Wired for War: Everything you wanted to know about war and robots, but were afraid to ask…afraid to ask…afraid to ask…

P.W. Singer

Peter W. Singer
Director of 21st Century Defense Initiative, Author of Wired for War
May 24, 2011 @ 4:30PM
Location: Rockefeller Center, Room 003

Co-sponsored by the Rockefeller Center, Dickey Center, Ethics Institute and ISTS

Abstract:
What happens when science fiction becomes battlefield reality?

An amazing revolution is taking place on the battlefield, starting to change not just how wars are fought, but also the politics, economics, laws, and ethics that surround war itself. This upheaval is already afoot -- remote-controlled drones take out terrorists in Afghanistan, while the number of unmanned systems on the ground has gone from zero to 12,000 over the last five years. But it is only the start. What are the political, military, legal, and moral questions that we have to figure out, as we begin to hand over more and more of warfighting to our machines?

Bio:
Peter Warren Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of 3 award-winning books on the topics of private military firms, child soldiers and most recently his New York Times bestseller Wired for War: the Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. Singer has consulted for groups that range from the Pentagon and FBI to Universal Studios and the Call of Duty video game franchise. In his personal capacity, Singer served as coordinator of the Obama-08 campaign’s defense policy task force. In 2009, Singer was named by Foreign Policy Magazine to the Top 100 Global Thinkers List, of the people whose ideas most influenced the world that year.