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	Humans can''t escape Killer Robots, but Humans can be held Accountable for Them by P.W. Singer, August Cole Vice News, agencies   April 2016   Over the last 15 years, the idea of "killer robots" has morphed from science fiction to reality, with unmanned systems now a common feature in post–9/11 conflict zones. Just about everyone fighting the multi-sided war in Iraq and Syria, for instance, has used drones, from the US and Russia to the Syrian government and Hezbollah to the Islamic State.   As robots have become more commonplace on the battlefield, fear has grown that they may be on their way to becoming too independent, too intelligent, and too autonomous, able to do more and more on their own without being steered from afar by human control or restriction.   This is the topic of a United Nations–led meeting — entitled the "Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems" — wrapping up this week in Geneva. The goal for many at this session is to fight a looming future, to ban the technology and ensure that a human stays at the center of the most important decision in war.   But that ship may already have sailed — without need of a crew.   These talks are in a race against technologic and military change. According to New America''s World of Drones database, at least 86 countries have military drones. Some are remote operated models like the US Predator, but each new generation of the technology — like the American Reaper or Global Hawk, or Israeli Heron or Harpy — is becoming more autonomous in the tasks it can perform, the human role moving away from remote control and toward management and supervision.   Similarly, on the ground, Center for a New American Security research has documented that at least 30 countries have missile and gun systems like the Aegis or CRAM to defend their warships and bases. These can be set to an autonomous mode to shoot down incoming airplanes, missiles, or rockets. A human can veto the choice of the machine, but when a rocket is coming at you, the time in which to make a meaningful human decision is limited.   More is on the horizon. There are at least 20 examples of weapons systems that the UN''s Geneva meeting is trying to keep off the battlefield that are already well into development. Among the examples are autonomous drone programs in the US, France, China, and the UK designed to operate as "loyal wingmen" in the air and even take on enemy air defenses on their own.   There are also an array of programs to bring autonomous systems to the sea, though they may not create as much controversy — there is far less risk of a machine confusing a civilian cruise liner for an enemy sub in the ocean than there is of it confusing a civilian for a soldier on the ground. Just last week, the US Navy christened a new Sea Hunter, an unmanned, robotic "ghost ship" designed to prey upon enemy submarines in the Pacific.   Particular forms of intelligence derive from large groups working together. In nature, this is true in ant hills or wolf packs. In war, systems like the already tested Long Range Anti Ship Missile will share information in flight, develop their own patterns and order of attack, and choose targets from a set of pre-set lists. A computer will think, "This image on my radar matches what the database says is a Type 52D Chinese warship," and act without waiting for human confirmation.   New realms of conflict will also be largely autonomous. The distances and vulnerabilities of communications in outer space means that programs like the US military''s X-37, a space plane that is a robotic miniature version of the Space Shuttle, move largely without human control. And the battles of cyberspace will see massive levels of autonomy and AI, for the simple reason that digital speeds are faster than a human can blink, let alone make meaningful decisions.   Stuxnet, the digital weapon that the US used to sabotage Iranian nuclear research in 2010, had all the features of an autonomous weapon. It was sent out in the world with a target and a mission and received no further guidance. It even had a self-destruct protocol. The weapon worked, damaging Iranian nuclear centrifuges — but it also unexpectedly popped up in 25,000 other computers around the world. The episode points to what both advocates and opponents should recognize: There is immense new value to these new weapons, but the age-old lesson about wars still applies: Nothing works out exactly as planned.   The concerns about AI and autonomy voiced by the likes of Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, and even Stephen Hawking are shared by one very notable group: top US military officials. But those officials have an even bigger fear driving this push toward autonomous weapons — that missing out on a technology shift could cost them a future war.   When the US military sizes up potential adversaries, it sees that America''s warships and warplanes are being matched not just in number but in quality. For instance, America''s new manned warplane, the F-35, was supposed to give the US the advantage in the skies for a generation. Instead, it already has a Chinese doppelgänger, the J-31. In what is known as the Third Offset strategy, new robotic technologies are seen as a way to "offset" this looming challenge, much as first nuclear weapons and then stealth planes once offset the Soviets edge in sheer force numbers.   "We are at an inflection point on artificial intelligence and autonomy," Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said last October. He went on, "Ten years from now, if the first person through a breach isn''t a friggin robot, shame on us."   The Third Offset, however, is only one side of a new geostrategic technology race. The word''s fastest supercomputer resides in Tianjin, China, while Chinese defense trade shows now routinely feature aerial and ground robotic weapons systems designed for ever more autonomous modes, like the armed Sharp Claw. The Russian military, meanwhile, has various programs like the platform M armed robot. Notably, rather than being reserved about pushing the boundaries of robotic war, Russia appears to have embraced it to the extent that it falsely claimed it already used them in battles in Syria.   But the biggest driver of change may be not what''s taking place on the battlefield, but what''s taking place in the realm of big business.   Google has more than 50 self-driving cars prowling streets in tech-friendly towns in California, Washington, and Texas. They drive up to 15,000 miles a week, according to the company, which is more than the average American drives in a year. On the other side of the Pacific, a historic road trip is underway in China as two autonomous sedans journey more than 1,200 miles from Chongqing to Beijing.   Overall, the Pentagon''s science and tech research budget is $12.7 billion. The private sector''s R&D budget is $650 billion worldwide. This disparity matters, because in the commercial world, the very thing that the UN''s meeting this week is decrying — the spread of autonomous systems — is the goal. Taking the human out of the decision-making loop drives much of the research in Silicon Valley, whether the project aims to disrupt a morning commute or the delivery of humanitarian aid; beginning in July, a start-up will use autonomous drones to deliver medicine to rural health centers in Rwanda.   At the very moment that the UN was debating how to restrict machines making decisions, Facebook''s Mark Zuckerberg said at the F8 conference that artificial intelligence will be a pillar of the company''s growth, matching similar projects at other tech titans like Google and Baidu. The same shifts are happening in fields ranging from medicine to finance, where hedge fund trading is increasingly done not by humans but by algorithms.   It is hard to imagine a future with any outright ban of autonomous technology, even in war. To do so is to imagine a world in which a military pilot is driven to his base by his robotic car, and then fights a battle in which all sides have agreed to use only older technologies.   Instead of clinging to such a fiction, we need to be realistic. The goal should be the same in both the military and civilian realms: to ensure that autonomy and automation don''t eliminate the requirement for human accountability. Robots are in our present and future, but human beings are the ones who design, buy, and use them. The laws that we create must focus on this core element to shape better behavior and outcomes, both by the human and machine. Even in a world where robotic systems drive or fight on their own, humans must be responsible for their actions.   http://news.vice.com/article/killer-robots-autonomous-weapons-systems-and-accountability http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/2016/10/unga71/ http://sur.conectas.org/en/technologies-violence-global-inequality/ http://bit.ly/24xqpXb http://icrac.net/ Visit the related web page
	Privatisation in education increases inequality by OHCHR, Education International, agencies   March 2016   Governments must not delegate responsibility of education to private sector, by Kishore Singh, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education.   It is completely unacceptable for Liberia to outsource its primary education system to a private company, said the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh. “This is unprecedented at the scale currently being proposed and violates Liberia’s legal and moral obligations,” he stressed.   Liberia’s plan is to privatise all primary and pre-primary schools over the next five years. Public funding will support services subcontracted to a private company - the Bridge International Academies.   “Public schools and their teachers, and the concept of education as a public good, are under attack,” the expert cautioned.   “Such arrangements are a blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education, and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution,” the Special Rapporteur stated.   “This also contradicts political commitments made by Liberia and the international community to the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal which is on education and related targets.”   “Provision of public education of good quality is a core function of the State. Abandoning this to the commercial benefit of a private company constitutes a gross violation of the right to education,” emphasised Mr. Singh.   The human rights expert noted that “it is ironic that Liberia does not have resources to meet its core obligations to provide a free primary education to every child, but it can find huge sums of money to subcontract a private company to do so on its behalf,” he said.   “These sums could be much better spent on improving the existing system of public education and supporting the educational needs of the poor and marginalized,” suggested the Special Rapporteur.   Mr. Singh called on the Government of Liberia to approach the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for technical assistance and capacity building, instead of entering into such partnerships with for-profit providers in education, “devoid of any legal or moral justification.”   “Before any partnership is entered into, the Government of Liberia must first put into place legislation and policies on public private partnerships in education, which among other things, protect every child’s right to education,” Mr. Singh said.   “There also needs to be an independent body or institution established to receive complaints of potential violations of the right to education that might result from this development,” he added.   The Special Rapporteur emphasised that “education is an essential public service and instead of supporting business in education, governments should increase the money they spend on public educational services to make them better.”   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=18506   Aug. 2015   The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, has called on all UN Member States to focus on strengthening the right to education when seeking partnerships for education.   “The importance of respecting human rights in commercial dealings is even more important when contracting out the delivery of a right, such as education,” the human rights expert stressed.   The UN Expert placed a strong emphasis on the role of Governments to protect the public interest when entering into partnerships with other stakeholders. He noted with concern the many risks which emerge from partnerships with for-profit providers, and outlined the obligations of States to establish proper laws and regulations, as well as monitoring and oversight requirements to mitigate against the risk of abuse in any partnership.   Mr. Singh urged States to seek out partners committed to the social interest in education, and those with a philanthropic spirit.   “Governments must reject arguments that without profit, no private provider will wish to open a school. Most of the finest, most famous private universities in the world are not-for-profit organizations. Partnerships must be based on meeting social responsibility in education, not the commercial interest of the private partner,” the Special Rapporteur emphasized.   “Care must be taken to ensure negotiations for public-private partnerships are fully transparent and are not kept confidential. Transparency must be the cornerstone of any dealings with private providers of education,” he added.   “While acknowledging the need for innovation in education, I urge Governments to refrain from privatizing education to meet these new goals. If education is not free, social inequality will increase,” Mr. Singh warned.   “While we witness a rapid rise of private providers, often unregulated and privileging the wealthiest sections of the population, renewed efforts are needed to reduce inequality and expand opportunities of good quality public education without exclusion.”   “Before considering any partnership with the private sector, Governments should carefully review its potential impact on the effective enjoyment of the right to education,” the expert concluded as he presented his report to the UN General Assembly.   http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/70/342   June 2015   Why World Bank praise for a profit-making education firm in Kenya was a bad idea, by Steven J. Klees, R. W. Benjamin Professor of International & Comparative Education - University of Maryland.   The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim has come under fire for a speech he gave in April at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in which he pointed out the importance of investment in education in order to end extreme poverty. However, his only example was the supposed success of one private, for-profit company. Kim said:   We know that using new technology can help transform educational outcomes. For example, Bridge International Academies uses software and tablets in schools that teach over 100,000 students in Kenya and Uganda. After about two years, students’ average scores for reading and math have risen high above their public school peers. The cost per student at Bridge Academies is just $6 a month.   Bridge International Academies is a for-profit education company that has set up a network of 405 private primary schools in Kenya and seven in Uganda. It is owned by the US firm, New Globe Schools founded in 2007 to actively pursue a new education market – what some have called the “bottom billion”. There are plans to expand the model in Nigeria and India.   Kim’s statement about Bridge International Academies – which the World Bank funds through its investment arm the International Finance Corporation – troubled many people in the international education community and over 100 regional, national, and global civil society organisations released their own statement highlighting their concerns.   Kim made three points about Bridge in his speech. Those discontented with Kim’s speech suggest that each one of these points is either misleading or incorrect. His first point, that Bridge “uses software and tablets in schools” could be misinterpreted. Readers may assume that the students in Bridge had access to computers. Not at all. Barely trained, unqualified, poorly paid teachers are given a tablet to deliver and control a totally scripted curriculum to students, who do not have access to their own tablets.   Teachers in its schools are expected to all read aloud to the students, word-for-word, the content delivered on the tablet at the same time in each school every day. This teacher turned-robot barely deserves to be called education and would not be tolerated in most schools in most developed countries. The name Bridge applies to itself, school-in-a-box, is perhaps appropriate.   Kim’s second point, that Bridge student test scores “have risen high above their public school peers” appears to be the result of a study financed by Bridge International Academies itself. Kim has been severely criticised for using this source as evidence of the efficacy of the teaching model. Few respectable researchers would cite a company’s own studies as valid evidence of the efficacy of a product. Criticism by Berkeley education professor Erin Murphy-Graham of Bridge’s study has suggested its analysis of the data was misleading.   In response to these criticisms, Keith Hansen, global practices vice president at the World Bank, told The Conversation that it is “supporting a rigorous, independent impact evaluation of the Bridge program in Kenya, the first large-scale randomized controlled trial of fee-paying schools in sub-Saharan Africa”.   For many, this is much too late – Kim has already praised the system and the World Bank, via its investment arm the IFC, has already invested US$10m of taxpayers’ money in the programme. Bridge has also attracted more than US$100m from international investors, including Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerman, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, education company Pearson, and the UK’s Department for International Development.   Kim’s third point, that Bridge costs “just US$6 a month” is also misleading and does not reflect developing country reality.   Fees vary by grade, and $6 is the average, according to Bridge. Adding in fees for exams, uniforms, and other expenses means that costs per pupil per month can range from $9 to $13 – up to two times higher than Kim suggested. And this does not include the optional costs of breakfast and lunch, for which Bridge says it charges an additional $7.50 per month.   For many of the poor in Kenya and Uganda, such costs are out of reach, requiring more than a quarter of their income to just send one child to school. Those who do send children to private schools can be forced to make invidious choices, often only able to afford, barely, to send one child, usually a boy, and to leave their other children out. It has been estimated that the urban poor in Kenya spend between 60%-65% of their income on food. Sending a child to school for US$6 a month means taking money away from necessary expenses on food, water, and health care.   Reverse decline of public education   As I have argued elsewhere, 30 years of neo-liberal policies have often left public schools around the world over-crowded, with poorly trained teachers, few learning materials, dilapidated facilities, and not close by.   More than 120 million primary and lower-secondary school children around the world are not in school, and more than 200 million young people have not learned basic skills even if they have attended school. As Kim himself acknowledged in his speech: “Over 50% of young people in Kenya who have completed six years of schooling cannot read a simple sentence. Over 70 percent of children completing primary school in Mozambique do not have basic numeracy skills. These low achievement levels have devastating implications for when people look for jobs.”   In Kenya, parents can be charged extra fees for what is meant to be free primary education and some parents are suing the government over the issue.   It is no wonder that some parents opt out from public schools – and Bridge says that there are more than 118,000 students enrolled in its schools. However, while it is rational for some disadvantaged individuals to send their children to private schools, many disagree with a public policy that promotes privatised education, as recent criticisms make clear.   Privatisation in education increases inequality, provides no learning gains, and de-professionalises teachers. The right of children to free basic education is enshrined in numerous international agreements. While in practice there are often fees for public education, they are being challenged and eliminated around the world. Privatisation is supposed to help meet the growing education gap resulting from years of attack on the public sector, but all it does is replace an attempt to develop good public policy with the vagaries of charity or a narrow focus on profit-making.   Too often everything is about the bottom line vs the interests of children. We will not bridge the gap between the soaring rhetoric of Education for All goals, the Millennium Development Goals, and their successors and the too-dismal reality of our education efforts through privatisation.   The World Bank has been the most influential global marketeer in pushing for the privatisation of education for over three decades, based on ideology not evidence, as I and my colleagues detail in our recent research.   The World Bank’s Hansen told The Conversation that its support for Bridge was “complementary to what is offered in local school systems” and that the World Bank is “committed to working with the governments of Kenya and Uganda to help strengthen their public education systems”.   But I argue that Kim should recant his recent statement, and the World Bank should re-evaluate its ideological zeal for marketing privatisation in education.   http://educationincrisis.net/themes/privatisation http://educationincrisis.net/ http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/news_details/3949 http://globalinitiative-escr.org/advocacy/privatization-in-education-research-initiative/education-privatisation-in-liberia/ http://www.thenation.com/article/teach-for-america-has-gone-global-and-its-board-has-strange-ideas-about-what-poor-kids-need/ http://theconversation.com/why-world-bank-praise-for-a-profit-making-education-firm-in-kenya-was-a-bad-idea-42032 Visit the related web page
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