Paul Scharre

Army of None

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Winner of the 2019 William E. Colby Award
“The book I had been waiting for. I can't recommend it highly enough.” —Bill Gates

The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems—from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter—and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. “A smart primer to what’s to come in warfare” (Bruce Schneier), Army of None engages military history, global policy, and cutting-edge science to explore the implications of giving weapons the freedom to make life and death decisions. A former soldier himself, Scharre argues that we must embrace technology where it can make war more precise and humane, but when the choice is life or death, there is no replacement for the human heart.
This book is currently unavailable
669 printed pages
Original publication
2018
Publication year
2018
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Quotes

  • Gleb Vodovozovhas quoted6 years ago
    [E]nabling a system to essentially fire at will removes a sense of accountability from human decision makers, who then can offload responsibility to the inanimate computer when mistakes are made.
  • Gleb Vodovozovhas quoted6 years ago
    During World War II, Army historian S. L. A. Marshall interviewed soldiers directly coming off the front lines and found, to his surprise, that most soldiers weren’t shooting at the enemy. Only 15 to 20 percent of soldiers were actually firing at the enemy. Most soldiers were firing above the enemy’s head or not firing at all. They were “posturing,” Grossman explained, pretending to fight but not actually trying to kill the enemy. Grossman drew on evidence from a variety of wars to show that this posturing has occurred throughout history. He argued that humans have an innate biological resistance to killing. In the animal kingdom, he explained, animals with lethal weaponry find nonlethal ways of resolving intraspecies conflict. Deaths from these fights occasionally occur, but usually one animal submits first. That’s because killing isn’t the point: dominance is.

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