That really needs to be discussed. And this would be a good place to to discuss it. Joseph shapiro is Lieutenant Colonel in the us air force. Hes got a ph. D. In philosophy from the university of oxford. His areas of expertise are everything from war theory military ethics especially the ethics of remote and autonomous weapons. Hes a senior pilot with more than 1400 pilot and Instructor Pilot hours and many flown in of major u. S. Combat humanitarian operations. He currently serves on the air force staff, so staffs, Artificial Intelligence, cross functional team. But, you know, the more we see u. S. Military involved in other parts of the world, the more we see the use of drones and other remote weapons. And so now a good time to discuss whether that is moral or. So please join me in welcoming joseph chapter. Thank you, tony, for the kind introduction. Thank you for being here. This is really a privilege. I would be lying if i told you that i expected someday to write a book and to be able to talk to folks like you about it. I never thought that was going to be the case. This is really exciting. And to do so at this Historic Place is Something Special for me. Also i would be remiss if i didnt mention that president carter wrote a New York Times op ed in 2012, in which made it very clear that he had qualms about the quote unquote, drone program. And so im excited to bring some of those questions up and maybe hopefully to address some of the concerns that he expressed. So i think ill start by talking about a period of during which i was writing this book. I think it was about 18. I walked into the family room where my kids were watching tv. They were watching paw patrol. I dont know if youre familiar whenever there a problem around Adventure Bay these pups save the day. And i saw that one of the human characters in the show was flying a remotely piloted aircraft using a camera onboard the aircraft to try find a lost hiker in the mountains. I could swear i heard this child in the show say the word drone. And i said to my kids, did they just say drone on a patrol . And my seven year old said to me somewhat condescendingly, yeah, dad, do you know what a drone even is . So lets start there. Do we even know what a drone is . I think i do. I think in a position to talk about drones, i know what they. But its harder than it sounds. And one of the reasons that its harder that its than it sounds is because there are so many misperceptions around these airplanes. And so before we even can have a conversation about whether remote warfare is moral. We have to have a conversation about what we mean, some of these terms. What kind of warfare we referring to. So ill give you just one example. I have nothing against the International Committee of the red cross. They do excellent work. This is just literally the first one that came up when i googled. But this is an article from the icrc on autonomous weapons systems. And presumably its going to tell us about the profound implications for the future of warfare. But the Art Department decided to give us a picture of an empty nine reaper, an empty nine reaper is not an autonomous weapon system. Theres nothing autonomous about it. Theres a human crew there, qualified. Theyre trained. Theyre certified. Theyre qualified to aircrew under the air force instructions that govern air crew qualifications. And there are some automatic of this airplane it can fly to point it can hold an altitude. It even hold a specific bank angle, if you like. But thats no more autonomy than we have any modern airplane, including the airplane i flew went on to get here this morning. And so we kind of a problem because our our minds, we have these heuristics built because we see this image of the mq predator or its successor, the nine reaper, over and over and over again, associated with things like autonomy. Im going to get to that a little bit more in a moment. But what i want to emphasize here is that the weapon systems that i have in mind, the predator and reaper, theyre not autonomous and theyre not by Artificial Intelligence. So what are the. Well, the question remains difficult to answer. Again, in 2018, i had a friend who assumed command of the newest United States air force empty nine reaper squadron. So i flew across ocean. I was living in the uk at the time. I flew across the ocean to be a part of that ceremony and the local headlines ran words like this drone squadron activated. And as you can see here, this is an actual picture of the aircrew. They went from being a detachment to being a full fledged squadron. So they peeled off the patch, signifying the detachment put on the new patch, signifying the squadron. It was a great day and i was really glad to a part of it. Two days later, you might not remember this date, but i certainly do. On december 21st, 2018, i back across the ocean. And as we approached Gatwick Airport in london, the pilot came over the mike and said on, fortunately, were not going to be able to land at gatwick to drone activity on the airfield. He said, ive been flying for 18 years and i have never seen anything like this. So we thought we might be able to divert to heathrow. That would have been nice. That was actually closer to my house. But heathrow was full of all the airplanes that have already diverted to gatwick. So i got a free trip to manchester and a four hour train ride back home. But the next day these are the kinds of that i saw. Gatwick drones, ground flights. So this word drone, were asking it to do a lot of work. It everything from fully autonomous killer robots that dont exist. It covers the mq one predator and empty nine reaper that have been a mainstay of Us Air Force Operations for the last 15 or 20 years. And then it covers 300 quadcopters that you can buy on amazon or anywhere quadcopters are sold. And the reason that matters to me is because unlike these air crew members who are trained and certified and have to meet longstanding standards for for air force, the person who bought that quadcopter ruined my day by having me have to divert, but also costing hundreds of millions pounds in the in the Airline Industry that. Person had no certification they didnt need any special training. And as i said, it only cost them a few hundred bucks. So theres a huge difference to me between the kind of people that are involved in Us Air Force Operations and piloted aircraft and then the broad swath of people who might be behind one of these less expensive pieces, equipment. And so as we try to hone in on what it is, were actually talking here, i want to away from autonomy, but i also want to recognize why we tend to think that these things are more autonomous than they are. So i dont think its the right view, but its an understandable view and part of the reason for that is because you look the shape of this airplane. This is the mta nine reaper on the left. Nine was initially operational, capable in 27. So that was just six years after the predator was first armed with the hellfire missile, that first shot was on the opening day of the us war in afghanistan. So 2000, when we get the predator, 27, we get the reaper. And this is the reaper. And i want to point specifically at that nose in the front on any other airplane, what would you expect to see at that bulbous nose in the front . We would see canopy glass or windscreen, almost every airplane, almost every picture of every airplane that you have ever seen. If you look at that spot on the airplane, youre going to see canopy glass or windscreen and i think weve trained ourselves over and over and over and over. Weve seen hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of different pictures, airplanes in the course of our lives and at the front, the airplane, canopy, glass or windscreen. And what that represents to us, i was just at the airport this morning. When you look through the canopy, what do you see . You see the pilot the person who you know is responsible for that airplane and everything on board. And on this airplane, we dont have canopy glass and we dont have a windscreen. And i cant look through that glass and see the eyes. The person whos responsible for that airplane, i might trick myself into thinking, well, maybe there is no one responsible, but im here to assert to you that there is someone responsible. Its a qualified aircrew member thats been certified to be responsible, that airplane and everything on it. Just humor me. Theres two thought experiments that id like you to consider. The first, i dont know if youll be familiar with this. As you might imagine by now, i watch lot of cartoons. The the disney pixar movie planes. Every one of those planes has eyes. Where are those eyes on those cartoon . Theyre always on the canopy glass, the windscreen. Right. So even the animators at pixar know that as the ancient proverb says, in the case of airplanes, the are the windows to the soul, the eyes glass is literally the window through which i see human person, the soul thats responsible for that airplane. Second thought experiment. Just imagine we are now in the age of Autonomous Vehicles. There are not that many out there on the roads. Theyre not in every city, but that theyre in your city and youre standing at the crosswalk first. Imagine just a regular automobile, good Old Fashioned car. Its got the windscreen. You look the glass, you see the person on the other side. When im at the crosswalk. And im trying to determine if that car going to stop for me. What do i do . I look through the windscreen and i make eye contact with the driver to see if they can see me. Right. And we share a little bit of a moment if we dont make eye contact. Im waiting till they come a complete stop before i cross right. And in fact, we can be thrown off on that. As i mentioned, i lived in the uk as much as it was difficult to learn to drive on the left hand side of the road. It was even more difficult to learn to look at the right, the correct side of the car because the car approaches the crosswalk. Im constantly at my right side of the vehicle, which of course is the passenger seat. And its pretty unnerving to see an empty passenger seat or even worse, to see a persons dog. But now imagine now that theres an Autonomous Vehicle, right . The autonomous has no need of canopy glass or windscreen. Right. It senses the world around it by use of cameras and light and radar and some other things. And it positions itself in the world through those means. It doesnt need the glass. So imagine that an Autonomous Vehicle has, a completely opaque windscreen, imagine that. Its this composite grey that we see on the reaper. And now imagine in the crosswalk when that vehicle approaches, the crosswalk, are you going to step out in front of the vehicle . Maybe theres a person inside, maybe not. Is that a technical system or is that a techno, social . Is it just a piece of machinery . Is there a human operator behind it . I think without realizing it . These are all the questions come up when people who havent seen the of a predator or reaper cockpit see this image. So this is a lot of table setting. Theres a lot of work to do to get to the ethical. But i think this is where we need to start these airplanes are not autonomous. Theyre flown by a certified and qualified air force aircrew aircrew. Okay. So if if we can if we can dispatch with the idea that these systems might autonomous, then we can start to ask real substance, tough questions about how does this new technology or in my view, this techno social system. Its a system that consists both of a piece of technology and human. Cruise how does fit in with the long history of warfare . There are lots of ways we can ask this question. We could talk about moral justification for killing in war. We could talk about moral psychology and how that applies to war. Here, im only going to focus on the warrior ethos, the warrior ethos in the western tradition. To us from homer, thats a statue of there on the left from the library of congress. And homer gives us two warrior achilles and hector. And of although we have these two warriors, its achilles, that emerges in the tradition as the archetype of warrior, one wonders if thats because achilles one but we wonder whether achilles is the kind of person that we should want to emulate. Is achilles the kind of person does he have, the kind of ethos that i would want . Young lieutenants in the United States air force to emulate, for example, i think probably not. As you might remember, the iliad opens with achilles wrath or achilles rage, depending on the translation and his rage, his wrath, his personal sleights of honor drive the plot in several instances. Reason hes enraged at the beginning of the book is because his honor has been slighted. He expected a war prize and at the last minute was taken away. His honor was hurt. Thats the thing that drives him to violence that thats the thing that motivates him. And i dont know that achilles is the kind of person that we would want to emulate as a as a kind of warrior ethos. We could look at hector on the other side. Hector is much more human than achilles is a scholar, is more intelligent than i have pointed out. We get glimpses of hector with his family in a way we never get glimpses of achilles with family. We get glimpses of hector with his family. In one classic scene, hes still wearing his his uniform. Hes wearing his armor, including his helmet, and he leans over the crib to see his baby. And the baby starts crying because the babys scared of the armor. Right. And hector thinks, how silly of me. And takes his helmet off. Right. Its a very humanizing moment where we get to experience hector in the fullness of his personhood. That never happens with achilles. Achilles is a warrior, and hes only a warrior. And i spend so much time on this only say that again and again and again. The scholarship on the warrior ethos traces the warrior ethos back to achilles. And i want to challenge that a little bit for a couple of reasons. First, because when we think about the warrior, we tend to focus on the fact that both achilles and hector were to risk their lives. They were willing to pay a great sacrifice toward whatever their ends might have been. I would argue that they both have very different ends in mind and. So this warrior ethos grows up to this idea that. What it means to be a warrior is the willingness to risk ones life. The willingness to face risk in the face of an adversary, maybe even the actual imposition risk in front of the adversary. And so we think about in our modern time is the archetypal warrior. Well, its the person whos willing to to go out there and face the enemy gunfire at normandy or, you know, its the person whos willing to raise the flag at jima, people who are willing to face great risk to themselves in battle. I think thats fair. I think thats right. Think if we look at the history of warfare, we do see that. Warriors are associated with this willingness, face risk, but i think theres Something Else operating there. First of all, we should distinguish between actually facing risk and the willingness to face risk. And i think this really matters. Speaking of normandy, a few years ago, my wife and i were able to tour the beaches at normandy and the american there. And we had walked through the 9000 headstones at normandy to, commemorate the us forces who were killed, not just in that battle. But throughout the war. And as we as we got back to the tour bus to go back to our next stop, i was in line with an older gentleman who had a world two veteran cap on and there were just not that many World War Two veterans around anymore. And so i made a point to strike up a conversation and i had a fascinating conversation with a man named bill. And bill told me that on dday his job as a 17 year old was to work the night shift at a baltimore newspaper and function of the night shift was to sit there, wait until the teletype machines, the stories that are on the wire. And his job was to determine whether the story sufficient enough to wake up the editors. And so he learned about in that room on the teletype machines. And surely that was newsworthy. He woke up the editors. And so he told me, thinks hes probably one of the first people in the United States to learn about the invasion because he had that job on that day. And by the end of the he had gotten his mothers signature on his paperwork so he could enlist in the navy as a 17 year old. Training takes a long time by time, he was trained up to go to the european theater, that war was over. We had achieved in europe. And so the redesign needed his ship for the Pacific Theater and the war ended soon thereafter. But he jokes with me that he got to the pacific just in time to earn his World War Two veteran cap right now, this man, bill, didnt face combat risk. He was never actually at he never engaged the enemy, but he definitely displayed a willingness to face combat risk. Right . He definitely through the steps that one must take in order to become eligible for combat risk. And i think that willingness really matters. And of the reasons that i think that is because of all of the rpa, the remotely piloted aircraft crews that ive talked to, i have never met a Single Person who has said, you know, i volunteered to join the military. Were an all volunteer force. So everyone who joined the military volunteered. I volunteered to join the military. I raised my right hand. I swore an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic but then i volunteered to go to the predator or the reaper, because i really didnt want to face any combat risk. That seems unlikely to me. I have friends who volunteered to go to the predator reaper because were airsick or because they were tired of travel schedule and some other airframes or they wanted to produce more operational effects. They felt like they were stuck, not close enough to operation, but ive never met anyone. That said, im unwilling to face combat risk. Therefore send me to the predator or reaper. So when we trace this line through the history of warfare, one of the things we should recognize is this distinction between actually facing and willingness to face risk. And i want to put the emphasis on the latter rather