War tech. It’s heady stuff.
This is a Marketplace.org Reader
Are you ready for the big news: a debate was launched yesterday. You heard me right, a war of words. Hey wait. Come back from under the table. I didn’t mean to scare you that badly. This debate is focused on new technologies that use the brain to control military weapons like drones. It’s being sponsored by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a British ethics group. Reuters spoke to Thomas Baldwin, a professor at Britain’s New York University, who is leading the charge: “If brain-computer interfaces are used to control military aircraft or weapons from far away, who takes ultimate responsibility for the actions? Could this be blurring the line between man and machine?” These technologies are fast-approaching, and in some cases already here, so now is the time for war. Or at least, a war of words. Carry on.