Drones in humanitarian contexts, robot ethics, and the human\u2013robot interaction

Tina Comes,Aimee Van Wynsberghe

doi:10.1007/s10676-019-09514-1

Tina Comes, Aimee Van Wynsberghe

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-019-09514-1

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Abstract

There are two dominant trends in the humanitarian care of 2019: the ‘technologizing of care’ and the centrality of the humanitarian principles. The concern, however, is that these two trends may conflict with one another. Faced with the growing use of drones in the humanitarian space there is need for ethical reflection to understand if this technology undermines humanitarian care. In the humanitarian space, few agree over the value of drone deployment; one school of thought believes drones can provide a utility serving those in need while another believes the large scale deployment of drones will exacerbate the already prevalent issues facing humanitarian aid providers. We suggest in this paper that the strength of the humanitarian principles approach to answer questions of aid provision can be complimented by a technology-facing approach, namely that of robot ethics. We have shown that for humanitarian actors we ought to be concerned with the risks of a loss of contextualization and de-skilling. For the beneficiary, we raise three concerns associated with the threat to the principle of humanity for this group: a loss of dignity by reducing human-to-human interactions; a threat to dignity through a lack of informational transparency; and, a threat to dignity by failing to account for the physiological and behavioral impacts of the drone on human actors. Although we acknowledge the obstacles (and dangers) associated with understanding the physiological and behavioral impacts we insist that the moral acceptability and desirability of drones in humanitarian contexts is dependent on the findings from such studies and that tailored ethical guidelines for drone deployment in humanitarian action be created to reflect the results of such studies.

Highlights

We suggest that the strength of the humanitarian principles approach to answer questions of aid provision can be complimented by a technology-facing approach, namely that of robot ethics
For the beneficiary we raise three concerns associated with the dignity of this group, in particular: a threat to the principle of humanity by reducing human–human interactions; a threat to dignity through a lack of informational transparency; and, a threat to dignity by failing to account for the physiological and behavioral impacts of the drone on human actors
In order to answer the question of should drones be used in humanitarian contexts we suggest that it is first necessary to understand the stakes—what are the ethical issues at play with the deployment of this technology in this context?

Summary

Introduction

Since the domain of robot ethics took off in early 2005 the discussions have been largely, but not entirely, directed towards the use of military robots, healthcare robots, robots in elder care, self-driving cars, and ethical robots (i.e. robots with ethical reasoning capabilities referred to as machine ethics) (Arkin 2009; Hevelke and Nida-Rümelin 2015; Lin 2016; Lin et al 2011; Lokhorst and van den Hoven 2011; Moor 2006; Sharkey 2014; Noel Sharkey 2010; Singer 2009; Sparrow and Sparrow 2006; Sullins 2011; Vallor 2011; van Wynsberghe 2015). To be sure, this is not a science fiction discussion of the potential future application of drones; the technology has been deployed in this sector for a substantial period of time. The first drones deployed in this sector were used for surveillance in peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 (Karlsrud and Rosén 2013). In the response to the Haiti Earthquake in 2010, UNOSAT1 used drones to complement satellite imagery and to map internally displaced populations. 1 “UNOSAT is a technology-intensive programme delivering imagery analysis and satellite solutions to relief and development organisations within and outside the UN system to help make a difference in critical areas such as humanitarian relief, human security, strategic territorial and development planning.”. 1 “UNOSAT is a technology-intensive programme delivering imagery analysis and satellite solutions to relief and development organisations within and outside the UN system to help make a difference in critical areas such as humanitarian relief, human security, strategic territorial and development planning.” UNOSAT is UNITAR’s Operational Satellite Applications Program, for more information see https://unitar.org/unosat/

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