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[ jump to original article at Professional Engineering ]
Some scientists are concerned about the ethical and legal dimensions of emerging technologies such as geo-engineering and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Since science and technology can be both cure and killer the ethical issues surrounding their development are complex and not always clear-cut. The miraculous technology that allows an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to protect soldiers on the ground can also simultaneously inflict unacceptable damage on civilian populations. For an engineer working in, say, the defence sector, it might seem that ethical considerations are best left unscrutinised.
For pressure group Scientists for Global Responsibility, a loose alliance of scientists and engineers concerned with placing ethics at the centre of the development of technology, there is an increasing worry over how emerging technologies such as UAVs are being used. Dr Stuart Parkinson, the group's director, puts it this way: "There is a general uncertainty over emerging technologies. They are difficult to regulate when the science is so uncertain. The potential for negative effects is therefore quite serious.
"There are also vested interests, particularly in terms of large corporations driving the agenda and development of these emerging technologies, and we are concerned about the level of control over them. Further, alternatives are perhaps not being given the due consideration they should get."
One such alternative is renewable energy, which, the scientists point out, was mentioned in a report in the US as far back as the late 1970s as being favourable to geo-engineering.
Geo-engineering is a controversial and unproven science that has crept up the political, scientific and environmental agenda in the past three years. Both the IMechE and the Royal Society are taking it seriously as a possible method for combating climate change. Potential geo-engineering schemes fall into two camps: methods for capturing carbon emissions from the air, or plans that would help deflect some of the Sun's energy from the Earth to cool the atmosphere.
The former might include deploying mechanical trees to capture greenhouse gases, as proposed by US physicist Klaus Lackner, or increasing the level of plankton in the oceans to make a bigger carbon sink. The latter includes Roger Angel's plan to launch millions of reflective discs into space to create a sunshade and Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh's plan to increase the albedo (reflectivity) of maritime clouds to reflect a larger amount of solar radiation.
Crackers? The gut reaction of some scientists is just that. Professor Joanna Haigh, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College London, says: "My first reaction to the whole thing is to say, 'get real'. The problem of global warming is emissions of CO2, so do something about it. Forget all these engineering games, they're toys for the boys."
Haigh sat on the Royal Society board that produced a report on geo-engineering, and, despite these misgivings, she argues that the scientific community would be "abnegating its responsibilities" not to consider it now.
The next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, due in 2014, will feature a section on geo-engineering. The panel had previously dismissed it. Haigh says: "It is on the agenda."
If the role of scientists is to provide an objective assessment of geo-engineering there are already plenty of causes for concern. Geo-engineering can be viewed as an "emergency brake" to cool the planet with mitigation of CO2 and the transition to a low-carbon economy continuing as planned. Solar radiation management, for example, would only paper over the cracks in terms of solving the problem of global warming. And what if a radiation management scheme had to be withdrawn rapidly because of unintended or negative consequences? The influence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would not have been solved and runaway climate change could still result.
This is not a problem if mitigation attempts continue globally. But, worryingly, there are signs that some right-leaning institutions in the US view geo-engineering as a magic bullet for climate change which would allow for the continued burning of fossil fuels.
Here, geo-engineering becomes not so much a solution but a big part of the wider problem, or as Haigh puts it: "You can see geo-engineering as the devil's answer – what it does is give you an excuse to carry on burning greenhouse gases, using geo-engineering as a palliative." Some corporations, institutions and individuals that were sceptical about climate change being caused by human activity have "jumped on the bandwagon" of geo-engineering, she says.
There may be problems with geo-engineering schemes that are very difficult to predict. So, for example, with schemes to enhance carbon sinks in the oceans through creating more plankton to absorb CO2 by fertilising them with iron, there may be unforeseen environmental effects on delicate ecosystems. Haigh says: "If you increase the nutrients for the plankton they can be more efficient in eating up the CO2. Ocean acidification is a big problem with increased CO2, however. There are other techniques, but they all have side effects. And, of course, ocean fertilisation will have a big impact on the ecosystem of the ocean because you're putting lots of chemicals in there that weren't there otherwise. Like a lot of geo-engineering, it's easy in principle but a lot more uncertain in practice."
There may be other ethical concerns. "Is it actually morally right for humans to think they can affect the natural systems?" Haigh asks. Governance of geo-engineering is also an important issue. "Even if we as a community wanted to go ahead with this, who is going to decide what is done where and by whom? There needs to be an international agreement. Individual countries could end up carrying out geo-engineering, which could be a huge cause of conflict.
"We can't ignore it any more and should participate in the science, even if it's to show that it's not going to work. But we should delay actually building these things."
Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield, meanwhile, is concerned with the ethical dimensions of using autonomous or semi-autonomous technology such as robots and UAVs on the battlefield, an area he has been researching since 2006 and that comes with the use of drones to make strikes on the Afghan-Pakistani border and in other parts of the world.
Sharkey describes the fruits of his labours as "shocking". In particular, he has been looking at the deployment of UAVs, use of which by the American military and the CIA has increased exponentially in the last two years. Sharkey points out that there is nothing in the laws of war to suggest that the use of distance weapons by conventional forces is illegal, but what is troubling is the perception that this "video game" form of strike is infallible.
"These weapons are not as accurate as they seem," Sharkey says. "They are thought of as smart, but there are many strikes in which civilians are killed. There's a perceived accuracy because the weapons are controlled through lots of big screens and the camera resolution is high, but most of the strikes are on buildings that you can't see through with a camera.
"A lot of mistakes are being made, funerals being hit for example. Incidents happen regularly."
Also worrying, aside from the use of the UAVs by conventional forces, is their deployment by the CIA, says Sharkey. He says that last year 118 strikes were made by the agency in places such as Pakistan, Somalia and the Yemen, and the number is going up.
Critics have described the missions as essentially assassinations of people thought to be leaders of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, as part of a policy of "decapitation". It is said that they are being targeted without regard to their human rights or rights as combatants, a subject that has been raised in the United Nations.
In response, the US and President Barack Obama have insisted that the strikes are legal despite a presidential order created at the time of the Vietnam War which forbids assassinations. The picture is further blurred because distinguishing between insurgents, or combatants, and ordinary people is difficult: no one is wearing a uniform.
The increasing sophistication of autonomous aerial technology also should not blind us to what robots cannot do, and this is an area Sharkey feels will become more of an issue as swarms of UAVs that can operate without a "man in the loop" eventually take to the skies. The worry is that robots will one day make the decision themselves on whether to release a weapon, accountable to no one. "This is a step too far as far as I'm concerned, which is having autonomous robots deciding who to kill," says Sharkey.
Having such unmanned robots in theatre selecting targets would contravene two of the foundations of the laws of war, the principle of distinction – which states you must be able to distinguish between combatants and civilians – and the principle of proportionality: civilians' deaths must be proportional to the military advantage gained. So attacking a village with a missile to defeat one insurgent with a rifle is unacceptable. The problem is, Sharkey points out, that making these calls is something that only a human can do (and even then it's difficult).
Ironically, despite the concern over the speed with which technologies are emerging, in terms of autonomous systems, these weapons are nowhere near technologically advanced enough. Sharkey says: "Robots cannot discriminate. There is no software available, no vision system, for a robot to be able to discriminate between a child and a soldier – especially an insurgent.
"Even if we could discriminate, robots can't be proportionate – proportionality decisions are very human decisions to make. Robots cannot be held accountable whereas humans can. People are even trying to make the case that robots could be held accountable – and to me that really is dangerous."
There is an arms race going on in terms of UAV technology, he adds, with many countries now developing systems. If Iran, one such, were to deploy drones against the West in the manner that the CIA uses its, there would probably be a war. Sharkey says: "We urgently need to find ways to control and regulate these drones. At the moment there is no international discussion."
[ jump to original article at Professional Engineering ]
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At what cost?
Some scientists are concerned about the ethical and legal dimensions of emerging technologies such as geo-engineering and unmanned aerial vehicles. For pressure group Scientists for Global Responsibility, a loose alliance of scientists and engineers concerned with placing ethics at the centre of the development of technology, there is an increasing worry over how emerging technologies [...] are being used. Dr Stuart Parkinson, the group's director, puts it this way: "There is a general uncertainty over emerging technologies. They are difficult to regulate when the science is so uncertain. The potential for negative effects is therefore quite serious.
The UN Getting Busy on Geoengineering!
There are three important new developments on geoengineering (large-scale intentional manipulation of the Earth systems in an attempt to affect the climate) that we we like to bring to your attention. What has long been lurking in the shadows of climate negotiations as a wealthy country Plan B has all of a sudden come front and center. We urge you to pay attention to these developments and intervene where you can.
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