The Ethical Governor

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Future conflict in a fictional region.

 

The Ethical Governor was a program developed by Georgia Tech to establish a hypothetical

set of rules to govern the behaviour of autonomous drones in a future battlespace.

One incident which was used to promote the program was the massacre of unarmed civilians

in Haditha by US Marines after a roadside bomb killed one of their number. 
The drone's inability to feel rage was touted as a positive advantage in situations like this,

so this led to the birth of 'Drone Ethics.'

This video presents a variety of scenarios and how action is determined by an autonomous system.

For myself, the most interesting component was the 'Ethical Adaptor', an over-ride switch that

allows  combatants to ignore these rules when they might obstruct effective action.