TY - CHAP

T1 - The Pragmatics of Robotic Warfare

AU - Dige, Morten

N1 - Conference code: 2018

PY - 2018/11/22

Y1 - 2018/11/22

N2 - This paper is about the import of what I propose to call the pragmatics ofrobotic warfare. Pragmatics in linguistics concerns itself with the significance of an utterance's context in terms of e.g. the intentions of and relations between the language users. Analogously, the pragmatics of a technology provides the context of it in terms of its concrete workings, the intentions of its development, its social and political genesis, its built-in purposes, the relations of those affected by the technology, and so on. Pragmatic considerations thus move from the “tactical” level of the concrete practical use of a given technology to the “strategic” level of the overall aims and strategies that constitute the design of technologies and weapons systems and thus define their realistic applications. I argue that many of the alleged advantages of robotic warfare “in principle” are of limited relevance since the much more problematic uses in practice are not merely contingent.

AB - This paper is about the import of what I propose to call the pragmatics ofrobotic warfare. Pragmatics in linguistics concerns itself with the significance of an utterance's context in terms of e.g. the intentions of and relations between the language users. Analogously, the pragmatics of a technology provides the context of it in terms of its concrete workings, the intentions of its development, its social and political genesis, its built-in purposes, the relations of those affected by the technology, and so on. Pragmatic considerations thus move from the “tactical” level of the concrete practical use of a given technology to the “strategic” level of the overall aims and strategies that constitute the design of technologies and weapons systems and thus define their realistic applications. I argue that many of the alleged advantages of robotic warfare “in principle” are of limited relevance since the much more problematic uses in practice are not merely contingent.

KW - Robotkrig, retfærdig krig, pragmatiske, non-ideel moralteoril

U2 - 10.3233/978-1-61499-931-7-339

DO - 10.3233/978-1-61499-931-7-339

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-1-61499-930-0

VL - 311

T3 - Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications

SP - 339

EP - 346

BT - Envisioning Robots in Society – Power, Politics, and Public Space

A2 - Coeckelbergh, Mark

A2 - Loh, Janina

A2 - Funk, Michael

A2 - Seibt, Johanna

A2 - Nørskov, Marco

PB - IOS Press

CY - Amsterdam

Y2 - 13 February 2018 through 17 February 2018

ER -