Yangtze River Daily-Yang Yuze, commentator of Yangtze River.com

On November 1, the Defense Innovation Committee under the U.S. Department of Defense launched the final version of the "Ethical and Moral Standards of Artificial Intelligence". Although this document is not mandatory and binding, it represents an official attitude and will have a wide impact in American society. The "Ethical Standards for Artificial Intelligence" is essentially a so-called AI military ethics principle. According to expert analysis, its issuance is equivalent to opening the floodgate of AI militarization.

AI Synthetic Anchor Broadcasting Military Movement (Data Photo)

AI militarization is no longer a long-term vision of the development of military technology, but has become a real scenario to a large extent. In December 2018, the European Commission issued the "Code of Ethics of Artificial Intelligence", the cornerstone principle is "trustworthy", which includes accountability mechanisms, governance of artificial intelligence autonomy (human supervision), respect (enhancement) human autonomy, robustness, security, transparency, etc. Earlier, the American Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) released its artificial intelligence ethical standards, including a "moral measure of the welfare of artificial intelligence and automated systems", advocating that advances in artificial intelligence technology must benefit humans and must not become weapons of killing.

More importantly, the United Nations has taken action on the prospects of militarization of AI: In December 2016, the United Nations Conference on Disarmament discussed the possibility of an introduction of a deadly automated robot ban; in November 2017, the United Nations held a deadly autonomous weapon system meeting; in August 2018, the United Nations held a deadly autonomous weapon conference on the Conventional Weapons (CCW). In March 2019, UN Secretary-General Guterres stated that the Deadly Autonomous Weapon System (LAWS) is morally disgusting and should be prohibited by international law.

Now the US Department of Defense Defense Innovation Committee has released the "Ethical and Moral Standards of Artificial Intelligence", which opens the door to ethics for the militarization of AI, and is contrary to the ethical awareness and direction of efforts of the international community.

AI Face Change App (Data Photo)

Ethics is a code of conduct based on certain moral norms. Artificial intelligence ethics is to make the application of artificial intelligence in line with people's moral expectations and be recognized by society. The basis of ethics is consensus. The US military's "Ethical and Moral Standards for Artificial Intelligence" proposes five core standards: responsibility, fairness, traceability, reliability and controllability. It sounds abstract, but at best it only deals with the relationship between artificial intelligence weapon systems and American military personnel, and has almost no consideration of the moral relationship between artificial intelligence weapon systems and objects and humans. This is not an ethical standard, but more like an internal security manual. This is actually a pseudo-ethics under the banner of ethics.