IN THIS DAY AND AGE! . D.A.R.P.A. are probebly looking into various ways too use this application but not in exactly in the way that its described in the article . Dont forget that what the military chooses too show us is only the tip of the iceberg they probebly have technology that is at least 20yrs ahead of what we know of , dont forget that the STEALTH BOMBER was developed and in use for many years before the military went public with it! .