The Seven Deadly Myths of "Autonomous Systems"

The Seven Deadly Myths of " Autonomous Systems " department, 1 is a recent US Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force Report on " The Role of Autonomy in DoD Systems. " This report affords an opportunity to examine the concept of autonomous systems in light of the new DSB fi ndings. This theme will continue in a future column, in which we'll outline a constructive approach to design autonomous capabilities based on a human-centered computing perspective. But to set the stage, in this essay we bust some " myths " of autonomy. The reference in our title to the " seven deadly myths " of autonomous systems alludes to the seven deadly sins. The latter were so named not only because of their intrinsic seriousness but also because the commission of one of them would engender further acts of wrongdoing. As designers conceive and implement what are commonly (but mistakenly) called autonomous systems, they have succumbed to myths of autonomy that are not only damaging in their own right but are also damaging by their continued propagation—that is, because they engender a host of other serious misconceptions and consequences. Here, we provide reasons why each of these myths should be called out and cast aside. Myth 1: " Autonomy " is unidimensional. There is a myth that autonomy is some single thing and that everyone understands what it is. However, the word is employed with different meanings and intentions. 2 " Autonomy " is straightforwardly derived from a combination of Greek terms signifying self (auto) governance (nomos), but it has two different senses in everyday usage. In the fi rst sense, it denotes self-suffi ciency—the capability of an entity to take care of itself. This sense is present in the French term autonome when, for example , it's applied to an individual who is capable of independent living. The second sense refers to the quality of self-directedness, or freedom from outside control, as we might say of a political district that has been identifi ed as an " autonomous region. " The two different senses affect the way autonomy is conceptualized, and infl uence tacit claims about what " autonomous " machines can do. For example , in a chapter from a classic volume on agent autonomy , Sviatoslav Brainov and Henry Hexmoor 3 emphasize how varying degrees of autonomy serve as a relative measure of self-directedness—that is, independence …