Army Of None by Paul Scharre - book review

Have you ever wondered what wars would look like if no humans were fighting, just robots? Because the author of today's book Paul Scharre has. The text in question is called "Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War."

When you were a kid, you probably watched many fiction movies about people and robots having a war, artificial intelligence machines taking over, intergalactic battles, and others. The main idea of many of them was that if you let computers become intelligent, you will get trouble, war, and terrible consequences. In 2018, the U.N. discussed the problem of artificial intelligence weaponization. According to the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: "The weaponization of artificial intelligence is a growing concern. The prospect of weapons that can select and attack a target on their own raises multiple alarms... The prospect of machines with the discretion and power to take human life is morally repugnant.".

But Paul Scharre and Bill Gates, who also read this book, wouldn't recommend losing sleep over this issue. The problem of autonomous weapons is exaggerated in many cases. As it turns out, some of these weapons can prevent civilian casualties and incidents from happening. Such robotic snipers and detectors can also survive in harsh environments or places with broken communications. Moreover, these weapons don't seek revenge and don't suddenly get a will to commit war crimes.

Of course, there are downsides as well. As I mentioned, robots don't have feelings. They are strictly logical, can't seek revenge, and will not commit war crimes. But they are still machines with no consciousness! They don't have a moral compass. The author Paul Scharre lists an example from his personal life in war in Afghanistan: "A young girl of maybe five or six headed out of the village and up to our way, two goats in trail. Ostensibly she was just herding goats, but she [was actually] spotting for Taliban fighters." Scharre's unit did not shoot. Yes, it would have been legal, but he argues that it would not have been morally right. But think about it: a robotic sniper following strict algorithms might well have opened fire the second it detected a radio in her hand. As you can see, many unpredictable dilemmas can happen in these scenarios.

"Army of None" is a very well-written book that explained the importance and dangers of weaponry with little bias. Scharre was clear in talking about the essential aspects, and he wrote in detail about topics ranging from computer science to history, philosophy, and ethics.

The fact that shocked me personally was that a regular Joe could get access to these kinds of technologies. While organizations are working on preventing civilians from building drones, snipers and other weapons, to me, this is probably one of the most frightening aspects of machines. When you know that a foreign country has access to these autonomous systems, it's pretty bad. But imagine an average person, maybe even a bored teenager, building automated firearms and armed drones in their garage or backyard! I don't know, kind of scary!