China’s military mouthpiece warns of ‘moral pitfalls’ of humanoid fighters
PLA Daily says use of combat robots could lead to ‘indiscriminate killings’ and accidents, calls for ethical and legal research
On Thursday, an analysis in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily said the military should conduct “ethical and legal research” on humanoid robots to “avoid moral pitfalls”.
The article was signed by Yuan Yi, Ma Ye and Yue Shiguang, but the newspaper did not specify their affiliations.
The authors cited American science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, a set of principles that have influenced discussions about the ethics of real-world applications in the field.
The authors said that militarised humanoid robots “clearly violate” the first of Asimov’s laws, which states that a robot “may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”.