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Rafael Hernández de Santiago

December 12, 2024 23:57

In the futuristic town of Techville, where espresso machines take orders via Bluetooth and trash cans rate your recycling efforts with a passive-aggressive LED glare, the air these days is alive with the hum of drones.

But these are not the harmless Unmanned Delivery Vehicles of yore; they are “UAVs with a mission,” as local tech mogul Ivan Dronev likes to call them — armed, autonomous, and engineered for defense.

Yet as residents nervously scan the skies, they wonder: Have the so-called “protectors” turned from allies to adversaries? It seems like a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” — except these birds have heat-seeking capabilities.

Techville’s citizens had grown accustomed to smart gadgets and artificial intelligence-driven cars, yet the prospect of autonomous, weaponized drones flying overhead has brought more than a whiff of unease.

“There’s a fine line between convenience and control,” says Marla Thinkworth, a philosopher at the local university. She is known for her motto: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers?

As Marla points out, this is not a matter of merely curbing the next-generation Roomba but rather grappling with ethics that Avicenna himself might have pondered.

“Avicenna once said: ‘The imagination is the agent of the soul,’” she notes with a wry smile.

“In Techville, it seems our imaginations have whipped up a world where our ‘agents of the soul’ have sprouted wings and missiles. The question is, do we trust them?”

Drones, or “defense birds,” as locals sarcastically dub them, were introduced to Techville with the promise of enhanced security and “smart targeting” capabilities.

These UAVs are programmed to identify threats, minimize collateral damage, and act only with “ethical intention” — a vague phrase that does little to clarify exactly where the algorithm draws the line between friend and foe.

Dronev assures the community that these machines are equipped with cutting-edge AI algorithms, learning from past engagements to “become morally sound.”

While this all sounds well and good, some Techville sceptics fear that these drones may have a broader mission than merely defending the city.

“The intentions might be ethical, but I wouldn’t want my life on the line over an algorithm’s split-second decision-making,” mutters Fredrick Bolt, a local baker and former tech enthusiast.

He points to a recent case in which one of the drones mistook a delivery van for an imminent threat. “It only baked the van to a crisp, thankfully,” Bolt jokes, his face a blend of humor and concern.

“Lucky the drone’s AI had a bit of mercy in it. Who’s next? My baguettes?”

Much like Hitchcock’s bird-flock frenzy, these drones do not strike individually but in swarms. Autonomous and networked, they communicate faster than the human brain can blink, strategizing, re-evaluating, and adapting.

This is all in an effort to make their “defensive” actions more precise and ethical, according to their engineers. But here lies the crux of the issue: Can ethics truly be programmed?

The ethical implications are especially troubling when it comes to militarizing AI.

It seems like a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” — except these birds have heat-seeking capabilities.

Rafael Hernandez de Santiago

“The ethics of AI in warfare isn’t about making these machines nice,” says Thinkworth, looking up at the drones weaving in formation above the city’s skyline. “It’s about making them just. But what is justice to a machine?”

Techville’s top brass argue that their approach to AI governance, which they call “Compassionate Targeting,” is the very essence of ethical warfare. They even went so far as to include a philosopher-in-chief among the council that developed the drones’ algorithms.

But for every council meeting on “Ethical Defense Strategies,” there is a sobering counterargument: Is it possible to maintain human dignity in war, or are we simply paving the way for AI-driven chaos?

Many in Techville are calling for what they describe as “ethical resistance” against the unbridled expansion of weaponized drones. They fear the precedent being set here, where the push for enhanced security might lead to an Orwellian landscape of over-surveillance and AI-driven control.

“These drones may not peck at our windows yet,” Bolt quips, “but they might as well.”

A group of Techville citizens recently gathered in the central square sporting signs reading: “We Have Minds — Machines Have Algorithms” and “Leave Defense to the Humans.”

Among them, Thinkworth waved a placard quoting Aristotle: “Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency.”

It is a profound statement, particularly given that these drones, for all their “ethics,” lack the ability to temper justice with mercy, or wisdom with restraint.

Local activist group Ethics Over Autonomy argues that the responsibility for making decisions that could harm or kill should not be outsourced to an artificial “ethics engine.” To highlight their concerns, they held an “AI-Free Day” last week, urging residents to turn off all smart devices.

“It was great,” one resident reports. “Until I realized I’d forgotten how to make coffee the old-fashioned way.”

Thinkworth’s use of Avicenna’s writings to critique the current situation has stirred the academic waters. Avicenna, a Persian polymath and philosopher, wrote about the importance of the human soul’s role in judgment.

“These drones may have calculations,” Thinkworth says, “but they have no souls. Avicenna warned against knowledge unmoored from ethical responsibility.

“He wrote: ‘The stronger the power of thought, the more dangerous it becomes when guided by no principle other than its own.’ He could have been talking about Techville.”

So, are Techville’s “defense birds” our allies, or are we standing on the brink of a Hitchcockian nightmare? The town’s residents cannot seem to decide.

The city’s tech elite assure everyone that the drones will protect, not harm, while local philosophers remind us that “AI without human oversight is as blind as a drone in a dust storm.”

For now, the drones circle and the citizens watch. And much like Hitchcock’s avian allegory, the question remains: What happens when the drones stop circling and start acting?

Is there a line we should never have crossed?