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https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2540/FAIR2019_paper_22.pdf
Ethics of artificial intelligence: virtue ethics as a solution
to artificial moral reasoning in the context of lethal
autonomous weapon systems
Karabo Maiyane1[0000-0003-2953-2871]
1 University of Pretoria, Hatfield, Pretoria 0002, South Africa
samuelmaiyane@gmail.com
Abstract. In 2013, a coalition of Non-governmental organisations launched a campaign
called the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots [1]. The ongoing aim of the campaign is to
raise awareness about the dangers of developing and deploying Autonomous Weapons
Systems (AWS). They are calling for the ban of such weapon systems. AWS are any
weapon systems that, once activated, can select (i.e. search for or detect, track, select)
and engage (use force against, neutralise, damage or destroy) targets without further
human intervention [2]. In this campaign, they raise a series of moral, legal and political
concerns regarding the development and use of such systems. Amanda Sharkey [3]
summarises these arguments into three categories: “arguments based on technology and
the ability of AWS to conform to international humanitarian law; (ii) deontological
arguments based on the need for human judgement and meaningful human control,
including arguments based on human dignity; (iii) consequentialist reasons about their
effects on global stability and the likelihood of going to war”.
In this talk, I will be focusing on the arguments based on technology and the ability
for AWS to conform to international humanitarian law. Specifically, I will be
addressing the following questions: What moral status should AWS hold? How do we
assign responsibility and accountability in the event of transgressions? Can AWS
programming comply with laws of war (IHL)? For AWS to be able to comply with IHL,
how would they have to be programmed?
On the question of the moral status of AWS, I argue that AWS, by virtue of their
definition and espoused functions, can no longer be considered as mere weapons and
thus instruments of war. As such, in the context of warfare, they should be considered
as combatants, meaning that their moral status should be that of moral agents.
Ascribing AWS a moral status places us at a strategic position with regards to
responding to the critique of whether AWS will be able to conform with IHL. Knowing
that AWS are now considered as combatants means that we are now aware of which
parts of IHL they must specifically comply with. For example, as combatants they
would have to comply with jus in bello principles such as: discrimination and non-
combatant immunity and proportionality, [see [4], [5], [6], [7]]. It also means that with
regards to responsibility, they can now be held responsible the same way other
combatants are. Knowing which parts of IHL AWS must comply with, what follows is
to resolve the questions on how AWS must be programmed to ensure such compliance.
Regarding programming morality for artificial moral agents (AMA’s), Wallach and
Allen [8] published a book titled: Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong.
In this book they explore different programming possibilities for AMA’s. They make a
case for both top down and bottom up approaches, and argue that both such systems
Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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have shortcomings: top down in that explicit procedural systems don’t work in all
situations, especially in warfare where some situations cannot be anticipated; and
bottom up in that learning systems need the position from which to learn from. They
argue that “If neither a pure top-down approach nor a bottom-up approach is fully
adequate for the design of effective AMAs, then some hybrid will be necessary” [8, p.
117]. This is an approach that combines both top-down and bottom up approaches.
Many [see [4], [5], [8], [9]] who argue in favour of hybrid approaches consider virtue
ethics as an important normative approach. Specifically, the focus is on Aristotle’s
conception of virtue as twofold, moral and intellectual. For Aristotle [10], intellectual
virtues can be taught, and moral virtues can be cultivated through habit over time. It is
because of this distinction he makes that researchers in the field find his conception of
virtue attractive for hybrid approaches. Wallach and Allen [8] argue that intellectual
virtues can be programmed using a top-down programming, whilst moral virtues can
come about as a result of a “bottom up process of learning and discovery by an
individual through practice”.
I argue that a hybrid program, using a virtue ethics normative approach, would be
the solution for moral reasoning in the case of AWS. I wish to clarify here that by a
virtue approach I do not mean programming specific virtues into AWS; I mean using
the framework that Aristotle argues should be followed by human agents in terms of
cultivating virtues. I argue this because for Aristotle, virtues are those characteristics
that makes one good at what they do. Thus, their acquisition is through learning how to
be good at that which one does, by doing it constantly – from being taught rules
(intellectual virtues), to learning them by continuous practice over time (moral virtues).
I will illustrate that Aristotle’s conception of how virtues are acquired offers a good
framework for building an architecture of an autonomous moral agent, especially one
that operates under defined contexts such as AWS in warfare. In this sense the top down
approach would be used to program IHL while the bottom up approach would use
machine learning as learning program to train AWS.
I am not arguing that a virtues-based architecture is the only one that can work in
programming morality in all AMAs, only that in the case of AWS in warfare it is ideal.
This is because such an architecture allows for universal programming of rules (IHL)
on the one hand but accepts dynamic applicability (applicability based on context and
agent) on the other. Which is what is required of combatants in warfare.
Keywords: Autonomous Weapon Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Virtue ethics, Moral
agency, Just war theory.
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References
1. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/learn/#problem, last
accessed 2019/11/25.
2. International Committee of the Red Cross, https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/4283-
autonomous-weapons-systems, last accessed 2019/11/25.
3. Sharkey, A.: Autonomous weapons systems, killer robots and human dignity. Ethics and
Information Technology 21(2), 75-87 (2019).
4. Lin, P., Bekey, G., Abney, K.: Autonomous Military Robots: Risk, Ethics, and Desing. Cal
Poly (2008).
5. Abney, K. Autonomous Robots and the Future of Just War Theory. In: Routledge Handbook
of Ethics and War: Just War Theory in the 21st Century Fritz, A. (eds.) pp. 338 – 351 Taylor
and Francis (2013).
6. Orend, B. The Morality of War. 2nd edn. Broadview Press:Toronto (2013).
7. Lazar, S. The Stanford Encyclopeadia of Philosophy,
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/war/, last accessed 2019/10/5.
8. Wallach, W., Allen, C.: Moral Machine: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong, Oxford
University Press, New York (2009).
9. Casebeer, W.D.: Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition,
MIT press,Cambridge (2003).
10. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics Bartlett, R.C., Collins, S.D. (Eds.), The University of
Chicago Press, Chicago (2011).