PW Singer : 談軍事機器人和戰爭的未來

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講者：PW Singer
2009年2月演講，2009年4月在TED上線
MyOOPS開放式課程
翻譯：陳盈
編輯：陳盈/劉契良
簡繁轉換：劉契良
後製 ：劉契良
字幕影片後製：謝旻均
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PW Singer講述軍事機器人和戰爭的未來
現在要做的是播放我身後的一系列圖片，讓你看看現在戰爭中使用的機器人，或者在成型階段的機器人，讓你們領略一下，換句話說，你看到的東西都不是由外星技術，或者少男巫師荷爾蒙等推動的，這都是真的東西。
我們現在就來看那些圖片。現在的戰爭有劇烈的變化，可能在人類歷史中也算是巨大的變化，美軍進入伊拉克，隨行的是一些無人駕駛的小型飛機，現在我們有5,300架，那時候我們沒有無人地面系統，現在我們有12,000個，專有名詞「殺手級應用」在這裡有了新的含義，不要忘記現我們所面對的，就像是最早的汽車和第一架飛機跟接下來突飛猛進的發展難以相比，這就是我們的現況。
最近我見到了一位空軍三星上將，他說：「基本上，我們即將邁向的，就是數以千計的機器人充斥在戰場上，這些數字很重要，因為我們不是在說今天的原型機器人，而是說未來數以萬計發展成熟的機器人，當然，在技術上有一樣東西叫莫耳定律，你可以在那些機器人身上加入更多計算能力，那麼跳到大概25年以後，如果莫耳定律正確，那些機器人的計算能力會比現在強大十億倍，這意味著我們以前在漫畫展，這類科幻小說大會上常談論的東西，現在要放在權力中心來談，例如在五角大樓這些地方。
我們面臨的是機器人革命，這裡要說明的是我說的革命，不是讓你擔心加州州長化身「魔鬼終結者」來到你家，當歷史學家面對這一時期時，他們會概括地說我們處於一種不同的革命，是戰爭的革命，就像原子彈的發明那樣，但可能比那更強大，因為我們的無人系統不僅影響打仗的方式，還從根本上影響打仗的「人」，之前每次戰爭革命都是關於機槍，或者原子彈的革命，都是使系統可以改進，更快開火、射程更遠或爆炸力更強，機器人技術也是這樣。
但這還會改變士兵的經歷，甚至改變他們的身份，換句話說，人類對戰爭的壟斷已經有五千年歷史，這將在我們的真實生活中結束，過去幾年來，我一直和該領域所有的參與者開會，從機器人科學家到為科學家提供靈感的科幻小說作家，從來自內華達的19歲無人飛機領航員，到指揮他們的四星上將，甚至到他們瞄準的伊拉克民兵，他們如何看待我們的系統，我感興趣的不僅是他們的故事，還有他們關於這些擴散影響的經歷。
這些影響正在我們的社會、法律和道德等方面擴散，因此我想用剩下的時間來說說這些，首先是戰爭的未來，即使是機器人技術的戰爭，也不會是純粹美國式的，美國現在的軍事機器人科技正處於領先地位，但我們知道在科技上沒有永久的先發優勢，我們這裡還在用王安電腦的人，請舉手。
在戰爭裡也一樣，英國和法國發明了坦克，德國人想出正確的坦克使用方法，所以我們要為美國考慮是現在我們領先，但還有其他43個研究軍事機器人技術的國家也對此感興趣，這些國家包括俄羅斯、中國、巴基斯坦和伊朗等。
這讓我很擔心在這場革命中，我們如何根據現有的製造條件，和我們在學校裡獲得的科學和數學知識不斷前進，也可以這樣想，什麼是打仗，越來越多的士兵拿著中國產的硬體設備，用印度寫的軟體，但既然軟體可以開源，戰爭也可以。
和飛機或者原子彈不同，建立機器人技術不需要一個龐大的製造系統，其中很多是現成產品組合的，有一些是可以自己做的，其中一樣是之前你們看過，一臺雷鳥無人駕駛小飛機，手擲式，大概1,000美元，你可以自己做的和駐伊拉克士兵用的一樣。
這在戰爭和衝突中就有了另一個問題，好人會把這當作興趣來玩，但壞人卻會做不當的用途，這遊走在機器人技術和恐怖主義之間的東西會讓人著魔並造成困擾，我們已經看得到端倪，在以色列這個國家和黎巴嫩真主黨這個非國家角色之間的戰爭，真主黨發出四架不同的無人操控小飛機來對抗以色列，你還可以透過一個聖戰網站，就坐在家裡的電腦前，遙距引爆在伊拉克的簡易爆炸裝置。
因此我覺得我們面臨的是由之引發的兩種趨勢，第一、這將會強化個人對抗政府的力量，第二、我們看到恐怖主義在擴張，這樣以後蓋達2.0就可能和次世代的郵包炸彈客聯手，也可以這樣想，記住你並不需要讓機器人相信，它們死後會得到72名伊斯蘭女神，以此讓它們進行自我毀滅。
但其擴散影響會體現在政治上，我見到的其中一個人就是雷根政府國防部前助理秘書長，他是這樣說的：「我喜歡這些系統，因為它們可以減少美國人的犧牲，但我擔心戰爭的自由市場經濟化會加劇，擔心在成本討論中，會出現更多衝突和駭人的討論，如果人們把使用武力看成是無需代價，他們就會更喜歡這樣做」。
對我來說，機器人在我們的主體政治中已經形成趨勢，可能會把它們帶到合理的終點，我們沒有草案，我們不會再有戰爭宣言，我們不會再買戰爭債券，現在我們把越來越多可能會受傷害的美國士兵換成機器，如此，我們便可以把已經打完仗的機器人重新送上戰場，並把它們扔在那裡。
未來之戰還會是YouTube之戰，我們的新技術不僅讓人們遠離危險，還讓人們記錄下看到的東西，因此它們不僅分隔了公眾，還重塑了與戰爭的關係，YouTube現在有幾千段關於伊拉克戰爭電影的錄影片段，其中大部分都與無人操控的小飛機有關，這可以是件好事，把家和前線戰場，前所未有地連接起來，但要記住，這正在我們光怪陸離的真實世界上發生，所以無可避免地你可以把這些片斷下載到你的iPod或者Zune裡面，這樣你可以把它們變成娛樂，士兵給這些片段起了個名字叫「 戰爭色情片」。
有人給我發了個經典的電子郵件，裡面的附件是一次「掠奪者」的攻擊，武力佔有敵方據點，有導彈爆炸，其中血肉橫飛，片段配了流行音樂－Sugar Ray的《我只想飛》。
看得多，但經歷得少，這造成了公眾和戰爭之間的隔閡，我想這可以用一種運動來比喻就像在電視看職業籃球比賽NBA，裡面的運動員在電視螢幕上很小，只有親自上陣才能明白七尺男兒長怎樣，但我們要記住，這些只是片段只是ESPN體育中心的版本，裡面缺乏大環境、缺乏戰略、缺乏人性，變成灌籃和漂亮的炸彈球。
以上這些的諷刺意味在於未來戰爭會涉及越來越多的機器，這都是由我們人類的心理來驅動的，也正是人類的缺陷而導致這些戰爭，上述實例在政策方面引起的強烈回響，就是這如何在我們與激進派對抗的意識型態之戰中發揮作用，我們通過這些機器傳達的資訊是什麼，以及這些資訊的接收情況如何？
我見到了布希內閣的高級行政長官，他談到我們的無人戰爭並表示：「這要看我們的實力，能讓人恐懼的是我們的科技」，但當你出去見到其他人，例如在黎巴嫩，人們的說法完全不同，我在那裡認識的其中一位是新聞編輯，在我們聊天時一部無人小飛機在他上空飛過，他當時說：「這是冷酷的另外一種標誌，冷酷的以色列人和美國人，他們用機器來和我們打仗，懦夫！他們不敢親身與我們打仗，他們害怕打仗，因此我們要殺掉一些他們的士兵，這樣才能勝利」。
未來戰爭還會有一種新型戰士，它重新定義了上戰場的經歷，你可以把這稱為「臥室戰士」，「掠奪者」無人攻擊機的領航員描述他在伊拉克戰場上的經歷，他從來都沒走出內華達州，他說：「你要打12個小時的仗，向目標開火，指揮殺敵，然後開車回家，20分鐘之內就可以坐下來吃晚餐，和孩子談論他們的功課」，現在要平衡這些經歷的心理很讓人頭疼。
其實那些無人飛機的領航員得創傷後壓力心理障礙症的機率，比親身到伊拉克打仗的士兵還高，但有人擔心這樣的脫節會導致其他後果，因為遠離戰場就更容易導致計畫戰爭犯罪，有一個年輕領航員向我描述：「遙距和敵軍交手，就像打遊戲一樣」。
玩過《俠盜獵車手》遊戲的人都知道，我們在打遊戲的時候會做一些面對面不會做的事，所以我要說的是，這是技術革命的另一面，這正塑造我們現在的狀態，可能也會塑造戰爭的未來，莫耳定律是可行的，但墨非定律也能用。
戰爭的硝煙未起，敵方進行投票，我們獲得大量新的作戰能力，但我們也面對並經歷這新的人類困境，有時會存在「驚訝」瞬間，機器人公司的主管會向你描述「你會有驚訝瞬間」，而機器人和戰爭的驚訝瞬間為何呢？有些時候這是很有趣的，有時它們就像艾迪‧墨菲那部電影《最佳防禦》裡面的場景出現在現實中，電影中他們在測試持槍機器人，在展示的時候機器人轉了一圈，把槍對準現場的重量級貴賓，幸好槍裡沒子彈，沒人受傷。但其他驚訝時刻就有悲劇色彩，例如，南非去年有一架防空大炮出現了如官方所言的「軟體失靈」，結果開炮了，導致九名士兵死亡。
在戰爭和責任的法律上我們存在新問題，我們應該如何處理這些無人屠殺工具呢？無人操控的殺人工具是什麼？在我們以為能抓住賓拉登時，我們已經用「掠奪者」無人小飛機進行三次襲擊，但還是沒抓到他，這是我們現在的情況，不是完全自動的武器裝置擁有全然的自主權可以發動攻擊，也不是不相信這會發生。
我在研究中接觸到的四個不同五角大樓專案，是關於該領域的不同方面，因此就遇到了像戰爭罪行這樣的問題，機器人是沒有思想的，所以它們不會為同僚的犧牲而沮喪，它們不會因為憤怒而犯罪和報復，因為機器人是沒有思想的，當它們看到輪椅上80歲老祖母，就和看見T80坦克一樣，都只是一串0和1。我們要弄清的問題是如何掌握20世紀的戰爭定律，但現在這些對於21世紀的科技而言，都是老掉牙了。
整體來說，我已談及戰爭的未來，但也注意到我只用真實的例子，你只看到真實的圖片和短片，這對我們所有人來說都是個大挑戰，在你擔心家居清潔機器人Roomba吸掉你老命之前，我們就必須開始擔心，我們要讓戰爭中顯露出來的事實聽起來像科幻小說，因此一直沒有去面對嗎？我們要面對21世紀戰爭的事實嗎？我們這代人就要和上一代人一樣，犯下使用原子彈武器的錯誤嗎？在潘朵拉的盒子已經打開的時候，都還沒處理存在的問題嗎？
可能我說得不對，而五角大樓的一個機器人科學家也的確說過我不對，他說:「對於機器人，沒有真實的社會道德倫理問題，除非機器人不斷地誤殺人類，那樣也只是一個產品召回的問題」，這就是終結。
我們可以看看好萊塢，好些年前，好萊塢集中所有頂級角色，列出好萊塢歷史上的前100名英雄人物和前100名壞人，這些角色代表了最好和最壞的人性，只有一個角色在好壞兩類中都有出現，就是「魔鬼終結者」，一種殺戮機器人，這就指出了，我們的機器可以用來做好事，也可以用來做壞事，但對我而言，這也意味著人類的二重性。
這週我們在慶祝自己的創造力，創造力把人類帶上星球，創造力能催生藝術作品以及表達愛的文學，現在憑藉無窮的能力，我們在某個方向用創造力來造出很棒的機器，可能某一天這會變成一個新的物種，但我們這樣做的一個主要原因是我們有毀滅彼此的慾望，所以我們都要問的問題是，「操縱戰爭的是我們，還是我們的機器」？
謝謝
(掌聲)
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文

About this talk

In this powerful talk, P.W. Singer shows how the widespread use of robots in war is changing the realities of combat. He shows us scenarios straight out of science fiction -- that now may not be so fictitious.

About P.W. Singer

In P.W. Singer's most recent book, "Wired for War," he studies robotic and drone warfighters -- and explores how these new war machines are changing the very nature of human conflict. He has… Full bio and more links

Interactive Transcript

What we're gonna do is actually just flash a series of photos behind me, that show you the reality of robots used in war right now, or already at the prototype stage. It's just to give you a taste. Another way of putting it is, you're not going to see anything that's powered by Vulcan technology, or teenage wizard hormones or anything like that, this is all real. So why don't we go ahead and start those pictures?

Something big is going on in war today, and maybe even in the history of humanity itself. The U.S. Military went into Iraq with a handful of drones in the air, we now have 5,300. We went in with zero unmanned ground systems, we now have 12,000. And the tech term "killer application" takes on new meaning in this space. We need to remember that we are talking about the Model T4s, the Wright Fliers, compared to what's coming soon. That's where we're at right now.

One of the people that I recently met with was an Air Force three star general, and he said, "Basically where we're headed, very soon, is tens of thousands of robots operating in our conflicts." And these numbers matter because we're not just talking about tens of thousands of today's robots, but tens of thousands of these prototypes, and tomorrows robots. Because of course, one of the things that is operating in technology is Moore's Law, that you can pack in more and more computing power into those robots. So flash forward around 25 years, if Moore's holds true, those robots will be close to a billion times more powerful in their computing, than today. And so what that means is the kind of things that we used to only talk about at science fiction conventions like Comicon, have to be talked about in the halls of power, in places like the Pentagon. A robots revolution is upon us.

Now I need to be clear here. I'm not talking about a revolution where you have to worry about the governor of California showing up at your door a la the Terminator. When historians look at this period they're going to conclude that we're at a different type of revolution, a revolution in war, like the invention of the atomic bomb. But it may be even bigger than that, because our unmanned systems don't just affect the "how" of war fighting, they affect the "who" of fighting at it's most fundamental level. That is, every previous revolution in war be it the machine gun, be in the atomic bomb was about a system that either shot faster, went further, had a bigger boom, that's certainly the case with robotics. But they also change the experience of the warrior, and even the very identity of the warrior. Another way of putting this is that mankind's 5,000 year old monopoly on the fighting of war is breaking down in our very lifetime.

I spent the last several years going around meeting with all the players in this field, from the robot scientists, to the science fiction authors who inspired them, to the 19 year old drone pilots who are fighting from Nevada, to the four star generals who command them, to even the Iraqi insurgents who they are targeting, and what they think about our systems. What I found interesting is not just their stories, but how their experiences point to these ripple effects that are going outwards in our society, and our law, and our ethics, et cetera. And so what I'd like to do with my remaining time is basically flesh out a couple of these. So the first is that the future of war, even a robotics one, is not going to be purely an American one. The U.S. is currently ahead in military robotics right now, but we know that in technology there's no such thing as a permanent first mover advantage. In a quick show of hands, how many people in this room still use Wang computers? It's the same thing in war. The British and the French invented the tank, the Germans figured out how to use it right.

And so what we have to think about for the U.S. is that we are ahead right now, but you have 43 other countries out there working on military robotics, and they include all the interesting countries like Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran. And this raises a bigger worry for me. How do we move forward in this revolution given the state of our manufacturing, and the state of our science and mathmatics training in our schools? Another way of thinking about this is, what does it mean to go to war, increasingly with soldiers whose hardware is made in China, and software is written in India? But just as software has gone open source, so has warfare.

Unlike an aircraft carrier, or an atomic bomb, you don't need a massive manufacturing system to build robotics, a lot of it is off the shelf, and some it is even do-it-yourself. One of those things that you just saw flash before you was a Raven drone, a hand held tossed one. For about 1,000 dollars you can build one yourself, equivalent to what the soldiers use in Iraq. That raises another wrinkle when it comes to war and conflict, good guys might play around, and work on these as hobby kits, but so might bad guys. This cross between robotics, and things like terrorism, is going to be fascinating and even disturbing. We've already seen it start.

During the war between Israel, a state, and Hezboulah, a non-state actor, the non-state actor flew four different drones against Israel. There is already a Jehadi website that you can go on and remotely detonate an IED in Iraq, while sitting at your home computer. And so what I think we're going to see is two trends take place with this. First is your going to reinforce the power of individuals against governments. The second is that we are going to see an expansion in the realm of terrorism. The future of it may be a cross between Al Qaeda 2.0, and the next generation of the Unabomber.

Another way of thinking about this is the fact that, remember you don't have to convince a robot that they are going to recieve 72 virgins after they die, to convince them to blow themselves up. But the ripple effects of this are going to go out into our politics. One of the people I met was a former Assistant Secretary of Defence for Ronald Regan. And he put it this way, quote, "I like these systems because they save American lives, but I worry about more marketization of wars, more shock and awe talk to defray discussion of the cost. People are more likely to support the use of force if they view it as costless."

Robots for me take certain trends that are already in play in our body politic, and maybe take them to their logical ending point. We don't have a draft. We don't have declarations of war anymore. We don't buy war bonds anymore. And now we have the fact that we're converting more and more of our American soldiers that we would send into harms way into machines, and so we may take those already lowering bars to war and drop them to the ground. But the future of war is also going to be a YouTube war. That is, our new technologies don't merely remove humans from risk, they also record everything that they see. So they don't just delink the public, they reshape it's relationship with war.

There's already several thousand video clips of combat footage from Iraq, on YouTube right now, most of it gathered by drones. Now this could be a good thing, it could be building connections between the home front, and the war front as never before. But remember this is taking place in our strange weird world, And so inevitably the ability to download these video clips to your IPod or your Zune gives you the ability to turn it into entertainment. Soldiers have a name for these clips, they call it war porn. A typical one that I was sent, was an email that had an attachment of video of a predator strike, taking out an enemy site, missile hits, bodies burst into air at the explosion. It was set to music, it was set to the pop song "I Just Want to Fly" by Sugar Ray.

This ability to watch more but experience less, creates a wrinkle in the public's relationship with war. I think about this with a sports parallel. It's like the difference between watching an NBA game, a professional basketball game, on TV, Where the Athletes are tiny figures on the screen. And being at that basketball game in person, and realizing what someone seven feet really does look like. But we have to remember, these are just the clips, these are just the ESPN sports center version of the game. They lose the context, they lose the strategy, they lose the humanity, war just becomes slam dunks, and smart bombs.

Now the irony of all this is that, while the future of war may involve more and more machines, it's our human psychology that's driving all of this, it's our human failings that are leading to these wars. So one example of this that has big resonance in the policy realm, is how this plays out on our very real war of ideas, that we're fighting against radical groups. What is the message that we think we are sending with these machines, versus what is being received in terms of the message.

One of the people that I met was senior Bush administration official who had this to say about our unmanning of war, quote, "It plays to our strength. the thing that scares people is our technology" but when you go out and meet with people, for example in Lebanon, it's a very different story. One of the people I met with there was a news editor, and we're talking as a drone is flying above him. This is what he had to say, quote, "This is just another sign of the cold hearted, cruel Israelis and Americans, who are cowards because they send out machines to fight us. They don't want to fight us like real men, but they're afraid to fight. So we just have to kill a few of their soldiers to defeat them."

The future of war also is featuring a new type of warrior. And it's actually redefining the experience of going to war, you can call this a cubicle warrior. This is what one Predator drone pilot described of his his experience fighting in the Iraq war, while never leaving Nevada, quote, "You're going to war for 12 hours, shooting weapons at targets, directing kills on enemy combatants and then you get in the car and you drive home, and within 20 minutes you're sitting at the dinner table talking to your kids about their homework." Now the psychological balancing of those experiences is incredibly tough. And in fact those drone pilots have higher rates of PTSD than many of the units physically in Iraq.

But some have worries that this disconnection will lead to something else, that it might make the contemplation of war crimes a lot easier, when you have this distance. "It's like a video game" is what one young pilot described to me, of taking out enemy troops from afar. As anyone who's played Grand Theft Auto knows, we do things in the video world that we wouldn't do face to face. So, much of what you're hearing from me is that, there is another side to technologic revolutions, and that it is shaping our present, and maybe will shape our future of war. Moore's Law is operative, but so is Murphy's Law.

The fog of war isn't being lifted, the enemy has a vote, we're gaining incredible new capabilities. But we're also seeing and experiencing new human dilemmas. Now sometimes these are just "oops" moments, which is how the head of a robotics company described it "You just have oops moments." Well what are oops moments with robots and war? Well sometimes they're funny. Sometimes they're like that scene from the Eddie Murphy movie, Best Defense, playing out in reality, where they tested out a machine gun armed robot and during the demonstration it started spinning in a circle and pointed its machine gun at the reviewing stand of VIPs. Fortunately the weapon wasn't loaded and no one was hurt. But other times oops moments are tragic, such as last year in South Africa, where an anti-aircraft cannon had a, quote, "software glitch" and actually did turn on, and fired, and nine soldiers were killed.

We have new wrinkles in the laws of war and accountability. What do we do with things like unmanned slaughter? What is unmanned slaughter? We've already had three instances of Predator drone strikes where we thought we got Bin Laden, and it turned out not to be the case. This is where we're at right now. This is not even talking about armed autonomous systems with full authority to use force, and do not believe that that isn't coming. During my research I came across four different Pentagon projects on different aspects of that.

And so you have this question. What does this lead to issues like war crimes? Robots are emotionless, so they don't get upset if their buddy is killed. They don't commit crimes of rage, and revenge. But robots are emotionless, they see an 80 year old grandmother in a wheelchair the same way they see a T80 tank. They're both just a series of zeros and ones. And so we have this question to figure out, how do we catch up our 20th century laws of war, that are so old right now that they could qualify for Medicare, to these 21st century technologies.

In conclusion, I've talked about what seems the future of war, but notice that I've only used real world examples, and you've only seen real world pictures and videos. This sets a great challenge for all of us, that we have to worry about well before you have to worry about your Roomba sucking the life away from you. Are we going to let the fact that what is unveiling itself right now in war sounds like science fiction and therefore keeps us in denial. Are we going to face the reality of 21st century war? Is our generation going to make the same mistake that a past generation did with atomic weaponry, and not deal with the issues that surround it until pandora's box was already opened up? Now I could be wrong on this and one Pentagon robot scientist told me that I was, he said, "There's no real, social, ethical, moral issues when it comes to robots. That is, " he added " unless the machine kills the wrong people repeatedly," quote, "then it's just a product recall issue."
And so, the ending point for this is that, actually we can turn to Hollywood. A few years ago Hollywood gathered all the top characters and created a list of the top 100 heros, and top 100 villains of all of Hollywood history the characters that represented the best, and worst of humanity, only one character made it on to both lists, The Terminator, a robot killing machine. That points to the fact that our machines can be used for both good, and evil, but for me it points to the fact that there is a duality of humans as well.
This week is a celebration of our creativity. Our creativity has taken our species to the stars. Our creativity has created works of arts and literature to express our love, and now we're using our creativity in a certain direction to build fantastic machines, with incredible capabilities, maybe even one day, an entirely new species. But one of the main reasons that we're doing that is because of our drive to destroy each other. And so the question we all should ask, is it our machines, or is it us, that's wired for war?
Thank you. (Applause)
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