IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017 - 67

paid a real price in other terms upon
demobilization? The displacement of
command and actor/agent in deadly
force is already creating real problems in defense deployments. (Drone
warfare is currently the most salient
of these.) The focus of discussion is
still currently on the uncertainties
of precise information for targeting
(i.e., costed by collateral damage).
But embedded technologies, which
will inevitably be linked to battlefield
communications command and control, shift the ground another step.
The battlefield is also now changing,
and has become an undifferentiated
landscape populated by civilians, soldiers, and asymmetric fighters alike.
We are patently not there yet.
It is arguable that the most telling
enhancements will be those that integrate sensors and weapon responses
more rapidly than can be achieved by
the best soldiers with excellent normal field of action communications.
So we must add to military efficiency
enhancement the following goals:
■ How to discharge enhanced
soldiers?
■ How to clarify both for them and
their commanders and society
who are responsible for what
while in active service?
■ Who pays what prices in the end?
■ How do we negotiate these tricky
moral and ethical questions with
the very different context of military service and risk balances?
Some of the answers may lie in
the technical separation of solider
and command structures. However
the experiences of remote drone
pilots clearly shows that physical
separation from the battlefield does
not reduce the price paid by the soldiers launching drone-born weapons.
Enhancing the reaction speeds and
causing them to launch before the
"pilot" is consciously aware of it is a
predictable enhancement capability.
But if (as is already possible) detection of subliminal decisions saves
march 2017

the few hundred milliseconds (or
longer) before the action is conscious raises serious ethical strains
on the pilot/soldier, who has full
responsibility yet may have launched
a lethal attack without any conscious
action. This type of enhancement
has consequences and may raise
serious post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) issues. It is ethically very
difficult to address - particularly if
such ethically initiated stresses are
neither anticipated nor addressed
in training.
Implantable enhancements for
the military will raise practical questions of training, conditioning, and
civilian society re-entry. It will be
costly in fiscal, personal and societal terms if this is not planned for.
A Canadian military assessment
is very well aware that
When examining the operational potential of invasive PA
[Personal Augmentation], one
must consider how it relates
to Canadian core values [15]
However, Michaud-Shields also asserts that civilian take up of augmentations might actually lead introduction
and acceptance by the military deployment target of 2030. The progressive
integration of warfighters into the sensor, communication, command, and
control of aircraft is already well on its
way [2].
The delays in military research
introduced after successful initial
trials of brain reading non-contact
"implants" by DARPA in 2009 [6] tends
to support Michaud-Shields' suggestion. The ethical aspects are evident if
such implants or noncontact two-way
communication (in military terms,
inevitably control) is normalized in
society by choice. Then the necessary
"military exceptionalism" in the social
judgment context is diminished substantially. The questions of differential applications of the ethical issues
∕

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

of autonomy (a key feature of virtue
ethics) [1] for the military, as distinct
from civilians, have yet to be widely
addressed, but are clearly a key factor.
Against this there are arguments
that if augmentation is available to
warfighters, that we have an ethical
duty to provide augmentation to them
if it can enhance their survival [8].
It is tempting to treat "brain im plants" as somehow worse or more
significant than other implant locations,
but the questions remain the same.
Does "spinal chord implant" have the
same emotional load? Or does "RFID
reception in the wrist" seem less of a
challenge? Are physical implants genuinely different than extreme conditioning processes or tailored drug delivery
(both long used by the military)? All
are designed to remove constraints on
deadly decision-making and action.
Is it any easier to consider an implant of a cell that can inject genetically
tailored extreme drugs as a "brain
implant" [16]? It would undermine
autonomy just as well, and external
communications would bring it under
external control and probably achieve
a more rapid enhanced response than
a direct brain implant could achieve
due to the slow decision process in the
brain itself. Would not the limbic system be an equally effective (and problematic) channel for enhancement?
Moreno was criticized only recently for "Star Trek" references - yet
implementation of many of the brain
implant and connection technologies
are already emergent [7]. Yet Bloom
et al. [5] omitted all mention of the
ethics of direct active brain implants
as late as 2009 - and Moreno has
had to update his book several times,
observing with increasing concern:
As the national security implications of neuroscience become
more apparent, the pressing
need to examine how our brains
dispose us to peace as well as
war should gain currency [16].

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017