Engelska text: Automated Warfare

Automated Warfare Review

The text I read brings up the question about automated warfare and how robots and drones will affect the world. The text is – in my opinion – poorly written and is a little hard to understand. It’s not very clear who is talking in the text. The text starts off with a statement from a newspaper or something in those lines and then the writer of the text I read starts talking about the newspaper. There are no quotation marks and it took me a while to realize that it’s not just one text.

The writer of the text thinks that the newsletter brings up some pretty stupid points and I completely see where he’s coming from. The newsletter says that when using drones to kill people we have to think about the “ethics and morals”, which is true in a sense but still stupid since we should always think about our ethics when killing people. The newsletter also says that a lot of people who use the drones often experience PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) after killing people by using a computer and therefore we should start thinking about if drones should be legal. This is incredibly smart since people who experience war in first person who almost die of bombs never experience PTSD (sarcasm).

The newspaper also brings up “war porn” on the internet, which are basically videos of drone pilots filming them shooting at the enemy. The writer is concerned about how easy they are to find and if people will start to see war and drone videos as lightly as videogames since both are viewed on computers.

The dumbest point brought up in the text is when they say “no risk” when the goal is killing people. How ignorant do you have to be to not see the risk in this?

I’m getting of point now so let’s start reading the text now.

The text “automated warfare” is, as you probably know, about drones and if they should be lag and so on. Personally I think drones in war should be legal if murder is legal in war. They can be used for good things such as destroying bombs and mines (Improvised Explosive Devices) placed on roads by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS). Drones should be allowed to kill ISIS members and other terrorist groups as I think it’s the same as death penalty for a serial killer who tortures and murders anybody who doesn’t believe in the same religion as them. Heck they even kill other Muslims!

One big thing that the article fails to realize is that even if a drone kills 20 civilians per year they don’t do nearly as much civilian damage as Russia and America is already doing with their jets and bomber planes. During the Iraq War, between 120,000 and 130,000 civilians died and a total of over 700 000 people died during the war. In June of 2015 just over 6000 people have been killed by drones and 400 – 900 have been civilians.

Whether drones should be illegalized or not civilians will still be killed in thousands. If a drone malfunctions or a glitch appears and it accidentally kills a civilian it should be the programmers fault since they were the ones who made the drone function in the first place.

There is still one thing that is bothering me so much about this text. They used an image of Counter Strike: Source which is a game released in 2004 and was a commercial failure. The game is not even close to what the text is talking about. It’s a silly game that nobody takes seriously which the authors seem to fail to realize. Also, you don’t play Counter Strike with only using a keyboard.