The Politics of Robot Autonomy

The autonomy robots enjoy is understood in different ways. On the one hand, a technical understanding of autonomy is firmly anchored in the present and concerned with what can be achieved now by means of code and programming; on the other hand, a philosophical understanding of robot autonomy looks into the future and tries to anticipate how robots will evolve in the years to come. The two understandings are at odds at times, occasionally they even clash. However, not one of them is necessarily truer than the other. Each is driven by certain real-life factors; each rests on its own justification. This article discusses these two “views of robot autonomy” in depth and witnesses them at work at two of the most relevant events of robotics in recent times, namely the Darpa Robotics Challenge, which took place in California in June 2015, and the ongoing process to address lethal autonomous weapons in humanitarian Geneva, which is spurred on by a “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots”.