ABSTRACT
G. Briggs and M. Scheutz demonstrated proof-of-concept for a robot rejecting human instructions, based on hard-coded ‘felicity conditions’. The idea that ‘robots don’t rape’, whereas human soldiers might, has been a formally acknowledged by a Special Rapporteur in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council and adduced by various experts at the UN’s Meetings of Experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems. Accordingly, future humanoid robots designed with ‘manual dexterity’ can potentially be programmed to rape and torture, with historical precedent suggesting that some political and military leaders do indeed see the ends as justifying the means; especially where asymmetry is seen as inevitable. Perhaps one of the most infamous cases of ‘strategic rape’ in history occurred during the Bosnian War during 1992–1995, which involved the mass rape and torture of an estimated 25,000–50,000 women for ethnic cleansing purposes and, by extension, genocide.
